The two most prestigious awards in the UK are the Carnegie Medal for outstanding writing and the Kate Greenaway Medal for distinguished illustration. The first stage of the 2010 process has begun with the lists of nominations for both awards announced overnight. From here it becomes: shortlist (23 April 2010); winners (24 June 2010).
The lists are long, and keen readers will want to devour as much as they can get their hands on from the Carnegie list, Those who love illustration will savour the titles in the Greenaway list.
Eagle-eyed Judith Ridge alerted us to the nomination announcements via twitter, where she noted that the beautiful and poignant Harry and Hopper (a Margaret Wild / Freya Blackwood collaboration) was in the running for the Greenaway.
The shadowing site will be up and running soon, and worth keeping an eye on.
Image of Kate Greenaway used under Creative Commons licence.
Is this the longest longlist in the lit awards world? Well even so, as this Irish award consists of nominations from libraries around the globe, there are sure to be many titles here for the 2009 award that will suit your reading taste.
The award is open to works of fiction written in, or translated into, English and published within a specified period of time, and as usual there are plenty of Australians on the longlist.
Fiction Focus was planning to extrapolate all the Australian nominations, but being a bit slow to tackle this task, we are happy to see that Perry Middlemiss at the Matilda blog has already done the work.
WAYRBA is a children’s choice award. The Hoffman Award is for the best book by a WA writer. It is named after the late Leila Hoffman, a long-standing supporter of school libraries and promoter of children’s literature in WA. It was she who drove the implementation of WAYRBA, which began in 1980.
The call for titles for the 2010 awards is already on. Visit the website for details.
The judges couldn’t separate Kate’s book from Christine Harris’s delightful Audrey title – Audrey goes to Town, one aimed at a much younger readership.
The Girlfriend books all have a romantic element, of course, but often tackle deeper issues too. Winter of Grace examines aspects of belief, faith and social activism while maintaining a credible romantic plot. Congratulations to Kate and Christine. This is one of the less trumpeted awards, but the biennial prize is one to covet. Read about past winners here.
Meanwhile, over in Germany, Shaun Tan continues his award-winning way, taking out the 2009 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for Geschichten aus der Vorstadt des Universums, better known to us as ……..
Gosh, he’s good, and still so young! What delights await us in years to come?
David Small’s graphic memoir Stitches has been named as a finalist in the Young People’s Literature category of the 2009 US National Book Awards.
While there has been some debate as to whether this is the right category for his story, there is no doubting the power of it, as the book trailer reveals. You could do worse than to use the simplicity of this trailer as a starting point to analyse how other graphic novels / memoirs are constructed. There is no sign of publication of Stitches in Australia yet, but it looks like one to watch for.
The CMIS database has a list of graphic novels and memoirs here.
They are now online. Among the recipients are Sir Terry Pratchett (Nation), whose speech was read in absentia; Neil Gaiman (also absent but a video of him accepting the award as well as his speech is here). That’s for The Graveyard Book, of course; and M.T. Anderson in person for …Octavian Nothing II – The Kingdom on the Waves.
The entire ceremony has been captured in 15 videos on the Horn Book site. The marvellous Margaret Mahy and partner in illustration Polly Dunbar get guernseys too.
Earlier this week our TrailerTuesday featured the winner of the 2004 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, How I Live Now. And a few minutes ago,we blogged the shortlist for the silver Inky Awards, where Mal Peet’s Exposure has made the cut.
In overnight news, this is now the book that has won the 2009 Guardian Award. Nice synchronicity.
The Guardian children’s fiction prize is the only award judged by children’s authors. It was launched in 1967; previous winners include Ted Hughes, Jacqueline Wilson and Philip Pullman. Last year’s prize was taken by Patrick Ness, who judged this year’s award along with Celia Rees and Andy Stanton. Ness called Exposure “a terrific book”. “It’s really exciting and meaty and ambitious,” he said, “terrifically told and put together.”
I spent some of the happiest days of my summer reading Hilary Mantel’s utterly brilliant Wolf Hall, and would go so far as to say that it’s the best modern novel I’ve ever read. No, really. I’ve already told Sarah Crown at the Guardian that if it doesn’t win the Booker, I plan to throw myself under a train, or at least be in an extremely bad mood for months to come. Dear readers*, if you haven’t got yourself a copy, get one.
The critics comment on the winner in this podcast from The Guardian.
The Fiction Focus Blog is published by Curriculum Materials Information Services (CMIS), Department of Education and Training, Western Australia. It is designed to provide news about current events, resources and research to assist teachers and teacher librarians engage teenagers with books and reading.
The two most prestigious awards in the UK are the Carnegie Medal for outstanding writing and the Kate Greenaway Medal for distinguished illustration. The first stage of the 2010 process has begun with the lists of nominations for both awards announced overnight. From here it becomes: shortlist (23 April 2010); winners (24 June 2010).
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Posted by judij
They are now 
