Winner of the Branford Boase Award 2011.
Winner of the Costa Children's Book Award 2010.
Costa Book Awards 2010 Judges' comment: "A stunning debut novel without a false note. Accomplished and powerful, it changes the way you think."
Shortlisted for the Teenage Book Prize 2010.
Nominated for the Carnegie Medal 2011.
A memorable, moving and disturbing coming-of-age story about how different individuals react to the political changes around them and, especially, to the changing power structure between blacks and whites under the new rule of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 1980s. Robert Jacklin, newly arrived from England, is encouraged by his father to see the new regime as the start of a hopeful future for racial tolerance, but his friendship with the seemingly all powerful Ivan casts doubts over that possibility. Ivan will stop at nothing to prevent the overthrow of white supremacy. Against a background of increasingly terrifying violence, a generation of schoolboys grow up in a country where the hope for change is quickly extinguished.
This is definitely a novel for 14+ and not younger.
A message from the author on hearing Out of Shadows had been shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book of the Year Award 2010:
As both reader and writer I’m always striving for certain key ingredients in a book, and so I felt a tremendous tingle of excitement on the day I believed I’d found a strong storyline and memorable characters that could be set against a backdrop that means so much to me. That Out of Shadows should be enjoyed by others and recognised with such a prestigious shortlist nomination is a deeply moving and humbling reward, and has rendered this author (hopefully temporarily) wordless.
From Charlie Sheppard, Editor at Andersen Press, which has two titles - Out of Shadows and Annexed - shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book of the Year Award 2010:
‘There’s so much serendipity and luck in publishing and I think this story just proves that. These books were the first two I bought for Andersen Press. I couldn’t quite believe they’d landed on my desk in my first few weeks in the new job. Both of them changed the way I think, and for me that’s one of the most important things a children’s book can do. But both of them had been rejected by other publishers before they reached me. Wrong desk, wrong time. To have been able to work on these two incredible books has been an honour and a highlight of my career, and to have both of them recognised like this feels like a fairytale ending. I just hope Klaus [Publisher Klaus Flugge is Charlie's boss at Andersen Press] realises that these wonderful novels are one-offs and I won’t have 2 books on the shortlist every year!!’
| Primary Genre | Young Adult Fiction |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |