Paul
Dowswell

Awards & Reviews
The page where we throw modesty to the wind in reviews and awards...

Book reviews

A great thriller with a poignant historical background… terrific

The Bookseller September Highlights

Dowswell achieves a sense of balance between the fast paced action and adrenaline rush of a thriller and the detail and realism of a historical novel in this perfectly pitched hybrid novel which will keep readers gripped throughout.

Books for Keeps

The stifling atmosphere and fear pervading people’s lives in post war East Berlin are intensely felt… The author has created a thoroughly absorbing story within a real historical setting to great effect, appealing to teenage readers across the board.

The Book Trust 

Dowswell is increasingly well known for his detailed, thoughtful accounts of actual historic events and his enviable talent for presenting history in a fresh and accessible manner for his teenage audience.

The Truth About Books

We loved this one - it combines awesome, accurate research with genuine tension and sympathetic, well-rounded characters.

The Book Bag, August 2011

‘Sektion 20 is one of those rare books which can be used as an effective and enjoyable teaching resource.’

Viewpoint, University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education.

Sektion 20 is far and beyond one of the best accounts of post-War Eastern-Bloc Germany I have ever read

Book Angel Booktopia

Paul Dowswell writes very well constructed historical books which are never mere entertainment, rather, they offer kids the opportunity to immense themselves… in the important events of the past. (He) is a great writer that we should certainly recommend to our children.

Camilla Biagini,  Contatto News, Italy

***

A dark and chilling historical adventure that seamlessly combines fact and fiction.

Booktrust

The Cabinet of Curiosities is a gripping, thrilling adventure set against a fascinating historical backdrop. Dowswell is a key writer of historical fiction for teens and young adults - open the Cabinet and set off on an amazing, exhilarating literary adventure.

South China Morning Post

This gripping and dramatic story is well-placed to conquer any prejudice that teenage readers might have against historical novels.

School Librarian

Pacy, with great characterisation, it's rich with wonderful historical detail. Recommended.

Bookbag

A powerful historical drama full of political intrigue and rich in the trickery of alchemy, this is a fascinating and original story about one boy’s role in saving a great kingdom.

Julia Eccleshare. Lovereading4kids

***

Ausländer ranks among the very best of wartime historical fiction.

Financial Times

A breakthrough into the top league for Dowswell, ...There will be many adults who will be sneakily borrowing this from their children.

The Bookseller ‘Ones to watch’ Top Title

Dowswell is one of the best new writers of historical fiction for children. [Ausländer] comes close to classics such as ‘The Silver Sword’.  

The Times

Dowswell's compelling story is told without sentimentality…Believable characters wrestle with impossible choices as the writer opens a window into the true horror of the time…

Fiction Focus, Australia

Paul Dowswell’s name on the front of Ausländer is enough to overcome Nazi fiction fatigue, for he is a brilliant historical novelist… (He) shows us a side of Nazi Germany rarely seen.

Daily Telegraph

Dowswell's previous youth fiction novels have shown that he is a writer with a talent for using historical fact as a basis of thrilling fiction, and Auslander is an outstanding example of the grip novels like this can have on a reader…

South China Morning Post

Well constructed, morally complex and consistently engaging, this examination of a people's complicity with evil is revealing and important.

The Independent

The Auslander is a powerful piece of young adult fiction that appeals just as comfortably to adult readers. Mr. Dowswell provides a wonderful character study of an average Polish boy searching for the resolve to fight Nazi propaganda and help victims of persecution. The Auslander will be remembered long after its covers are closed.

New York Journal of Books

The characters are rich and nuanced, flawed people caught up in a terrible time; the action is swift and suspenseful; and the juxtaposition of wartime nobility and wartime cruelty is timeless.

The Horn Book Magazine

***

an effective and totally riveting tale…

School Library Association ‘Boys into Books’ recommendations

***

(In Best children’s novels for 11+)
…this is a splendid book for 11+ boys, with a masterly climax as the boys struggle to escape from a cannibal comrade.

