Jenny Valentine (born 1970) is an English children's novelist. For her first novel and best-known work, Finding Violet Park (HarperCollins, 2007), she won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime book award judged by a panel of British children's writers. Valentine lives in Glasbury-on-Wye, Wales with her husband singer/songwriter Alex Valentine, with whom she runs a health food shop in nearby Hay-on-Wye.
Writer HarperCollins has published Valentine's novels in Britain and usually one year later in America. Finding Violet Park (2007) was re-titled Me, The Missing and The Dead in the US (2008). Beside winning the Guardian Prize it made the shortlist (seven finalists that year) for the annual Carnegie Medal, which the British librarians confer upon the year's best children's book published in the UKJenny Valentine at Fantastic Fiction. Basque, Catalan and Italian translations of the book were published in 2008, followed by versions in Dutch, French, German, Slovenian, Spanish, and Norwegian.
Her critically acclaimed second novel, Broken Soup, published in January 2008, was shortlisted for the 2008 Waterstone's Children's Book Prize and the 2008 Costa Book Children's Book Award,Costa Book Awards and longlisted for the 2008 Booktrust Teenage Prize.Booktrust Teenage Prize By 2010 it had also been published in Dutch and German-language translations.
"Ten Stations", a short-story prequel to Finding Violet Park, was included among 2009 World Book Day publications. That year Valentine also inaugurated a series of short stories for young children entitled Iggy and Me.
Valentine's third novel, The Ant Colony, was published in 2009. By 2011 it had been published in Dutch and in German translations.
Her fourth novel, The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight, was set in her home town of Hay-on-Wye. It was also her fourth novel nominated for the Carnegie Medal, i. e. it was one of the year's top forty children's books published in the UK, in the estimation of librarians. By 2011 it had also been published in Dutch.
Valentine takes part annually in the Hay Festival.
Works Year Title Publisher Annual awards2007 Finding Violet Park (US) Me, the Missing, and the Dead HarperCollins 2007 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize Carnegie Medal shortlist Manchester Book Award longlist2008 Broken Soup HarperCollins Waterstone's Children's Book Prize shortlist Costa Book Children's Book Award shortlist Booktrust Teenage Prize longlist Manchester Book Award longlist 2009 Ten Stations (short story) UK World Book Day 2009 The Ant Colony 2009 Iggy & Me (short story series) HarperCollins 2010 The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight HarperCollins 2010 Doppelganger HarperCollins 2010 Iggy & me (#1) HarperCollins 2010 Iggy & me: The happy birthday (#2) HarperCollins 2010 Iggy & me on holiday (#3) HarperCollins 2011 Iggy & me and the baby (#4) HarperCollins 2015 Fire Colour One HarperCollins 2020 Hello Now Harper Fire 2021 A Girl Called Joy (#1) Simon & Schuster Children's UK 2021 Love From Joy (#2) Simon & Schuster Children's UK 2022 Planet Joy (#3) Simon & Schuster Children's UK 2024 Us in the Before and After Simon & Schuster Children's UK Carnegie Medal for Writing longlist 2025 The Unfamous Diaries of Daisy Brewster: The Frenemies (Volume 1) Simon & Schuster Children's UK
References
External links
"The Story of My Children's Book Prize" by Valentine, theguardian.com, 9 October 2007