Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2012
A book about a dark lord who unwillingly inhabits the body of a chubby teenager has cast its evil spell over this year’s Roald Dahl Funny Prize judges. Dark Lord: Teenage Years by Brighton-based games developer Jamie Thomson, conquered the competition to seize the winners prize for the funniest book for children aged seven to fourteen.
Equally terrifying is a book about a toddler terrorising her mother and everybody around her with her tantrums. My Big Shouting Day by Cambridge based author/illustrator Rebecca Patterson has stomped its way to victory in the six and under category.
Both winners received £2,500, which will be presented at an awards ceremony at the Unicorn Theatre in London. This year is the fifth year of the Prize which celebrates the funniest books for children.
Broadcaster and Roald Dahl Funny Prize judge Mel Giedroyc comments:
It's been a sheer honour and joy for me to be on the judging panel for the 2012 Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Dark Lord: Teenage Years is a worthy winner - it's funny-clever as well as funny-silly, which in my book is the best combination. I say 'in my book', I don't mean that I had a book in the shortlist. That would be very unfair, to be judging books, one of which I'd actually written. Let me just make that clear, that did not happen. Long live comedy and funny books - they give you crows' feet but they reassure you that life is worth living!!
This year’s Prize saw schools across the country involved in the judging process. Over 500 pupils from across the UK were selected to read the shortlisted titles, discuss with their classmates, and pick their favourite funny book in the relevant category for their age. Their votes were combined with the votes of the adult judging panel to find the two winners for 2012. Classes from Hawkes Farm Primary School and Hitherfield Primary attended the awards ceremony, with Hawkes Farm pupils giving a special performance based on scenes from Michael Rosen’s biography Fantastic Mr Dahl and Hitherfield pupils sharing their thoughts on the shortlist through a specially-created film:
Michael on the fifth year of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize:
I'm very proud of the fact that this is the fifth year of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, an award I cooked up when I was Children's Laureate in order to celebrate books that make children laugh. That's five years worth of books which are written with fun and enjoyment in mind. We know that reading for pleasure is an engine for attainment and achievement in all walks of life. Children, parents, teachers, librarians and all concerned with reading can find a rich vein of books for all ages in the back lists of this Prize, and this year's shortlists and winners are engaging, fascinating and above all, very funny.
The funniest book for children aged seven to fourteen
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Dark Lord: The Teenage Years
Orchard BooksThe Dark Lord falls to earth, crash-landing in a suburban car park in the body of a teenage boy, spitting out poisonous mucus
Dark Lord: The Teenage Years
Jamie Thomson
Winner, The funniest book for children aged seven to fourteen, Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2012
The Dark Lord falls to earth, crash-landing in a suburban car park in the body of a teenage boy, spitting out poisonous mucus. His lieutenant, Dread Gargon, has disappeared, along with his powers of Domination and Destruction. Social services can’t locate his home, the Iron Tower of Despair, so 'Dirk' is placed with a foster family and forced to go to school. Desperate to return home, he tries to open a Portal between earth and the Darklands, but accidentally sets fire to the cricket pavilion. And then the White Beast from Dirk’s nightmares appears in the flesh...
A funny, bizarre, melodramatic, suspenseful read with unexpected and unbelievable happenings on almost every page.Publisher: Orchard Books
Jamie Thomson
Jamie Thomson is the minion and slave of the Dark Lord, Dirk Lloyd. He's an author and games developer who has written numerous choose-your-own-adventure style gamebooks and worked on many computer games from the Tower of Despair (1984) to Warrior Kings: Battles (2003) Jamie Thomson lives in the dungeons below his Master's Iron Tower in East Sussex, where he spends every day writing for his overlord. His book, Dark Lord: The Teenage Years, was the 2012 Roald Dahl Funny Prize winner.
Chair of Judges and author of Fantastic Mr Dahl, Michael Rosen comments on Dark Lord: Teenage Years:
This is a wonderfully absurd take on beings from another planet or another world and like all books with this theme it makes us think about how odd and crazy we are.
The book also makes us do several 'double-takes' as we find ourselves asking whether this Dark Lord is a boy's imagination or if he's really from outer space. Winners of this Prize have to give us a great concept, laughs throughout and a great twist at the end, which does indeed come with an excellent reversal of expectations which I couldn't possibly divulge. Just be prepared to be reversed! And be warned, the word 'Goth' will never be the same again.
