CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) awards the Carnegie Medal for an outstanding book for children and young people, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for an outstanding book in terms of illustration. Every year, thousands of schools shadow the medals and use the shadowing website to post reviews and share their views. Last year, a special site was added to celebrate 70 years of the medals with a living archive of information about all the past winners. This year's winners have just been announced: they are Philip Reeve and Emily Gravett.
Reeve won the Carnegie for his novel Here lies Arthur, a dark retelling of the Arthurian legend which portrays the king as more of a gangster than a hero, and Merlin (or Myrddin) as a hard nosed Alastair Campbell type who tries to build him up into a leader who can unite the British against the Saxons. The Telegraph published an article about the award last week. Reeve has already won three other major prizes, the Nestle Children's Gold Award (2002) and the Blue Peter Book of the Year (2003) for his first book, Mortal engines , and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 2006 for A darkling plain. He has also entered the debate on age-ranging, which I have covered a couple of times. According to the Bookseller, he supports putting age guidance on books, which he feels will give him some say over where his titles are stocked in bookshops. Click here for those in stock at Jordanhill Library.
Gravett's award winning title is Little Mouse's big book of fears. The Guardian covered her on both June 27th and June 28th. One of the points of interest is that she used rat pee to discolour the pages of this book about a phobic mouse who eventually, after much nervous nibbling, feels better when he realises that even humans can be cowardy custards too. This is Gravett's fourth title - she also won the Greenaway medal for her debut picture book, Wolves. Again, check here for our holdings.
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