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Melvin Burgess is a British writer of children's fiction. He became notorious in 1996 with the publication of Junk, about heroin-addicted teenagers on the streets of Bristol. At least in Britain, Junk became one of the best-known young adult books of the decade. Burgess won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British author. For the 10th anniversary in 2007 it was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite.
Burgess was born in the Municipal Borough of Twickenham, Middlesex, England. He completed his first book accepted for publication in his mid-thirties: a novel, The Cry of the Wolf, published by Andersen Press in 1990. It was highly commended by the librarians for the Carnegie Medal, which Gillian Cross won for Wolf.
Andersen published all of Burgess' books through the mid-1990s. The Baby and Fly Pie was another highly commended runner up for the Carnegie Medal, a distinction that was roughly annual. Junk won the 1996 Medal and also the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize judged by a panel of British children's writers, which The Guardian confers only once upon any author. Burgess is one of six authors, all 1967 to 1996, who won the Carnegie Medal for their Guardian Prize-winning books.
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