Awards
Costa Children's Book Award
2009 Shortlist
Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera
Publisher: Puffin
Fifteen-year-old Khalid likes seeing his friends, playing football down the park, the normal things. He isn't too excited about going to visit his family in Pakistan, but his mum and dad want him to come with them. So he goes. And a living nightmare begins. Khalid is kidnapped and forced to go to a place no teenager should ever see. A place where torture and terror are the normal things. Somewhere he doesn't know if he will ever escape from. A place called Guantanamo Bay.
Anna Perera was born in London to an Irish mother and Sri Lankan father. She qualified as a teacher and worked in secondary schools in London before becoming responsible for a unit for excluded boys. After marrying Dire Straits founding member David Knopfler, she gained an MA in Writing for Children at Winchester University and has subsequently had four children's books published. She learnt about the plight of children held at Guantanamo Bay at a benefit event held by human rights charity Reprieve. She lives in Hampshire, UK.
Judges: "An important and moving story of an ordinary teenage boy innocently caught up in a modern-day nightmare which exposes the shortcomings of contemporary justice."
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