A STORY about a 12-year-old girl and a skeleton detective, but unlikely to have been read by too many adults, has been voted Irish book of the decade.
In an online poll, Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasantcame out top of a shortlist of 50 books, beating an eclectic but heavyweight selection of writers that included John Banville, Colum McCann and Colm Tóibín.
Admitting that he thought the vote was only for a shorter list to be put before a jury, Landy said yesterday that he had “never expected to actually win”. For a book for younger readers to be put “on a level with John Banville, John McGahern and Joseph O’Connor is a fantastic step forward”, he added.
Although aimed at young adults, the four books in the Skulduggery Pleasantseries have sold about one million copies in Ireland and the UK since the first was published in 2007. They have also been translated into 33 languages. "I'm quite popular in Germany. I'm the David Hasselhoff of Ireland," says Landy. The choice will be seen as a recognition of the strength of young people's fiction in Ireland, and the clout of younger readers who voted in the award. The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book of the Decade attracted 5,000 votes, with an eclectic shortlist also including Bill Cullen's It's A Long Way From Penny Apples, Anne Enright's The Gatheringand David McWIlliam's The Pope's Children.
Landy said that the award was also one for the readers of Skulduggery Pleasant. "The wonderful thing about this award is that it was open to every category of books published here. There were a few crime novels, in my opinion not enough, but also biography and history and literary books.
“The fact that a book for the younger readers won is a great vindication of the next generation of readers. That they’re taken seriously enough to be given a vote in a high profile award like this is in itself a fantastic step forward.”
Very much in the tradition of comic fantasy that appeals to adults as well as young readers, Landy’s books may now achieve wider recognition as being among the best-plotted and funniest from any Irish writer in recent years.
Fiction for children and young adults has flourished in Ireland over the past decade and Landy has been a bright star, alongside Eoin Colfer, whose Artemis Fowlwas also on the shortlist. "The plain fact is that children's book sales in Ireland account for 25 per cent of all sales," said Landy.
“It’s absolutely massive but isn’t given its proper due. Apart from what the award means to me, it’s also a boost for other writers out there writing for younger readers. It would sound sad to say that we want to be taken seriously – to be honest we don’t. We are strong enough and the area is building while everything else is falling apart.”