Winner of the 2022 Book Links Award for Children’s Historical Fiction is…

Cuckoo’s Flight by Wendy Orr has won the 2022 Book Links Award for Children’s Historical Fiction.

The win was announced at an online event attended by all the shortlisted authors, Mirranda Burton, Lorraine Marwood, Katrina Nannestad and Wendy Orr, and three of the judges, Margaret McKay-Lowndes, Mia Macrossan, and Zewlan Moor.

Judges’ comments: This gripping novel experiments with poetic form to convey the emotion of living as a disabled girl in Bronze Age Crete. The poetry and extensive research do not get in the way of a cracking good story. The reader is drawn into a suspenseful, high-stakes adventure as Clio battles to save her village from invaders and prove the worth of her beloved horses.

Cuckoo’s Flight is remarkable for a its blend of nuanced prose and taut verse which tells a memorable story that immediately engages the reader, and brings into close focus a world vastly different from our own, but one that highlights our common core values as humans.

Read our interview with Wendy Orr

Teaching Notes for Cuckoo’s Flight