Wow! What a list!! In fact it’s so good we couldn’t choose just 15 books so we picked 17 instead! Now you have until Friday Feb 6th to send us your votes. Remember we need your TOTAL votes for ALL THE BOOKS, not just your top 5 books. We then put all the votes together and we’ll have our Shortlist. It’s so exciting! Don’t forget to tell us what you think about the list! Tweet us @SussexABA or Like our FaceBook page.

Drum-roll please …..

1. Soldier Dog by Sam Angus
2. The Private Blog of Joe Cowley by Ben Davis
3. Cruel Summer by James Dawson
4. Hate by Alan Gibbons
5. Half Bad by Sally Green
6. Now You See Me by Emma Haughton
7. The Messengers by Edward Hogan
8. Sawbones by Catherine Johnson
9. Dead Jealous by Sharon Jones
10. Split Second by Sophie McKenzie
11. Riot by Sarah Mussi
12. The Blood List by Sarah Naughton
13. Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher
14. No Where by Jon Robinson
15. The Mysterium: The Black Dragon by Julian Sedgewick
16. The Wall by William Sutcliffe
17. Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

So now it’s over to you! Here are the voting forms:  2015 ABA Voting Forms

Have fun! And don’t forget to send your TOTAL VOTES to Amanda by Friday Feb 6th. APhelan@worthinghigh.net

The ABAs 2015 – Dates for your diaries:

• Book Recommendations received from Publishers/Schools by: 30th September 2014
• Subscription Deadline: Monday 3rd November 2014
• Long List A Announced: Wednesday 5th November 2014
• Long List feedback from schools deadline: Monday 12th January 2015
• ABA Long List Meeting: Wednesday 14th January 2015 (meeting to narrow down long list, all members welcome) @4.00pm Shoreham Academy)
• Long List B Announced: Monday 19th January 2015 (long list sent to schools for students/ librarians to vote for the books they would like to read)
• Shortlist Voting Deadline: Friday 6th Feb 2015
• Shortlist Announced: Monday 9th Feb 2015 (schools start reading)
• Order from the Book Nook from: Monday 9th Feb 2015
• Final Votes Deadline: Tuesday 23rd June 2015
• Awards Night: Friday 10th July 2015 (hosted by 2014 ABA Gold Award Winner – JAMES DAWSON) @6.15pm Shoreham Academy

Oh wow! What a night! Congratulations to the wonderful James Dawson our 2014 Gold Award Winner. We loved Hollow Pike, and so it seems did all of you.

Gillian Cross and Gemma Malley were fantastic Silver and Bronze winners respectively, and Jane McLoughlin and Rachel Ward were fabulous finalists.

We said Friday 11th July was going to be EPIC and we did not lie. It was truly amazing. Over 300 people came along to hear the wonderful Teri Terry host what was an awesome night. And for a book award that is only 3 years old we could not be happier with the turn out and the participation across the year.

Huge thanks to you too, our participating schools, students and book groups. We could not run these awards without your support. 26 schools took part this year, and if you all decide to return then with the 3 new schools that have already signed up we’ll start the new ABA year in September with 29 schools. Wooooohoooooo!

Here are some of our fantastic competition winners this year:

The Get Caught Reading Winners

The Redesign the Book Cover Winners

Our Reading Passport Winner was Blythe Colquham for her wonderful and thoughtful passport. We also gave honourable mentions (and prizes) to Isobel Sherlock-Fuidge, Pheobe Ricci and Billie Ayling, whose passports were also fantastic.

Our Film/Book Trailer winners were: Megan, Natasha, Rosie and Yuxin from The Weald School for their Hollow Pike Trailer. We’d love to show it to you here but unfortunately it’s a bit too big but you can find it on our YouTube channel (click on the button at the bottom of the page).

We’ll have lots of photos from the night soon but for now here’s some photos of you lot.

All that’s left to do is to ask you to save the date for the ABAs next year:

FRIDAY 10th JULY 2015

Thank you one and all for your support this year, and we can promise that next year won’t be epic it’ll be MASSIVE!

Wow! What an amazing year! And what a vote!! This has to be the closest year ever. (Honestly!) Every single vote counted. Now you’ll just have to wait until Friday 11th July to find out who has won our Gold, Silver and Bronze awards. (We’re SO excited we might pop!!!)

Hay! Have you got your golden ticket yet? No?? Well what are you waiting for? To get yours before it’s too late email us on:

info@amazingbookawards.co.uk

“I’ve got a golden ticket!” (Actually we’ve got lots!)

And don’t forget it’s still not too late to enter our competitions –                                   Deadline: Friday 27th June.

 IT’S GOING TO BE AMAZING!!

