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A youth panel is to choose a "best of the best" to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Orange Prize for Fiction.
The six teenagers will read all the past Orange Prize winners from 1996's A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore (Penguin) to last year’s winner Home by Marilynne Robinson (Virago). The 14 books will be whittled down to a shortlist of four before a final judging meeting to decide on the Best of the Best.
The four girls and two boys, aged between 17 and 18, were selected from entries sent to the Spinebreakers website for teenage readers. Last year’s youth panel shadowed the existing judges to read and choose their own shortlist and winner.
"it was fascinating to see how their shortlist and winner were completely different," said Kate Mosse, novelist and honorary director of the prize. "From this we were able to gain insight and create debate around the reading habits of a younger audience, something no other UK literary prize has done before."
The longlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction was announced on 17th March.The shortlist for the Orange Award for New Writers will be announced on 13th April, followed by the Fiction shortlist on 20th April. The winners of both will be announced at a ceremony on 9th June.