The shortlists for the Costa book awards have been announced and there are four great books lined up to battle it out for the children's prize:
Flip by Martyn Bedford (teen)
Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans (8+)
The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce (8+)
Blood Red Road by Moira Young (teen)
Flip is a psychological thriller about a 14-year-old boy who wakes up one day in another boy's body, Small Change for Stuart is a quirky puzzle-solving novel about a small boy having an awfully big adventure, The Unforgotten Coat tells the story of a friendship between a Liverpudlian schoolgirl and two Mongolian refugee brothers, while Blood Red Road is a dystopian tale of a girl's epic quest to find her captured twin brother.
Intrigued to find out more? We've got lots of resources to help you discover a couple of the books.
Guardian Children's Books is proud to have been among the first to discover Flip. It was our very first First Look Book – the site's club where members get to read and review a proof copy of the book before it's properly published and available in the shops.
Here's a summary of what the site's reviewers had to say about Flip. You can also read an extract and listen to poet Dean Atta perform Shadowboxer, his poem inspired by Flip.
Small Change for Stuart was longlisted for the Guardian children's fiction and was featured in the Book Club. On this page you can read an extract from the book, find out more about the author, Lissa Evans, in an interview, and watch a video of Lissa (and her dog) talking about the book.
And the other two shortlisted books - The Unforgotten Coat and Blood Red Road? Over to you. We'd love to read your reviews of these books and we've got some review copies of the books to send out to members (join the site here!) - just email childrens.books@guardian.co.uk with the title of the book in the subject line and tell us why you'd like to review it.
