Moonboy by Anna Ciddor
2025 Shortlist - CYA Category
About Anna Ciddor
Anna Ciddor has been fascinated by the past for as long as she can remember. Even as a child, she spent hours immersing herself in research, digging out the tiniest details so she could imagine being a person living in the olden days. As an adult she has successfully turned this passion into a career, but nowadays, she is just as likely to mine for details in her own childhood, creating stories out of the strange, intriguing and totally different world of the 1960s!
Anna's work has won her many accolades, including the Nance Donkin Award for Children's Literature, a grant from the Australia Council, Notable Book awards from the Children's Book Council of Australia, and shortlistings for numerous other awards. Some of her best-loved books include Runestone, 52 Mondays and The Boy Who Stepped Through Time.
About Moonboy
When a boy called Keith pops up from nowhere in Letty's bedroom and accuses her of invading his room, Letty is astonished - but things get even stranger when she realises she is caught up in an incredible adventure, able to slip back and forth in time!
Keith lives in the world of 1969, and Letty joins in the thrill and excitement of the first astronauts about to land on the moon.
But when she discovers her trips to the past are changing history, she starts to worry. What if something she says or does causes a disaster - or even messes up the moon landing?
Anna Ciddor says: “ARA’s generosity in championing new historical fiction is foresighted and invaluable. Historical novels are a vital resource for helping children and teens develop empathy for people of other cultures, times and experiences. I am overjoyed and grateful that Moonboy has been shortlisted for the prestigious ARA Historical Novel Award.
From the judging panel: “This is a wonderful fresh take for older readers on the 'Back to the Future' concept. 11-year-old Letty's grief at her much loved grandfather's living with dementia poses an unstated but increasingly urgent question in our society today: what if there was no history at all? What if it was rewritten or forgotten? Can memorabilia, the material treasures, help retrieve a life story? Letty travels back to the time when her grandpa was 11 and the most exciting thing in his life was the first walk on the Moon. It's a key event in world history, but here seen from an Australian perspective that deals with the future, gender roles, aging and loss, all deftly handled in a pacy entertaining story. The excellent end notes reveal the author's careful research, but Moonboy never becomes a textbook with a lesson plan for classroom discussion. It is an engaging timeslip adventure that will delight older readers and their parents and grandparents alike.”
