CILIP | Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal Winners

Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal Winners

Thoughts from some of the Carnegie Medal winners.

In recent years medal winners generally make a speech when accepting these awards in London and also join the YLG Awards Dinner at Annual Conference in September to have the awards presented again in front of the membership. They are also asked to speak at Umbrella Conferences when this is possible, to share with the wider CILIP membership. It has not always been the case that the ceremony was as YLG would have wished and “In the Realms of Gold” Keith Barker offers details of a variety of ‘situations’ over the years.

In recent years the awards ceremony have included a celebrity guest to present the medal to the winners. Some of the celebrities have included Michael Palin, Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Esther Rantzen, Martin Jarvis, Sarah Kennedy, Floella Benjamin, Martha Kearney, Nigella Lawson, Jeremy Paxman and Lizo Mzimba. But whatever the award ceremony situation, the winners and critics have had many opinions about the award themselves.

One winner referred to the Carnegie Medal as a chain stretching across the years, each link marking out a stage, a fashion, a literary phase, a way of thinking in the history of children’s book in Britain. The archives hold an interesting assortment of letters. Eleanor Farjeon wrote in 1957 “I am still a little bewildered with gratitude by all the kindness I have been receiving from your Association….Now I must thank you again. For this lovely honour which I accept with all my heart (on her Medal and Honorary membership) one of my greatest happiness’s has been hearing of the award of the Kate Greenaway award which has been bestowed on dear Ted Ardizzone.” Read Eleanor Farjeon's letter here -

EleanorFarjeonLetter.doc

Memories on receiving the Carnegie Medal – K M Peyton, July 2006.
This awful occasion is engraved in my memory and I will enjoy venting my feelings about what happened to me in 1969, the year I won it. I had been runner –up for the 3 preceding years, for THE PLAN FOR BIRDMARSH (1965), THUNDER IN THE SKY (1966) and Flambards(1967). The medal wasn’t awarded in 1966 but I was the runner-up for the non-award. Work that one out, I certainly never could! The year FLAMBARDS came out the award went to Alan Garner’s THE OWL SERVICE, a decision I could not fault, so it was the second book in my trilogy, THE EDGE OF THE CLOUDS for which I eventually got the award. I think it is a better book than FLAMBARDS so that was very satisfactory.

KathleenPeytonLetter.doc

In 1976 winner Gail E Hailey wrote “I am thrilled and honoured to be awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal”. She received her award on the 30th anniversary of YLG and also attended the YLG 30th celebration later that day.

Some thoughts (July 2006) on the Carnegie from Geraldine McCaughrean - I won the Carnegie with “A Pack of Lies” back in 1989 – quite literally a lifetime ago, since I was pregnant with my daughter Ailsa. I remember making the organizers nervous for fear I went into labour during my speech. My editor was rather taken aback at me winning it. “I’ve been trying for the Carnegie for years, and blow me, we won it with the ‘furniture book’! (He always thought of “A Pack of Lies “as the ‘furniture book’ having turned it down once as nothing more than a collection of short stories about furniture. I took it away and rewrote it – which proved quite worthwhile in the event, since it won both the Carnegie and the Guardian prize.)

GeraldineMcC.doc

Tim Bowler says - Winning the Carnegie Medal changed my life. I won it in 1998 with River Boy but it had never occurred to me that I would receive such an honour. The award is rightly venerated by authors and I had long regarded it as one of those privileges that are granted to other people. The first winner, the first of those "other people", was Arthur Ransome, the author hero of my childhood, and after him the list went on and on, great name after great name. I had no thought of ever winning such an award and when my editor rang to tell me River Boy was on the shortlist, I thought he was joking....

TIMBOWLER.doc

Beverley Naidoo has some thoughts on winning -(Youth Libraries Review 2002) - It has been an extraordinary year – personally and politically. I was delighted and honoured to be shortlisted for the Carnegie. That was the real accolade, being part of such a strong shortlist for an award that is the most democratic of all the book awards. When Elaine McQuade from Penguin announced over the phone ‘Beverley, you’ve won!’, the words carried a lightning charge that I was not expecting to be aimed at me. Other people get struck, don’t they? From initially pathetic parries such as ‘Oh come on Elaine, you must be joking!’, I proceeded to full-scale cross-interrogation ‘How do you know? Who told you?’. It was only when I heard what sounded like the entire Puffin office shouting and cheering in the background – smothered by a medley of ‘Shush, shush, shush, it’s a secret!’ - that my brain began to sizzle.
Read the full text here -

WinningtheCarnegieYLRSpring2002.doc
Read Beverley's acceptance speech here -

CarnegieAcceptanceSpeech13701.doc

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Updated: 06 May 2008

Youth Libraries Group

Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal Winners