Two Wolves

Tristan Bancks is a children's and teen author with a background in acting and filmmaking.

His books include Two Wolves, the My Life series (weird-funny-gross short stories featuring Tom Weekly) and Mac Slater, Coolhunter.

His short films as writer and director have won a number of awards and have screened widely in festivals and on TV.

Judges’ comments

Thirteen-year-old Ben Silver's family has never taken a holiday together, so when his parents arrive home and bundle Ben and his sister into the car and head up the highway, he knows something isn't right. And here begins a suspenseful and morally charged journey into the Australian bush and into a family's dark past.

Author Tristan Bancks reinvents the survival story for a new generation of readers. Two Wolves offers the intensity that young readers hunger for, while also mapping a moral universe that his readers will relate to and explore.

A remote cabin in a forest, a bag full of cash and mind set for survival are the elements powering this dramatic novel for older children. Ben Silver dreams of growing up to be a policeman: his father sarcastically nicknames him 'Cop', and Ben makes short animated films about crime and capture.

But faced with the real life demands of his threatening father, a need to protect his young sister, and his own survival as the children escape into the bush, can Ben make the pieces of his life fit together?