Nikita Lalwani has been announced the 2008 winner of the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize for Sparkling New Fiction, for her book Gifted The Desmond Elliott Prize is a new biennial prize for a first novel written in English and published in the UK. The grand prize is £10,000 and named after the literary agent and publisher, Desmond Elliott.

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A story about a maths prodigy growing up in 1980s Cardiff. Numbers have filled Rumi Vasi’s world since she first learned to count. But it was on a trip to India at the age of 8 that her mathematical powers acquired their almost supernatural significance. When she returned home to Cardiff her destiny was sealed: she was now, and would forever be, the town’s ‘maths prodigy’. At 14 Rumi is firmly set on the path of a gifted child, speeding headlong towards Oxford University. As her father sees it, discipline is everything if the family has any hope of making its mark on its adoptive country. However, as Rumi gets older and the family’s stark isolation intensifies, numbers start to lose their magic for the young teenager: she abandons the rigid timetable of her afternoons to seek out friendship and replaces equations with rampant spice abuse. As her longing for love and her parents’ will to succeed deepen, so too does the rift between generations.

Emily Gravett according to sources at Telegraph and the Guardian has revealed that her book ‘Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears‘ was produced with the help of her rodent urine.

The book is dedicated to her rodents, Button and Mr. Moo who were called upon to urine on demand. The urine soaked pages dried to a yellowish colour giving the pages a very authentic and distinctive look.

They were also encouraged to chew the pages, which together with the urine gives the paper a real ‘ratted’ look. The ideal reference for the background illustrations she used in the book. However sometimes the urine would not be fully dry and needed to be wiped from the glass of the scanner (yuk!)

However the effort and attention to detail was worth it in the end, it helped her book ‘Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears‘ scoop the CILIP (Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals) medal for book illustration (UK’s most prestigious prize for illustration). Well done to Emily, Button and Mr. Moo.

Tricia Adams the chair of the judges for the Kate Greenaway Medal, praised the “smell, texture, humor and great imagination” which bemused Emily as the printed copies shouldn’t smell anything other than paper. (perhaps the visual senses overpowered the ones of smell )

Intrigued? Well you know where you can acquire a copy from (ahem)

The illustration is truely outstanding

But in the meantime, I’m personally contemplating producing my own Big Elephant’s Big Book of Fears with the pee of… erm, I’ll let your imagination carry through the thought.

btw, anyone have a bucket?