The shortlist for this year’s Guardian children’s fiction prize has been announced. Congratulations to UK authors Tanya Landman and Alex Wheatle, US author Brian Selznick and Melbourne’s own – Zana Fraillon!

The four books on this year’s shortlist will transport young readers all over the world, and across time.

Tanya Landman’s Hell and High Water is a heart-stopping tale of a young man’s attempt to clear his father’s name set in eighteenth-century England. Alex Wheatle’s Crongton Knights is a funny, moving madcap adventure that takes place on a fictional council estate. Brian Selznick’s The Marvels uses words and illustrations to weave together two stories – one following the sole survivor of a shipwreck in 1766, and the other following a runaway boy in 1990. And Zana Fraillon’s The Bone Sparrow is an urgent, powerful and beautifully-written story of a boy who has never known life outside an immigration detention centre in Australia.

The Guardian children’s fiction prize is the only children’s book award judged by children’s authors. The winning book will be announced on 17 November.