Carnegie Shortlist 2012

It's that time of year again and our Shadowers are fully geared up to shadow the Carnegie award again.  It's a brilliant shortlist this year, featuring some debut novels, as well as some from established favourites.  I was delighted to see A Monster Calls on both the Greenaway and Carnegie list, and am really hoping for a Greenaway win for it!  Of the eight shortlisted novels, I have read only three this year, so I'm looking forward to reading the rest.  I'm starting with Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys which already has me completely hooked only a few pages in.  


Our Shadowers will have a tough job choosing only one of these to win! 

The shortlist is:
 

David Almond MY NAME IS MINA 


Mina writes and writes in an empty notebook, and through her stories, thoughts, lessons and dreams, her journal grows into something extraordinary. A prequel to the author's CILIP Carnegie Medal-winning novel, "Skellig". 


 

Lissa Evans SMALL CHANGE FOR STUART

Ten years old and small for his age, Stuart Horten moves to the dreary town of Beeton, away from all his friends. But before long he is swept up in a quest to find his great-uncle's lost workshop, a place stuffed with trickery, magic – and danger.

Sonya Hartnett THE MIDNIGHT ZOO


Under cover of darkness, two brothers cross a war-ravaged country carrying a secret bundle. One night they stumble across a town that has been reduced to smouldering ruins. Amidst the wreckage is a zoo, filled with animals in need of hope.

 



Ali Lewis EVERYBODY JAM


Danny lives in middle of the outback. His older brother Jonny was killed in an accident last year, but no-one ever talks about it. Meanwhile his sister is pregnant, the rains haven't come and it's time for the annual cattle muster, during which Danny is determined to prove he can fill his brother's shoes.

 


Andy Mulligan TRASH


Three friends, Raphael, Gardo and Rat live on a heap of trash and spend their days sifting through other people's rubbish. One day they find something extraordinary – a deadly secret. From that moment onwards, they are hunted without mercy, and their lives will never be the same again.

Patrick Ness A MONSTER CALLS The monster shows up after midnight. It isn't the one Conor has been expecting; the one from his nightmare; the one he has had nearly every night since his mother started her treatment. But this new monster is ancient, and wild, and it wants something just as dangerous from Conor: the truth. Annabel Pitcher MY SISTER LIVES ON THE MANTELPIECE Ten year old Jamie hasn't cried since his sister's death five years before. Though everyone kept saying they would get better with time; things are now worse than ever. Dad drinks, Mum's gone and Jamie still has a whole heap of unanswered questions.

 


Ruta Septys BETWEEN SHADES OF GREY


One night, fifteen-year old Lina, her mother and brother are hauled from their home by Soviet guards, thrown into cattle cars and sent away. They are being deported to Siberia. An unimaginable and harrowing journey has begun, but Lina refuses to give up hope of seeing home and loved ones again.


Details from the Carnegie website.


As last year, we'll be posting our reviews both on our student blog, and over on the CILIP Shadowing site.  This year I'm hoping for more fan art, fan fic and the launch of a themed cake baking competition!  Fingers crossed for some author involvement too - watch this space... 

Guardian Young Critics

Today is the deadline for the Guardian Young Critics competition, which has kept our reviewers busy over the summer!  They've had a great time working their way through the longlist and discussing their opinions.  So far My Name is Mina and My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece have emerged as the favourites, so they were surprised to find one of these off the shortlist.  The shortlist has caused quite a stir and some interesting discussions.  The conclusion that they came to was that a shortlist for children's fiction that is chosen by adults will fall short.  They were reminded that the Carnegie shortlist is chosen by adults too, but was shouted down when they recalled that the Carnegie shortlist is chosen by librarians, predominantly children's librarians, who they felt would have a must more accurate view of what young readers want.

So, what do you think?  Are we putting too much emphasis on prizes for children's fiction judged by adults?

Read our readers' fantastic reviews on their blog.

Carnegie Day!

Erg, it's taken a week to get this posted, sorry!  Review Days, Activities Week... Things are supposed to wind down for the end of term but it seems that the opposite happens up here.

On Thursday 24^th June, ten very overexcited, hyperactive Reading Ninjas and two members of staff travelled into London to attend the Carnegie Award ceremony.  We’d been expecting a nightmare with the Tube as there was a strike that day, but with a little assertive platform management and some inventive squeezing (our students had clearly been practising playing Sardines) we managed to get everyone on to the same train and made it from Kings Cross to Green Park in time for a gorgeous sunny brunch in the park, without losing anyone. 