Dark Lord: Teenage Years is announced as the winner at the 2012 Roald Dahl Funny Prize ceremony:
The funniest book for children aged six and under
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My Big Shouting Day
Jonathan CapeBella is having a Big Shouting Day: from morning until bedtime, she shouts and complains about everything from biscuits to baths.
My Big Shouting Day
Rebecca Patterson
Winner, The funniest book for children aged six and under, Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2012
When Bella wakes up, her little brother Bob is licking her jewellery. This puts her in a bad mood so she shouts and complains all day.
She doesn’t like her breakfast or her shoes. Her biscuit breaks and she doesn’t want to play nicely with Sasha. Ballet is itchy, her peas are too hot and her bath is too cold. She doesn’t want a story and she certainly doesn’t want to go to bed! But Mum gives her a kiss and a cuddle, and reads Bella her favourite bedtime story anyway and at last Bella says 'sorry' for her big shouting day.
Funny and well-observed, with big bold illustrations and telling facial expressions, My Big Shouting Day is ideal for classroom use.Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Rebecca Patterson
Rebecca grew up in Bolton, and first studied Fashion due to a love of fashion illustration. After graduating, she worked at an assortment of jobs, including being an classroom assistant in a primary school, while sending out manuscripts for picture books. Once her own children had started school, Rebecca began an MA in Children's Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art and had her first picture books commissioned at the end of the course. Rebecca's work is inspired by her own childhood and her children's lives, with stories often starting as games or something made up in the back of a car to amuse a child. She lives in Cambridge.
Journalist and author Lucy Mangan on My Big Shouting Day:
What can I say? It just made me laugh and laugh. Who HASN'T had - or, if you're a wretched grown up who is supposed to keep control of herself at all times, at least WANTED to have - a big shouting day? Who HASN'T just wanted to go to pieces when faced with 'the TERRIBLE EGG' or toothpaste that is just TOO minty? And then it has the lovely ending, when our heroine is exhausted and overcome with remorse but wakes up to a better day tomorrow.
My Big Shouting Day is announced as the winner at the 2012 Roald Dahl Funny Prize award ceremony:
Judges
The Great British Bake Off and Light Lunch presenter Mel Giedroyc and journalist and author of The Reluctant Bride Lucy Mangan are two of the judges announced for the fifth year of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Joining them on the panel tasked with seeking out the funniest children’s books of 2012 are Liz Pichon, winner of the 2011 Prize for 7-14 years with The Brilliant World of Tom Gates, and Ed Vere, award-winning picture book author of Chick and Mr Big. Children’s book royalty and author of a new Roald Dahl biography – Fantastic Mr Dahl – Michael Rosen returns to lead this gloriumptious selection of human beans in their quest to find two splendiferous winners: for children aged 6 years and under, and children aged 7–14 years categories.
Michael Rosen comments:
‘Every bit of research that anyone does anywhere shows that 'reading for pleasure' has a huge effect on children's achievement. So this fantastic team of judges are not just mucking about having a laugh (which they are doing, by the way); they are doing the intensely serious job of seeking out hysterically funny books which will give children the biggest and best reasons for wanting to read, to read more, to read more and more and more. Hard work, but someone has to do it.’
Lucy Mangan on being a Roald Dahl Funny Prize judge:
‘I was very scared of being a judge at first, and not just because I am a little bit frightened of Michael Rosen (he is too tall and you can always hear his brain fizzing) but because I didn't know how to go about it. But once I got stuck into all the lovely, lovely books that arrived, everything got easier and I started to enjoy myself very much. Good luck to whoever gets this brilliant job next year!’
Take a look at some photos from the judges day out at the Roald Dahl Museum
Following on from last year, the Prize involved schools in the judging process. Around 250 pupils from across the UK were selected to read the shortlisted titles, discuss with their classmates, and pick their favourite funny book in the relevant category for their age. Their votes were combined with the votes of the adult judging panel to find the two winners for 2012. Classes who participate could also win a chance to attend and perform at the award ceremony.
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Mel GiedroycMel Giedroyc is a TV personality, radio presenter, actress and writer. She was born in Epsom in 1968. Mel has made literally hundreds of TV and radio appearances, and is best known for presenting comedy items alongside Sue Perkins. Mel was a student of Trinity College, Cambridge and a member of the famous Footlights comedy club.
