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A Single Stone by Meg McKinlay
Judges' Comments
Many years ago, long before Jena was born, the world shrank when a calamitous natural event caused the mountains to rise up, and Jena’s valley to become utterly isolated. Now, in this matriarchal society, slender-boned girls burrow into the mountain in search of precious mica, used to provide warmth and light through the bitter winter. This is the only world Jena has ever known and to her, it makes sense … mostly. However, when she makes a series of discoveries, she is forced to reconsider everything she believes to be true.
Meg McKinlay is an accomplished poet who has, in recent years, turned her hand to writing for children and young adults. In the dystopian A Single Stone, her appreciable talent both as a poet and as a novelist for children is on display, with luminous language, brilliant characterisation and a sense of place that is at once vivid and claustrophobic, just like the mica tunnels that lead deep into the austere and unforgiving mountain.