[caption id="attachment_64" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Green Park Brunch"][/caption]

Finding BAFTA was another matter!  Clearly the shops along Piccadilly have been employing cunning psychological techniques designed to ensnare the minds of teenagers, as suddenly it was impossible to walk more than ten paces without someone stopping to look at shiny things.  We made it along the road, only to have Will, our official map reader, inform us that we were on the wrong side.  It was at this point that we realised none of us knew what BAFTA looked like, and that if it were even slightly inconspicuous or placed side by side with shiny shops, we’d probably miss it and walk straight on by.  Fortunately, Marcus Sedgwick, who had already met some of my students at an SLS event on Tuesday, appeared behind us at the crossing and kindly showed us the way!  He was a perfect gentleman and put us all at ease, greeting those he knew and asking how they were.

Once inside and clutching CILIP bags and name badges, our students were a little nervous about setting off to accost their favourite authors.  They’d been passing round a printout of their photos* and knew who was who, but took a little encouragement to take their autograph booklets out.  After their first successes, they were soon whizzing around the room in rather alarming manner, taking photos, collecting autographs and having their books signed.  Every couple of minutes a star-struck figure in school uniform would appear in front of me, waving a signature or a digital camera to show me who they’d just met.  

[caption id="attachment_65" align="aligncenter" width="211" caption="Elle's autograph collection"][/caption]

The event was organised really well, we were given a minder who helped us out, told where things were and when the time came for the ceremony, guided the students to their seats near the front.  James Naughtie hosted the presentation, speaking to an enthusiastic audience in comfortable theatre seats.  I hear his voice on the Today programme nearly every morning, and to see him speak in real life was surprisingly strange!

Freya Blackwood won the Kate Greenaway medal for her work on Harry & Hopper and Neil Gaiman won the Carnegie for The Graveyard Book.  I think I heard Tegan mutter “Yes!” from down at the front!  Gaiman’s speech centred on the importance of libraries and the personal significance of the Carnegie medal.  For an audience of people who were predominantly from a library background, this was exactly what we needed to hear, following several weeks of dismal projections of library spending, cuts, and a dismissal of the role of a trained librarian.  There were several members of the audience dabbing at their eyes before he finished speaking. You can watch a video of his acceptance speech here, and Freya Blackwood’s here. 

Drinks and nibbles followed, with the students collecting their remaining signatures while they waited for Neil Gaiman to be released from a round of interviews.  As the time edged on, Miss C and I were increasingly worried that we’d have to leave and head back to Herts before he emerged, but luckily he appeared just in time, only to be swamped by a crowd of excited people.  What struck me about him, indeed what struck me about all of the authors present, was their fantastic generosity in dealing with their readers.  Though it must have been a tense day for all of them, they were without fail kind, receptive and charming with everyone, spending time talking with all of their fans, drawing them pictures, posing for photographs. 

[caption id="attachment_66" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Posing at BAFTA"][/caption]

The highlight of the day was seeing map-reader Will meet his new hero, Patrick Ness.  Will enjoyed the Chaos Walking trilogy as much as I did and spent a long time shyly hiding before he was propelled forward to get his book signed.  His absolute excitement and delight on meeting Ness was only compounded the following day when he saw that he’d said hello to him on his blog.  A screenshot was immediately taken, enlarged, printed and passed around for all to admire. 

I’d like to pass on a huge thank you to all of the short listed authors and illustrators, who were just wonderful, and also to CILIP for inviting us to go.  If we weren’t exempt from entering for the next million** years, I know my lot would already be planning how to win again.  And how to kidnap authors.

[caption id="attachment_67" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="We won!"][/caption]

*Overhearing discussions at the station, I learned that this was part of an elaborate kidnap plan on the part of the students, whereby their favourite authors would be lured into returning to the school with us, then shut in a room with nothing but food, water and a computer (but not one connected to the internet as they might request rescuing). They’d be forced to write new and exciting novels, dedicated to their captors.  I asked them if any of them had been reading Stephen King and they all said no and looked confused.  

**Three.

Images courtesy of Abi and Elle.

Carnegie Reading: The Story So Far...

I’m getting near the end of my Carnegie reading journey, with only one and a half books left to read.  Thought it might be time to share my thoughts on what I’ve read so far. 

