Paul
Dowswell

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

Book reviews

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. Lukas's excitingly precarious life is typical of his society's, and one boy's stumbling involvement in great events and issues makes a powerful and compelling story.

School Librarian

Highly enjoyable historical adventure set in Prague at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor at the end of the 16th century. 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 is a superlative, at times almost agonisingly compelling, piece of historical fiction. The climactic escape to freedom is pure muck-sweat tension.

The Financial Times

Ausländer ranks among the very best of wartime historical fiction.

Financial Times

A breakthrough into the top league for Dowswell, …a hugely impressive thriller set during the Second World War… (with) a high tension finale. 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] steps outside the victim culture of novels such as those by Morris Gleitzman and comes close to classics such as ‘The Silver Sword’. Admirers of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjama’ should look at this novel as a model of imaginative sympathy. 

The Times

An exceptional novel, persuasive in its details, with an utterly compelling story and powerful message.

Waterstones Books Quarterly 

A profound and moving story… Dowswell is an historian who has captured beautifully the intensity of the time, (and) the fear and trepidation of young Germans during the Second World War.

Birmingham Post

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… Ultimately, it is testament to the impulse that will always exist in people to help others, and to live life according to their own moral code.

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. Impeccable research does not get in the way of a heart-stopping read.

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… Peter is an ordinary boy who is almost corrupted by terrible ideals, and this is his moving, thought-provoking story.

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

***

Once again the author has produced a fast moving, action packed adventure story… This will grip pupils and prompt some thinking on the nature of war.

Historical Fiction Organisation

an effective and totally riveting tale…

School Library Association ‘Boys into Books’ recommendations

(Dowswell) has researched his period well, and is concerned not only with putting across the emotional repercussions of naval life, but also with creating as accurate a setting as possible while maintaining a gripping intensity of action.

Write Away

Dowswell delivers another high-quality adventure…

The Big Issue

***

(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

The venturesome and dangerous life of a sailor in 1801 is vividly brought to life. Adventure fans will not be disappointed with the daring rescues, shark attacks, espionage, and heated battles that fill the pages of this historically accurate and vastly entertaining sequel.

School Library Journal 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

Book of the Week
What makes this book stand out is that it never shies away from the grimness and violence of life. Dowswell clearly knows his subject well and has put a lot of research into the historical and Naval details. There’s hope that books like this will revive the fashion for reading old-fashioned swashbuckling tales…

Big Issue November 2006

***

A thrilling tale, exceptionally well written and affecting

The Times  March 11, 2006

…more vivid than a Patrick O’Brian novel. From the moment they open the book to see an exquisite exploded drawing of the frigate Miranda, all children worth their salt will read on to the end.

The Independent  October 21, 2005

Conjuring the world of 19th Century Britain with sensitivity, energy and real attention to detail… Powder Monkey buzzes with an authenticity which older children will surely find enthralling.

The Big Issue  October 17-23, 2005

No false heroics, no Yo-ho-hoing, this is a report from the front line… a fine novel

Carousel  Autumn 2005

…amazingly well researched and exciting… vivid and fascinating.

The Tablet  October 29, 2005

I was gripped from start to finish.   …the book is aimed at kids around 12-14, but for its sheer attention to detail and thrilling plot, it’s sure to appeal to older generations too.

Wolverhampton Chronicle  September 29, 2005

I wouldn’t normally pick up an adventure novel… but the pace never drops in this books and I was gripped all the way through. … This is a brilliant novel.

Daniel Smith, aged 13 Woman Magazine
‘Great new books for Christmas’, December 12, 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 brilliant book, full of interesting facts and pictures about this terrible time.

Jewish Chronicle, May 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

If you don’t know much about the 1939-1945 conflict… this beautiful book is a timely insight.

Sunday Times May 8, 2005

***

A selection of other book reviews from 1995 to 2003:

Book awards

Ausländer
(Bloomsbury)
Longlisted for the Carnegie

Shortlisted for:

The Book Trust Book Award 2009
The Red House Book Award 2010
The Northern Ireland Book Award 2010
The Independent Booksellers Book Award 2010
The Catalyst Book Award 2010
Cheshire Schools Book Award 2010 (Winner)
We Read Book Award 2010 (Winner)
Cumbria Spell-Binding Book Award 2010
The Essex Book Award 2011 (Winner)
The North East Teenage Book Award 2011
The Angus Book Award 2011
Calderdale Book of the Year 2011
1066 School’s Book Award 2011
Kernow Youth Book Award 2011
The French Tam Tam Book Prize 2011
The Rome Book Festival Award 2011

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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