2 Greenaway Reviews

We will be reviewing all the Carnegie and Greenaway titles over the next few weeks. To start with, Cherry Riddell reviews two of the Greenaway titles. Cherry volunteers in this library one day a week and is also a serving teacher, so her views are particularly useful for teaching students.

The CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded for outstanding and original illustrations in children’s literature. The titles below are both in stock at Jordanhill Campus Library.

Riddell, Chris. (text by Neil Gaiman). (2008). The Graveyard Book. Bloomsbury.

Nobody Owens – nicknamed Bod – is a perfectly normal boy except for one thing – he lives in a graveyard and is looked after by ghosts. Danger and adventure lurk everywhere for Bod in the ghoulish graveyard and in one place in particular: The Land of the Living, where Bod’s parents were killed by the frightening and mysterious Jack. Twists and creepy turns make for an exciting and spine tingling adventure story for children age 9 and up.
Chris Riddell’s ghoulishly detailed illustrations of the main characters such as Jack, Eliza and Bod bring this story to life in a vivid way. The illustrations are drawn in black and white which is fitting to the macabre tone of the story.
Children will have fun finding out if the description of the character in their imagination matches that of the ones found in the book. Perhaps in class children could draw their own illustrations and compare them to Chris Riddell’s, thus encouraging pupils imagination and prediction skills.

Schwarz, Viviane. (2008). There Are Cats In This Book. Walker.

There are cats in this book – Tiny, Moonpie and Andre – who love nothing better than to chase wool, hide in boxes and chase fish. They are waiting to play with the reader through lift up flaps and hidden pictures. Aimed at young children, P1-2 level, this lovely book attracts attention straight away just by picking it up, due to the cleverly hidden cats on the title page.
Simply but expressively illustrated, this book will capture a young child’s attention and delight by its clever use of not so obvious flaps and hidden pictures. Children will have great fun with this book, reading on their own or with the whole class.

Carnegie & Greenaway Awards

Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell have been shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie and Greenaway medals respectively - for the same book! Neil wrote and Chris illustrated The Graveyard Book - a double nomination that hasn't happened since 1980 when Peter Dickinson and Michael Foreman were both nominated for City of gold (Peter Dickinson went on to win the Carnegie).

The Carnegie shortlist (for writing) also boast two previous winners, Philip Reeve and Terry Pratchett, and all eight titles feature survival in the face of challenging issues such as natural disaster, racism or terrorism - and not a vampire in sight.

The Greenaway shortlist (for illustration) features seven first timers, as well as Chris Riddell who has won twice before, and has a varied cast of dogs, cats, forest fauna, rabbits in top hats, graveyard ghosts, imaginary headgear, a bizarre crowning glory and a band of kids determined to get their own back on a horrible teacher.

Scottish Book Trust has recently toured with David Roberts and Chris Riddell and the links lead to video highlights of the tours (and they have many other useful videos too). Their audio page also features material on Chris Riddell and Neil Gaiman. For more recent stuff on Neil, see this trailer for Instructions, a new picture book, via CMIS Primary Focus, and follow his positive views on libraries (great guy!) via the Book Case blog and a podcast from Minnesota Public Radio

The Carnegie shortlist on Amazon:



The Greenaway shortlist on Amazon:



And of course we either have, or will have very soon, all these titles to borrow from the library. The winners will be announced on 24th June.

Paul and Chris tour the Highlands

In September 2009, Scottish Book Trust took Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, the creators of the multi-million selling Edge Chronicles, on a two-week long Scottish Friendly Children's Book Tour of schools in the Highlands of Scotland. They've created an 8 minute video of the highlights.