Amber Lee Dodd's We Are Giants and Kiran Millwood Hargrave's The Girl of Ink & Stars have both been shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2017.
The award is given annually to the author and editor of an outstanding debut novel for children. Previous winners include Philip Reeve, Siobhan Dowd, Patrick Ness and Frances Hardinge.
The winner will be announced on Wednesday 5th July at a ceremony in London.
We Are Giants tells the story of Sydney, who thinks her mum Amy is the best mother in the world, even if she is a bit different. When everyone else kept growing, Amy got to 124cm in height, and then stopped right there. The perfect height, in Sydney?s opinion: big enough to reach the ice-cream at the supermarket, small enough to be special.
Sydney?s dad died when she was only five, but her memories of him, her mum?s love, and the company of her brave big sister Jade means she never feels alone . . .
But when the family are forced to move house, things get tricky. Sydney and Jade must make new friends, deal with the bullies at their new school and generally figure out the business of growing up. But Sydney doesn?t want to grow up, not if it means getting bigger than her mum. And her mum is barely four feet tall.
The Girl of Ink & Stars is set at the start of the Golden Age of mapmaking, and is a skilfully crafted middle-grade adventure novel inspired by the Canarian myth of Guayota and his demon-dogs.
Forbidden to leave her island, Isabella dreams of the faraway lands her cartographer father once mapped. When her friend disappears, she volunteers to guide the search. The world beyond the walls is a monster-filled wasteland - and beneath the dry rivers and smoking mountains, a fire demon is stirring. Following her map, her heart and an ancient myth, Isabella discovers the true end of her journey: to save the island itself.