Beetle Boy author wins her first prize, ever!

MG Leonard, the author of Beetle Boy, has won the Branford Boase Award for her book - and tells ReadingZone it's the first prize she has EVER won!

MG Leonard, together with her editors Barry Cunningham and Rachel Leyshon (Chicken House Books), won the Branford Boase Award this month for Beetle Boy. The award is only given to authors for their first children's book, together with their editors and there was lots of competition for the prize this year. The judges said that MG Leonard's adventure about a boy and his beetle, and the array of wonderfully villainous adults lined up against them, 'stood out' for its humour, characters and plotting. In Beetle Boy, when Darkus's dad goes missing a giant beetle called Baxter comes to his rescue, but can Baxter help Darkus solve the mystery of his dad's disappearance, especially when links emerge to cruel Lucretia Cutter and her liking for beetle jewellery? MG Leonard said she was thrilled by the award - which is the first thing she has ever won in her life. She said, "If I've been waiting all my life to win something and it turns out it's this prize, I am quite happy with that." The Branford Boase Award is a special award to her, she says. "Every year for the last eight years I have gone out and bought the winning Branford Boase book because it is a hallmark of good writing so I'm delighted to have won it." MG Leonard researched beetles for six years before starting to write her first children's book, which took another four years to finish. She says, "When I met my editors I had a lot to learn about the structure of a story, what is important and what isn't, what is the narrative point of view and so on. Everyone's first book is an education. While her first book took years to write, she finished the first draft of the second book - Beetle Queen - in just six months and is now editing the third and final book in the Beetle Boy series. She says that after the Beetle Boy books, she will write 'a contemporary fairy story about climate change'. She says, "I am very interested in eco issues and children's relationship with the natural world, and as children grow up it will be more and more of a pressing concern to them". The book will be illustrated. MG Leonard now work full time as a writer so she has more time to do more events and to visit her publishers overseas. Beetle Boy is now an international bestseller and has been published all over the world.