Rebecca Stead’s Liar & Spy has won the Guardian children’s fiction prize.

Julia Eccleshare, Guardian children’s books editor and chair of the judging panel for the prize, called Liar & Spy ‘an incredibly sensitive book. Its central characters are all children who have complexities in their lives which they are dealing with. It’s a novel about how children have to navigate the world, and it has an open-handedness which means that readers may be surprised as to where it finishes.’

Rebecca spoke to Claire Armitstead about writing, schoolyard bullying and growing up, and shares her top 10 American children’s classics you may have missed.

Liar & Spy is available now in bookshops and online, along with the Newbery Medal-winning When You Reach Me and Stead’s debut, First Light.