Two women writers shortlisted for a prestigious national children’s book award drew from Oxford’s rich historical heritage. Jaine Blackman reports

Living in Oxford has proved an inspiration to two children’s writers who have made the shortlist for a prestigious national award.

Suzanne Barton has been nominated for Best Illustrated Book with The Dawn Chorus and Robin Stevens for Best Fiction for 5-12s with detective novel Murder Most Unladylike.

Each category winner gets £2,000 and the overall best book author is in line for another £3,000.

Suzanne, from Grandpont, got the idea for her book when she was lying in bed.

“I get woken by the birds in the morning or my cat,” she explains.

“Grandpont is a great place for children growing up so we just carried on being here,” says Suzanne, whose daughters Martha and Essie are now both at university.

When the children her children were younger she decided to go back to studying and did a part time Art and Design Foundation course at Oxford Brookes.

She discovered a passion for illustration and studied the discipline at Swindon College before moving on to complete an MA in children’s book illustration at the Cambridge School of Art.

“It meant getting up at 5am every Wednesday and going to Cambridge and back for a couple of years but it was brilliant,” says Suzanne, 49.

“I met so many inspiring illustrators – two of my classmates, Steve Antony and Victoria Turnbull, are on the shortlist with me.

“I developed The Dawn Chorus whilst still on the course, and was lucky enough to have it picked up by Bloomsbury, which was a real dream come true.”

But, like all authors, she’s faced a fair bit of rejection over the years.

“I had written and illustrated various picture book ideas by myself before the MA which looking back now I realise were awful.

“I sent them off and they were sent back depressingly at various intervals with short rejection slips.

“I think this was really useful, it made me want to work really hard and learn as much as I could.”

So being nominated has been particularly sweet for the 49-year-old, who originally moved to Oxford because her partner was attending university.

“I was amazed that I was nominated and so excited,” she says.

“There is a huge amount of luck involved in getting your book noticed in the first place and to have it picked out is wonderful.

"My work is a mixture of things that I collect. There are bits of old letters, books stamps and oil pastels, watercolour, pencil crayon, pen and ink... whatever is lying around really.”

The other shortlisted writer with strong Oxford connections is Robin Stevens, who was born in the city and attended Dragon School.

Robin says: “I was incredibly lucky to grow up in a house where books were everywhere, as well as to live in Oxford, a city that has writing at the heart of its history and culture.

“I lived across the road from the place where Lewis Carroll first imagined Alice’s Adventures and walked to school past the Inklings’ favourite pub.

"I saw stories everywhere! I feel absolutely honoured to have been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize.

"It literally is a dream come true, I never thought it could happen.”

The winners are due to be announced at a reception at Waterstones' London Piccadilly store on March 26.

Best Illustrated Book:
The Queen’s Hat by Steve Antony
The Dawn Chorus by Suzanne Barton
Blown Away by Rob Biddulph
Where Bear? by Sophy Henn
Atlas of Adventures by Lucy Letherland, words by Rachel Williams
The Sea Tiger by Victoria Turnbull

Best Fiction for 5-12s:
Girl with a White Dog by Anne Booth
Cowgirl by G.R. Gemin
Boy in the Tower by Polly Ho-Yen
Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens
Violet and the Pearl of the Orient by Harriet Whitehorn, illustrated by Becka Moor
A Boy Called Hope by Lara Williamson

Best Book for Teens:
The Apple Tart of Hope by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
Half Bad by Sally Green
Dead Ends by Erin Lange
Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill
Smart by Kim Slater
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Six books will compete within each category to be crowned category winner, with the three category winners then vying for the overall title of Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year 2015.

The winner of each category will receive £2,000, with the overall winner receiving an extra £3,000.