The voice of the vulnerable child carries for Miles Franklin

Vulnerable children are at the heart of the novels shortlisted for this year’s $60,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Shortlisted author Sofie Laguna at the announcement of the short list for this year's Miles Franklin Award at the State Library of Victoria.

Vulnerable children are at the heart of the novels shortlisted for this year’s $60,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Three of the five works — Sonya Hartnett’s Golden Boys, Sofie Laguna’s The Eye of the Sheep and Joan London’s The Golden Age — have children as their central characters.

The other two shortlisted books are Christine Piper’s After Darkness, set during and after World War II, and Craig Sherborne’s Tree Palace, centred on a group of itinerants in rural Victoria.

“Wouldn’t it be great if this was a turning point, where we are valuing the experience of children,’’ Laguna said after the shortlist announcement in Melbourne yesterday.

‘‘It’s important because it is our experience as children that dictates the adults we become, and the sort of society we end up with.’’

The Eye of the Sheep, Laguna’s second novel for adults, is told from the perspective of Jimmy Flick, who seems to be on the autism spectrum, though his creator prefers to describe him as “an original boy”. Growing up in 1980s Melbourne, Jimmy has it hard: his devoted mother suffers a chronic illness, his father is an unpredictable alcoholic and the family is struggling financially.

Laguna, who has a four-year-old and a seven-month-old, said children such as Jimmy were “the people who matter least in our society … I am angry on their behalf, I want justice on their behalf, sometimes I want revenge on their behalf. It is like a fuel for me.’’

Hartnett’s Golden Boys, also set in 1980s Melbourne, focuses on a loose gang of children and the strange adults in their lives, and has intimations of the sort of child sexual abuse making headlines today.

London’s The Golden Age explores a teenage romance in a polio convalescent home in 1950s Perth.

Piper, who won The Australian-Vogel’s Literary Award last year for After Darkness, is the only debut novelist on the shortlist. London and Hartnett have been shortlisted previously, while Laguna was longlisted for her 2008 debut One Foot Wrong.

Sherborne, the only male writer in contention, for his second novel, said the news had muted his “normal rowdiness”. “When good and important things happen to me I generally go quiet, and this has rendered me very quiet. I usually don’t like surprises but this surprise I can take. This surprise I like very much.’’

The winner will be announced on June 23.