Kevin Brooks wrote
Black rabbit summer (braille 10v and giant print 3v) and was recently shortlisted for the Carnegie medal. We asked him about his inspirations:
"I like crime fiction and reading books that have a really good story that you can't put down so that's the kind of story I also try to write. I'm not sure quite how I do it but I'm pleased that it seems to work.
I think my sense of determination comes through in my characters, they have flaws and are maybe not the best person in the world, but they have a quiet determination. This reflects me as I'm not the most confident person myself but I do have a kind of quiet determination and belief in myself.
You have to work hard at things sometimes. I have always liked writing from a young age but for a long time I didn't have the commitment and discipline to write an actual book.
The book is about the idea of how we have groups of friends when we are 10 or 11 years old and then we often drift apart. I liked the idea of them coming back together again a bit later in life for various reasons to see how the friendships now work and how they'd changed and moved on. I put the characters in lots of tricky situations such as a crime to see what happened.
The most important part of the Carnegie experience for me is all the readers who do the shadowing. Readers are the most important thing - more important even than the writer, so thank you to them."