COSTA Children's Book Award Winner 2013

 

COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD WINNER 2013

Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse

by Chris Riddell

Macmillan Children’s Books

About the book:

Meet Ada Goth. She lives in Ghastly-Gorm Hall with her father, Lord Goth, lots of servants and at least half a dozen ghosts, but she hasn’t got any friends to explore her enormous, creepy house with. Then, one night, everything changes when Ada meets a ghostly mouse called Ishmael. Together they set out to solve the mystery of the strange happenings at Ghastly-Gorm Hall, and get a lot more than they bargained for....

 

About the author:

Chris Riddell is an award-winning author and illustrator. He’s illustrated many picture books and was awarded the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal in 2002 for Pirate Diary and also in 2004 for Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver.

Chris has won five Nestlé awards including a Silver Award in the five and under category of the Nestle Children’s Book Prize and a Gold Award in the 6-8 category of the same prize.

His picture books include The Emperor of Absurdia, Wendel’s Workshop and a much-loved graphic novel series featuring Ottoline. He collaborates with Paul Stewart

 

on three series of books for the YA market (Edge Chronicles, The Immortals and Wyrmweald); and, for younger children, his Fergus Crane adventure series, again written by Paul Stewart, has achieved critical success, winning the Smarties Gold Award.

Chris and Paul are also the creators of Muddle Earth and Muddle Earth Too, which have been adapted for a major animated series on CBBC.

Chris is also a renowned political cartoonist whose work appears regularly in The Observer, The Literary Review and The New Statesman. One of his claims to fame is that he was the first cartoonist to depict William Hague in shorts, an illustration that William Hague subsequently bought!

Chris Riddell lives in Brighton with his wife and has three grown-up children.

What the judges said:

“An instant classic for children of all ages.”