The Times November 22, 2006

PREPARE to have your timbers well and truly shivered by Paul Dowswell and his naval warfare novels… With detail that points to extensive research and a plot with more snap than a cat o' nine tails

The Scotsman November 12, 2006

***

A thrilling tale, exceptionally well written and affecting

The Times  March 11, 2006

…more vivid than a Patrick O’Brian novel.

The Independent  October 21, 2005

***

Paul Dowswell’s Introduction to the Second World War…is superb. It lays out information in clear, vivid paragraphs illustrated by dramatic period photographs. Highly recommended.

The Times, June 11, 2005

A fantastic book for young and old alike, and don't be put off if you're not usually interested in war books – this isn't one bit boring and it's not just for boys! One of my favourite books so far this year.

Waltham Forest Guardian, April 28, 2005

***

A selection of other book reviews from 1995 to 2003:

Book awards

Sektion 20
(Bloomsbury)

Shortlisted for:

The Northern Ireland Book Award 2012
The Leeds Book Award 2012
Historical Association Young Quills Award 2012

Buy Sektion 20 from Amazon

The Cabinet of Curiosities
(Bloomsbury)
Longlisted for the Carnegie

Shortlisted for:

The Historical Association Young Quills Award 2011

Buy Cabinet of Curiosities from Amazon

Ausländer
(Bloomsbury)
Longlisted for
The Carnegie Book award 2010

Shortlisted for:

2009
The Book Trust Book Award

2010
The Red House Book Award
The Northern Ireland Book Award
The Independent Booksellers Book Award
The Catalyst Book Award
Cumbria Spell-Binding Book Award
Cheshire Schools Book Award (Winner)
We Read Book Award (Winner)

2011
The North East Teenage Book Award
The Angus Book Award
1066 School’s Book Award
Kernow Youth Book Award
The French Tam Tam Book Prize
The Rome Book Festival Award
Portsmouth Book Award (Winner)
The Essex Book Award (Winner)
Calderdale Book of the Year (Winner)
Hamelin Associazione Culturale Book Prize, Bologna, 2011 (Winner)

Also nominated for a ‘Best Fiction for Young Adults’ award by the American Library Association, 2011

2012
Red Book Award, Falkirk

Also selected for ‘The Best Children's Books of the Year’ by the Bank Street Book Committee, New York.

Buy Ausländer from Amazon

Prison Ship
(Bloomsbury)
Shortlisted for the 2008 Warwickshire Book Award

One of six books chosen from a longlist of 100, this is the second instalment of the Powder Monkey trilogy, where Sam is transported to Australia.

Buy Prison Ship from Amazon

Heartbreak and heroism at the top and bottom of the world: from hapless Robert Falcon Scott and his doomed polar party to Norwegian Borge Ousland, strutting across the icecaps in 1993, with Jimi Hendrix on his Walkman. Plus a few more you may never have heard of, in this addition to the "True Stories" series.

Buy True Polar Adventures from Amazon

These tales of heroism take in cosmonauts, athletes, surgeons, firemen, soldiers, spies and even Evel Knievel. Part of a series of books I wrote for Usborne on Survival, Escape, Spies, Ghosts, Everest and Polar Explorers.

Buy True Stories of Heroes from Amazon

I edited and wrote this beautifully designed book with Kirsteen Rogers. Kirsteen wrote the majority of the text, but the sections on insects, micro- and nanotechnology, and the history of microscopes, are mine.

Buy The Complete Book of the Microscope from Amazon

One of a series of six historical newspaper spoofs I originated with designer Karen Tomlins, who had a brilliant eye for newspaper and advert design. Fergus Fleming and I wrote the books in the series between us, and this one was co-written. Quite the most fun I ever had writing and editing a set of books.

Buy The Medieval Messenger from Amazon

Co-written and edited with Marit Claridge, this is actually a highly-illustrated information book with additional quiz questions.

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