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Young Adult Fiction
Subcategory of Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature Festival Awards for Literature (SA)
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Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2020

winner y separately published work icon Small Spaces Sarah Epstein , Glebe : Walker Books Australia , 2018 13957629 2018 single work novel young adult thriller

'We don’t pick and choose what to be afraid of. Our fears pick us.”

'Tash Carmody has been traumatised since childhood, when she witnessed her gruesome imaginary friend Sparrow lure young Mallory Fisher away from a carnival. At the time nobody believed Tash, and she has since come to accept that Sparrow wasn’t real. Now fifteen and mute, Mallory’s never spoken about the week she went missing. As disturbing memories resurface, Tash starts to see Sparrow again. And she realises Mallory is the key to unlocking the truth about a dark secret connecting them. Does Sparrow exist after all? Or is Tash more dangerous to others than she thinks?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2018

winner y separately published work icon My Sister Rosa Justine Larbalestier , Australia : Allen and Unwin , 2016 9060523 2016 single work novel young adult

''I promise,' said Rosa. 'I won't kill and I won't make anyone else kill.'

'I can't see the loophole. Since the guinea pig there's been nothing. Months now without Rosa killing as much as a mosquito.

'As far as I know.

'Che Taylor has four items on his list: 1. He wants to spar, not just train in the boxing gym. 2. He wants a girlfriend. 3. He wants to go home. 4. He wants to keep Rosa under control.

'Che's little sister Rosa is smart, talented, pretty, and so good at deception that Che's convinced she must be a psychopath. She hasn't hurt anyone yet, but he's certain it's just a matter of time. And when their parents move them to New York City, Che longs to return to Sydney and his three best friends. But his first duty is to his sister Rosa, who is playing increasingly complex and disturbing games. Can he protect Rosa from the world - and the world from Rosa?

'My Sister Rosa will have you on the edge of your seat from the very first page to the last.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2014

winner y separately published work icon Friday Brown Vikki Wakefield , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2012 Z1883752 2012 single work novel young adult

'Seventeen-year-old Friday Brown is on the run—running to escape memories of her mother and of the family curse. And of a grandfather who'd like her to stay. She's lost, alone and afraid.

'Silence, a street kid, finds Friday and she joins him in a gang led by beautiful, charismatic Arden. When Silence is involved in a crime, the gang escapes to a ghost town in the outback. In Murungal Creek, the town of never leaving, Friday must face the ghosts of her past. She will learn that sometimes you have to stay to finish what you started—and often, before you can find out who you are, you have to become someone you were never meant to be.'

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