Guardian children's fiction prize longlist: 'Exciting, beautiful, bonkers'

No space for 'teenage misery lit' on a selection of novels for children that 'make make-believe seem real'

As the Carnegie medal draws fire over its disturbingly dark choice of winner, the Guardian children's fiction prize has announced a longlist that moves "beyond the confines of the current fad for teenage misery lit".

Ranging from Flora and Ulysses, the story of a squirrel narrowly saved from a vacuum cleaner, which won Kate DiCamillo the Newbery medal in the US earlier this year, to Horrid Henry author Francesca Simon's vision of the gods returning to earth to seek fame as celebrities, The Lost Gods, the longlisted titles are "challenging, funny, exciting, beautiful, thoughtful, bonkers", said judge and author Gillian Cross.

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