Prime Minister's Literary Award Winner

The annual Prime Minister's Literary Awards celebrate the contribution of Australian literature to the nation's cultural and intellectual life.


The Young Adult fiction winner for 2010 was Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God by Bill Condon.

Neil Bridges attends a Catholic boys’ school in which teachers rule with iron fists and thick leather straps. Some crumble under the pressure but Neil toughs it out, just as his Vietnam-bound older brother has done before him. He has to be a man, after all. But at sixteen, how can he be sure of himself when he’s not sure of anything else? He loses a friend and finds another, falls in love and unwittingly treads a path that leads to revenge and possibly murder . . .

Pick up a copy from the Dubbo Branch library today...

Tag-a-tee @ the Dubbo Branch Library

The Dubbo Branch Library runs activities for youth every school holidays. In the July holidays, we held a Tag-a-tee workshop. For more info on youth activities, check out our website: http://www.mrl.nsw.gov.au/

Book Week 2010

Travel across the Story Bridge at Macquarie Regional Library during Book Week 2010. Book Week is the longest-running children's festival in Australia and this year will celebrate its' 65th birthday.

Each year Australian children's and young adult's books are nominated for the Children's Book Council Awards, and 6 books make up the Shortlist in each category. The 2010 winners will be announced on Friday 20 August.

The category for Older Readers has some great candidates - so why not grab a title and see what you think...

And the nominees are:

Stolen by Lucy Chistopher
The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke
Liar by Justine Larbalestier
Jarvis 24 by David Metzenthen
A Small Free Kiss in the Dark by Glenda Millard
Loving Richard Feynman by Penny Tangey

Beat the Boredom!

Don't forget that the Dubbo Branch Library has boredom-busters for young people these holidays!

Use your creative flair to 'Tag-a-t-shirt' on Monday 12 July (bookings required - cost $5) or come along on Friday 9 July and Friday 16 July to Youth Cafe and show off your SingStar or Guitar Hero skills.

Photo credit

The Dubbo Branch is open 10-6 weekdays, 10-3 Saturdays and 11-3 Sundays so come and down to find a great read, use the free internet for research, play games on the PlayStation 2, or catch up with some friends.

LIAR By Justine Larbalestier

Micah Wilkins, the main character in Liar REALLY IS A LIAR!! Continuously throughout this book, I was tossing up whether I wanted to hug her or slap her. But I was only about 20 pages in when I knew I wouldn't be able to put it down before I knew the truth (the whole truth and nothing but the truth!) Now, I am not a fan of 'fantasy.' I like my novels to be realistic, I like to be able to imagine that they're actually happening to me (or at least COULD happen to me). But the 'fantasy' (ie, to me, completely unrealistic and unimaginable) part of this novel snuck up on me so suddenly, that by that time, I was already hooked.

Being a self-confessed liar myself, I totally empathised with Micah's inability to tell her story straight - I know how hard it is sometimes to keep all of your lies together in one neat, little package - and I found the different parts of this book (Telling the Truth, Telling the True Truth, and The Actual Real Truth) hilarious and frustrating at the same time.

The judges of the CBCA awards have really got their work cut out for them this year.. and that's not a lie!! :)

WINTERGIRLS By Laurie Halse Anderson

I first heard about this book here on the MRLYA blog. It made me want to read it. It made me need to read it. Having personally seen both friends and family go through the struggle of 'perfection,' this turned out to actually be a really tough book to read. So personal, you being to wonder if it really is 'fiction' because how can just anyone know the true feelings of an anorexic? This was a little like reading a diary of torment - trying to keep in check the balance between desperately wanting to be the skinniest, versus the need to stay alive.

Wintergirls is Lia's story of her all-consuming eating disorder - her struggle to pull through her own (real and imagined) demons, as her friend Cassie had not.

A shocking and powerful novel, which I read in one sitting.

STOLEN By Lucy Christopher

My dad quite often tells me that, at 23, I am maybe getting just a tad too old to be readying YA novels. I completely disagree. They're (mostly) short, sharp and straight to the point (just how I like my life to be). Stolen didn't disappoint. As one of the nominated books for the 2010 CBCA Children's Book Week Awards, Stolen had the ability of taking me from my lounge room, and pushing me straight into the Australian outback. By the time I'd finished reading, I wanted to raid my piggy bank and book a flight to Perth, to explore the 'nothingness' that Gemma describes. This book is dramatic, suspenceful, and by being written in the form of a letter, will really tug at your heart-strings. I knew that the 'bad guy' was a bad guy, but I just wanted to reach into the pages and give Ty a hug..

Oh, and about halfway through, I thought I was awesome and had solved THE BIG MYSTERY of who Ty was, and why he had taken Gemma. Turns out I was wrong, and I hate being wrong...