Posthumous prize for children's author

THE €10,000 Bisto Book of the Year prize was yesterday awarded posthumously to Siobhan Dowd for her second children's book, The London Eye Mystery, a story about a boy who goes up in the London Eye and then vanishes.

Her husband, Geoff Morgan, and publisher David Fickling, both of whom had travelled from England, jointly accepted the award on her behalf at a ceremony at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Dublin.

Dowd, who was born in London to Irish parents and kept in close contact with Ireland, died in August last year after a long illness, aged 47. She came late to writing, but had already made an impact. Her first book, A Swift Pure Cry, was a winner at last year's awards, picking up the Eilís Dillon award for a first-time author. Her third, Bog Child, came out this spring, and her fourth, Solace of the Road, will be published next year. "Siobhan would have been thrilled to pick up this award," said Mr Morgan yesterday. "I'm sad of course that she's not here, but happy that her memory lives on."

The prize money will go to the Siobhan Dowd Trust, which helps disadvantaged children in Ireland and Britain develop a love of books. The €3,000 Eilís Dillon Award for a first-time writer went to Tom Kelly for The Thing With Finn. The €2,000 Bisto Honour Awards went to Roddy Doyle for Wilderness, FE Higgins for The Black Book of Secrets, and Oliver Jeffers for The Way Back Home.