As ‘Mel and Sue’, the duo were shortlisted for the Daily Express Best Newcomers Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1993. After a few years writing for French & Saunders, they hosted a lunchtime show on Channel 4 called Light Lunch (and the early evening version, Late Lunch). In 2007, Mel took part in the TV series Comic Relief Does Fame Academy and, from 2008 to 2011, performed in the BBC children’s sketch show Sorry I’ve Got No Head.
More recently, Mel co-presented the popular TV show The Great British Bake Off and currently presents The 4 O’Clock Show on Radio 4 Extra.
She lives in London with her husband and two daughters. -
Lucy ManganLucy Mangan is a British journalist and columnist. She was educated in Catford and Cambridge. She studied English at the latter and then spent two years training as a solicitor, but left as soon as she qualified and went to work much more happily in a bookshop instead. She got a work experience placement at the Guardian in 2003 and hung around until they gave her a job. Lucy now writes regular columns for the newspaper as well as features and TV reviews. She has written for most of the major women's magazines, including Grazia, Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan and now has a weekly column in Stylist magazine.
In 2009, a collection of her columns from the Guardian’s Weekend Magazine was published as a book entitled My Family and Other Disasters, which is due to be published as an e-book soon. Her other works include Hopscotch and Handbags: The Essential Guide to Being a Girl, a book satirising her personal experiences of growing up, and The Reluctant Bride which is the lightly-fictionalised story of her wedding.
She lives in south-east London with one husband, one son, two cats and fourteen double-stacked Billy bookcases. -
Liz PichonLiz Pichon studied graphic design at Middlesex Polytechnic and Camberwell School of Art in London. She then worked in the music industry for Jive Records as a designer and art director, organising photo sessions and designing record and CD covers. Liz later went freelance and her work has been used on different products all over the world. She then turned her talented hand to children's books, including writing and illustrating Smarties Book Prize Silver Award-winner My Big Brother Boris, published by Scholastic in 2004.
Other titles include The Very Ugly Bug, Bored Bill, The Three Horrid Little Pigs and The Friendly Wolf, which was shortlisted for the Red House Book Award 2009. The Brilliant World of Tom Gates is Liz's first book for older children and won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2011 in the funniest book for children aged 7-14 category. In 2012 it also won the Younger Reader category Red House Book Award, the Waterstones Children's Book Prize in the 5-12 category and the Shrewsbury Book Award. The Tom Gates series continues to grow and has been translated into 20 languages. Book four - Genius Ideas (mostly) - is out in September.
Liz lives with her husband and three children in Brighton. -
Michael RosenMichael Rosen is a broadcaster, children’s novelist and poet. He has been involved with over 140 books, both as an author and by selecting other writers’ works for anthologies. He was Children’s Laureate from 2007-2009, in which time he established the Roald Dahl Funny Prize.
Michael Rosen plays a key role in opening up children's access to poetry: both through his own writing and with important anthologies such as A Spider Bought a Bicycle. He was one of the first poets to make visits to schools throughout the UK (and further afield in Australia, Canada and Singapore) and currently maintains a busy schedule of school visits and talks.
In 1993 he gained an MA in Children's Literature from Reading University and also holds a PhD from the University of North London. In 2010 he established an MA in Children’s Literature at Birkbeck University, on which he teaches.
Rosen is well established as a broadcaster presenting a range of documentary features on radio. He is also the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth programme.
His biography of Roald Dahl, The Fantastic Mr Dahl (Puffin £6.99), is out in September. Michael will be joining Quentin Blake at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre for Puffin Virtually Live (www.puffinvirtuallylive.co.uk) on 24 September. -
Ed VereEd Vere studied fine art at Camberwell College of Art and has been writing and illustrating children's books since 1999. He is published in the UK, Europe and the US. His first picture book, The Getaway, won the Highland Children's Book Award in 2007. His second, Banana, was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway prize in 2008. Chick, a pop-up book, won the Booktrust Early Years Award for best baby book for 2009 and Mr Big was the Booktime main title for 2009-2010. Ed was the World Book Day Illustrator for 2009 and the official illustrator for Hay Fever, Hay Festival 2009. His latest title, Bedtime for Monsters, was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2011.
Ed is also a painter working from his studio in East London. He has exhibited worldwide in New York, L.A., Tokyo, Reykjavik, Cape Town and extensively in London. He is represented by galleries in London and South Africa. Ed grew up in the Peak District, lived in Barcelona for a year and a half, and now lives and works in London.
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