The shortlist for the best contemporary teenage fiction of 2006 has been announced.

The Booktrust Teenage Prize shortlist is as follows:

  • Siobhan Dowd - A Swift Pure Cry
  • Ally Kennen - Beast
  • Paul Magrs - Exchange
  • Anthony McGowan - Henry Tumour Doubleday
  • Marcus Sedgwick - The Foreshadowing
  • John Singleton - Angel Blood The Booktrust Teenage Prize was launched in 2003 to recognise and celebrate contemporary fiction written for teenagers.

Booktrust administers the prize with the support of writers, publishers, teachers, parents and libraries.

Mal Peet, chair of the judging panel comments: "I feel any one of the novels which has reached this stage is worthy of the Booktrust Teenage Prize and I hope all six writers will be recognised as, and feel themselves to be, winners.

"If the books have anything in common it is they all deal with serious, even very painful, subjects but do so with wonderful freshness and great style to grip teenage readers."

The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London on Thursday November 2.

Visit the website bookheads.org.uk for more information.