Wow! Can you believe it? We are only just 7 weeks away from the 2014 Amazing Book Awards Presentation Night (July 11th) Just 7 weeks!! Have you got your golden tickets yet? You can order them from us: info@amazingbookawards.co.uk

FRIDAY 11^th JULY

We are so lucky to have the wonderful and multi-award winning Teri Terry (author of the amazing Slated, Fractured and Shattered) returning to the ABAs to be our fantastic host for the evening. Teri has lived in France, Canada, Australia and England. Moving constantly has kept Teri on the outside looking in much of her life. It has given her an obsession with characters like Kyla in Slated, who don’t belong or find themselves in unfamiliar places. Teri recently left her job with Buck’s Libraries to write full-time and complete her research MA on the depiction of terrorism in recent young adult dystopian literature.

Teri will be joined by all 5 of our finalist authors. Gemma Malley, Gillian Cross, James Dawson, Jane McLoughlin and Rachel Ward. All the authors will be talking about their books, their inspirations and the very interesting lives. They will also be available to chat and sign their books at the end of the night. * The Book Nook, Hove, will be with us selling copies of our finalists (and Teri’s) books so you can buy them on the night. * The Friends of Shoreham Academy will be with us too, selling some yummy light refreshments throughout the evening.

We will be at Shoreham Academy again this year. Doors open at 6:00 pm, we really hope to see you there! (We will send you more details about this soon)

The closing dates for voting and the competitions (June 27th) are fast approaching so just keep reading! 

Hay hay! Have a butchers at this awesomeness!!

We’ve just had our first entry for this year’s Get Caught Reading Competition.  Featuring the lovely Joe, Emily, Izzy, Oscar and Matthew, Yr9 students from The Weald School.

 Well done guys! It’s so random we LOVE it!

But don’t feel left out – there’s loads of time for you to enter too. Here’s everything you need to know about the competition.

Happy snapping!

And don’t forget to look at our other competitions on the Competitions pages. We’ve got some cracking prizes on offer this year.

Wow!!! And what a Shortlist!

• After Tomorrow – Gillian Cross
• At Yellow Lake – Jane McLoughlin
• Hollow Pike –James Dawson
• The Drowning – Rachel Ward
• The Killables – Gemma Malley

Fantastic! Incredible! Astonishing! Mind-blowing!

There’s lots more adjectives we could use to describe such an awesome list but you don’t need to hear them, after all, it’s your list! Your votes alone have given us an amazing Shortlist, and now all you have to do is read them. Easy! Oh, and then vote. But you don’t need to worry about that yet, you’ve got until June to think about who you want to win.

But don’t forget if you’d like to enter our competitions this year, have a look at these posters and see if anything tickles your fancy.

We’ll be in touch again soon with some awesome activities for you to do. And remember you can send us your pictures, thoughts and views at any time. @SussexABA on twitter or to our FaceBook page – The Amazing Book Awards.

So what are you waiting for?? Get reading!!!

We are very excited to announce the 2014 ABA Long List — and what a cracker it is!

1. After Tomorrow – Gillian Cross
2. At Yellow Lake – Jane McLoughlin
3. Bodyguard: Hostage – Chris Bradford
4. Burn Mark – Laura Powell
5. Eleven Eleven – Paul Dowswell
6. Fire City – Bali Rai
7. Firewallers – Simon Packham
8. Hollow Pike –James Dawson
9. Hostage Three – Nick Lake
10. Itch – Simon Mayo
11. Lost Worlds – Andrew Lane
12. The Drowning – Rachel Ward
13. The Hanged Man Rises – Sarah Naughton
14. The Killables – Gemma Malley
15. Waiting for Gonzo – Dave Cousins
16. Zom-B – Darren Shan

So come on! Now you’ve got until the 7th Feb to send us your votes. Each student votes for their top 5 books. Then we need to know how many people like each book for each school, so your final voting form will look like this:

• After Tomorrow — 10
• At Yellow Lake — 15
• Bodyguard: Hostage — 12

Then we’ll add together all your totals and we’ll have our 2014 Shortlist. Simples. We’ll let you know what titles have made it to the Shortlist then all you have to do is to start reading. We’ve also got 3 major competitions for you this year – see the Competition page for more details – and we’ll have lots of fun activities and challenges for you to complete before the awards presentation night in July.

You can find another copy of the votings form here: 2014 ABA Long List Nomination Forms

We hope you like the Long List as much as we do! Don’t forget you can “Tweet” us your views (@SussexABA), “Like” us and message us on our FaceBook page (The Amazing Book Awards) or have a look at any video updates on our YouTube channel. Follow the links below.

Have a look at all the wonderful schools that will be joining the ABAs this year! 26! Wow, oh, wow! We’re so excited we can’t wait to share the Long List with you. We know for sure that this years’ ABAs will be bigger and better than ever!

Keep watching the site for updates, and don’t forget to tweet us any of your thoughts or ideas. And “like” us on Facebook. We’ve got some awesome competitions coming your way!

The Long List 2014 will be published in Jan. then it’s over to you. We can’t wait!!