In excellent news, The Ask and the Answer has been shortlisted for the extremely prestigious Carnegie Medal.  It's a hell of a shortlist, too, with books like Marcus Sedgwick's Revolver and Terry Pratchett's Nation on it.  Brilliant company.

Quick hello to the new commenters: Raquel, Judith, Megan (stay tuned), and Louis (and Cora).

But also just to say that the very best thing about the Carnegie Medal is its brilliant Shadowing Scheme, where schools around the country read the entire shortlist and vote on their favourite (The Knife of Never Letting Go won this last year).  Soon, there'll be video of me talking about Ask on the website, as well as you all getting to have your say. 

It's a brilliant thing; if your school doesn't participate, why not take a look?  Last year I was in a room with 400 teenagers, all arguing about books.  Stupendous.