The Young Quills longlist 2022

HA annual awards for best historical fiction for young people

Published: 11th February 2022

Young Quills 2022 – the longlist

The Young Quills longlist for 2022 is now in schools. If you are looking for something to excite students this term with reading then take a look at our latest Young Quills books.

The books listed below have all been dispatched to HA member schools up and down the country for young readers to get their reading and reviewing skills into gear.

The Young Quills books for each year must be published for the first time in English in the year preceding the competition – so 2021 for this year’s selection. Divided by age suitability the books are given to schools on the condition that the children and young people there write a review of the book following our criteria. Those reviews are used as the basis for us to create a shortlist from which the winners are selected. We also publish some of the reviews. All this means the intended audience of the books are part of the judging process.

However, you don’t have to be part of each year’s judging groups to be able to appreciate the Young Quills – just pick up one of these books and appreciate some of the best in new historical fiction for young people.

This year the entries for the awards can take children around the world and across time – there really is something for everyone.

Title

Author

Publisher

Age range

Two Terrible Vikings

Francesca Simon (illus Steve May)

Faber

5-9

Arctic Star

Tom Palmer

Barrington Stoke

8+

Maria's Island

Victoria Hislop & Gill Smith

Walker

8+

Pony

R J Palacio

Puffin (Penguin)

8+

The Last Hawk

Elizabeth Wein

Barrington Stoke

8+

The Royal Rebel

Bali Rai

Barrington Stoke

8+

The Runaway Girls

Jacqueline Wilson

Puffin (Penguin)

8+

Mystery of the Night Watchers

AM Howell

Usborne

8-12

The Chessmen Thief

Barbara Henderson

Cranachan

8-12

Torn Apart - The Partition of India

Swapna Haddow

Scholastic

8-12

Darwin’s Dragons

Lindsay Galvin

Chicken House

9+

Dick, Kerr Girls: The Perfect Shot

Eve Ainsworth

UCLan

9+

Sisters of the Lost Marsh

Lucy Strange

Chicken House

9+

The Queen’s Fool

Ally Sherrick

Chicken House

9+

The Runaways of Haddington Hall

Vivian French

Walker

9+

When the Sky Falls

Phil Earle

Andersen Press

9+

Billie Swift Takes Flight

Iszi Lawrence

Bloomsbury Education

9-11

Gracie Fairshaw and the Trouble at the Tower

Susan Brownrigg

UCLan

9-12

The House of Serendipity: Sequins and Secrets

Lucy Ivison

Usborne

9-12

Our Beautiful Game

Lou Kuenzler

Faber

10-13

The Swallow's Flight

Hilary McKay

Macmillan

10-13

The Valley of Lost Secrets

Lesley Parr

Bloomsbury

10-13

The Week at World's End

Emma Carroll

Faber

10-13

Edgar and Adolf

Phil Earle & Michael Wagg

OUP

11+

Lightning Strike

Tanya Landman

OUP

11+

We Played with Fire

Catherine Barter

Andersen Press

12+

A Rebel in Auschwitz

Jack Fairweather

Scholastic

12-16 yrs

Skin of the Sea

Natasha Bowen

Penguin

12-17 yrs

Concrete Rose

Angie Thomas

Walker

14+

Guard Your Heart

Sue Divin

Macmillan

14+