The Catalyst Book Award is NLC’s annual celebration of teen fiction. The 2013 Catalyst Book longlist launch took place on, Thursday 29th November 2012, at Coatbridge library. 2009 Catalyst Award winner, Theresa Breslin, was the guest speaker and announced this year’s longlist titles to the audience which included two classes from Coatbridge High School. She entertained the gathering with talk of her book research travels to Italy and Russia and took part in a question and answer session.  

 Each year S3 pupils from Clyde Valley High become involved in the Catalyst Book Award. As part of their English lessons pupils visit the school library to select, read and write book reviews on the Catalyst blog. Pupils vote for the titles which they wish to see selected for the Shortlist of four books. The winning book will be chosen from one of these four titles, again, voted for by pupils from North Lanarkshire schools.

Next June pupils from CVHS will attend the award ceremony which will be hosted in one of North Lanarkshire’s secondary schools. Last year the ceremony took place in, Our Lady’s High School, Motherwell where two pupils from CVHS, Laura Kilpatrick and Ellen Lees, had the honour of introducing the shortlisted author, Keren David, to the audience.Mr Lanagan and Miss McGough are hoping that this year’s 3.1 will enjoy working on Catalyst as much as pupils from previous years have.

Theresa Breslin during her presentation at Coatbridge Library. Breslin’s book “Divided City” is one of the most requested books at the CVHS library.