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Best Books of 2009

It's official – teenagers have voted Randa Abdel-Fattah's Where the streets had a name and Suzanne Collins's The hunger games as their favourite books of 2009.

The winners were announced at the annual Inky Awards ceremony on 26 November.

Nearly 1400 readers aged 20 and under voted on a short list of 10 books selected by a panel of judges.

Five short-listed Australian authors competed for the Golden Inky, while five international authors competed for the Silver Inky. Randa won the Golden Inky, and Suzanne won the Silver Inky. Both winners received $2000.

'It is with tremendous joy and humility that I accept the Golden Inky. To me, this is a testament that one should never underestimate how thirsty people are for an alternative narrative and for the chance to make up their own minds about what is going on in the world,' said Randa.

The other short-listed authors were Richard Harland, Simmone Howell, Adrian Stirling, David Metzenthen, John Green, Sherman Alexie, Mal Peet, and Mariko and Jillian Tamaki.

Three students from St Joseph's College in Geelong won the Creative Reading Prize, awarded for the best creative response to a book. Adam, Jack and Nathan won an iPod Touch for their collaborative video based on The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The awards are run by the State Library of Victoria's Centre for Youth Literature.

Find out more about the Centre for Youth Literature >