Modern Fairytales Competition Winners

And the winner is...

Lorna Cowan, aged 12 from Lenzie Academy for The Sinister Breadcrumbs

The runners up:

Year 8, EN4, Coombe Boys’ School for Hansel & Gretel

Cameron Askew, aged 16 from Academy 360 for Cinderella

Ismay Burch’s poem 

Holly Abraham’s comic

Kerry Alderson’s fantastic gay Cinderella 

Jodie Bailey and Mairead Frost’s R3D Hoodie 

Thomas Champion’s Blue Riding Dave

Elly Brine’s wolf tale, The Scarlet Coat

 

Judge Meg Rosoff’s comments

Everyone always says that the quality of the entries in any competition was particularly high this year – but really.  What a job I had.

I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun judging.  The creativity and range of the entries was magnificent, and the only problem I had was trying to whittle the winners down to three. 

So, against all the rules, I’m going to list my honourable mentions – all of which I’d love to have snuck into the top three:  Ismay Burch’s poem.  Holly Abraham’s comic.  Kerry Alderson’s fantastic gay Cinderella.  Jodie Bailey and Mairead Frost’s R3D Hoodie.  Thomas Champion’s Blue Riding Dave. And last, but definitely not least, Elly Brine’s wolf tale, The Scarlet Coat.

Any of these would have made a worthy winner.  But in the end, I tried to choose the top three based on that little something extra – the entries that just shouted out ME ME ME! 

It was so hard to choose between these last three, which were all brilliant in completely different ways.  No matter how many times I shuffled the order, however, I kept going back to Lorna Cowan’s story, The Sinister Breadcrumbs.  It’s funny, strange, wonderfully written and just…so…original.  I know a great number of published adult writers who would kill for such a strong and quirky storytelling voice.  A worthy winner.

As for the runners-up, I list them in no particular order – they were equally good.

The Year 8 entry from Coombe Boys’ School impressed me with its lateral approach to the problem of reworking a fairy tale.  Coombe’s social worker’s case file on Hansel & Gretel was tantalizing, thoughtful, at times funny (I loved the pictures of the children) and moving – all at once.  Now that’s quite a feat.  A terrifically original idea, brilliantly executed. 

Cameron Askew’s take on Cinderella certainly wasn’t the strangest or the most wildly offbeat story, but Cameron has a sophisticated, subtle sense of humour, an elegant turn of phrase, and a completely engaging voice.  I’m not sure you can teach these things, and they indicate to me the makings of a future novelist.

Thank you to all the entrants for a great competition.  And watch out for wolves when you stray from the path!

 

A word from ALCS

Thank you to all the students and shadowing group leaders who took part in this year’s competition and for once again making it such a huge success. We were interested to see what results this task would produce, and what a treat all the entries were to read.

We would particularly like to thank all those shadowing group leaders who encouraged their students to be original, get involved and take a few risks with their entries. We were really impressed by the level of creativity that many of the entries showed, and of course Meg for judging this competition for us.

Please continue to write and be as creative, fun, and insightful as you have been this year - we hope you found it fun as well as educational. We will be sponsoring the awards again next year, so watch this space for the next big challenge.

Last of all, we would like to thank everyone who used the copyright awareness activities (which are still available at www.ckg.org.uk/groupleaders) this year. It is important that adults and children alike understand and respect the importance of copyright and its value to writers so that we can ensure writers continue to write the books that we all love so much. Be copyright aware – be fair!