Who is the winner of The Costa Children’s Book Award 2017?
The Explorer is a tale of four children fighting for survival in the Amazon rainforest.
After crashing hundreds of miles from civilisation in the Amazon rainforest, Fred, Con, Lila and Max are utterly alone and in grave danger. They have no food, no water and no chance of being rescued. But they are alive and they have hope. As they negotiate the wild jungle they begin to find signs that something – someone – has been there before them.
They survive on their wits, roasted insects and the kindness of a “lost” eccentric British explorer.
The Costa Judges say: ‘A masterful, delicious read from start to finish.’
Katherine says if there is one thing she wants readers to take away from the novel then it is one line and that is:
You’re right to be afraid, be brave anyway.
Find out more about her inspiration in the following video:
Katherine reflects on her childhood and describes one of her bugbears:
One of the things I hated most about being a child was being talked down to. I found people’s estimation of children, not just me but children in general, to be lacking, and so I wanted to write stories that would not suggest that children were not complex.
Described as “one of our most talented writers for children” and “the queen of the awfully big adventure”, Katherine’s other books include The Girl Savage, Rooftoppers, Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms, The Wolf Wilder and One Christmas Wish.
Katherine’s books have won, among others awards, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award, the Boston Globe Horn Book Award in America, the Andersen Prize in Italy and Le Prix Sorcières in France.
Take a look at the next video of Katherine reading from The Explorer:
You can download a Download a Teacher Resource pack from Blooomsbury Children’s Publishing here.
To read an extract from The Explorer then click here from the Book Trust website.