The Ask and The Answer

It’s quite hard to explain quite how much I love this book.  The writing is superb, and the voices of the narrating characters so clear and unique.  It’s original, exciting, and very clever.  So why don’t I thnk it’ll win?  I can’t separate my reactions to this book from my reactions to The Knife of Never Letting Go or Monsters of Men.  In my mind they are all integral to each other, the story of Viola and Todd though told through three volumes, is one story and I don’t have any sense of The Ask and the Answer as a stand alone book.  I don’t think this is to its detriment at all – to have a story maintain its momentum so perfectly, to never loose sight of its true core, to continue and carry us with it through so many pages and then not to leave us feeling short changed through its ending is a massive and unusual achievement. 

The Graveyard Book

I really enjoyed this book when I first read it and was happy to re-read it when the shortlist was announced.  The graveyard setting and Bod’s interactions with its inhabitants are absolutely wonderful, and the contrast between the light and freely given love that the graveyard folk offer Bod and the seam of darkness that runs through his life with the presence of the Jacks works so well, almost in a (dare I say it?) Harry Potter way.  There are areas of grey in this novel though, with characters who you might expect to be evil proving to be champions.  The criticism that I’ve heard of this book is also my own; that in many ways it is episodic and this made it (though I love Neil Gaiman dearly) at times easy to put down.  This must be quite a common response though, as I found a chapter lifted entirely from it and published under the guise of a stand alone story in Dark Alchemy, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois.

Chains

I really enjoyed this historical novel and learned a lot about American history!  Much of the subject matter was very challenging and the sheer powerlessness suffered by those in slavery is never far from a reader’s consciousness.  The tyranny of those who felt that they owned them was sometimes difficult to read about.  Isabel was easy to identify with and her inner strength and love for her sister was both touching and heartbreaking as the events of the novel unfolded.  Her sense of determination was tinged with the apparent futility of her struggle, though the reader is always aware that slavery was in the end abolished, and the hope that she would have a chance at freedom.

Revolver

The sense of intense cold and danger lace through this book like taut, thin wires that could trip and cut if you fell.  Though I have two books to finish, this is my favourite to win.  The apparent simplicity of the main narrative is set against flashbacks to the protagonist’s father’s experiences and the events that set the current situation in motion.  What I really enjoyed was the complex weaving of the types of danger faced by the man character, Sig.  There’s the danger of the situation: the stranger who arrives at the cabin.  There’s the danger of the climate: the intense cold of the winter and the very real possibility of freezing to death. There’s the psychological danger of loss and disintegration, symbolised by the presence of his father’s corpse on the table, and there’s the personal danger, the choice that Sig has to make: the tension between the fascination of an object, the revolver, and the horror of what it can do if used for its sole purpose.  Love it.

Fever Crumb

This was my first foray into Reeve’s writing, and the world of Mortal Engines.  I’m always a little cautious about entering a world that’s already long established, but it wasn’t long before the narrative had me rattling along with full acceptance of Scriven and land ships!  I grew quiclly attached to the characters and know that I’ll return to read about them again, and have added the original Mortal Engines books to my TBR pile.  What I particularly loved about this novel was the humour in the names of things, the way that Reeve played with words was lovely, for example the Orbital Moat Way, and the way that he integrated elements of our everyday technology into this possible future.  A lovely book on which to base discussions about fantasy vs science fiction!

Nation

I must confess that I’m not a Terry Pratchett fan at all.  Though I grew up in a family of Pratites, there’s always been something about his writing that just didn’t agree with me.  Book blogger friends who read Nation swore that I would love it, then students who started it declared that they hated it.  I was all set to smugly plough through it and revel in my inevitable dislike, but alas, I loved it.  I do fear though that it’s a little complex for the majority of its target audience.  The narrative appeals to younger readers, while the style suits older ones.  I have constructed a Venn diagram to illustrate the problem.

[caption id="attachment_56" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Nation enjoyment diagram"][/caption]

 See, I'm a technical wizard.  Ahem.

 I'm three quarters of the way through The Vanishing of Katherina Linden and enjoying it, but have been told I have to wait for the wonderful ending!  Rowan the Strange  has been largely left behind so far, but I'm really looking forward to it.  From what I've read so far, I'd love it if The Ask and the Answer won, I'd be almost equally happy with Revolver.  Though Nation may do well, I doubt it will be the Shadowers' choice.  What do you think?

News of our competition winning were very well received by the Shadowing group!  There were squeals, jumps and quite a lot of 'OMG OMG!'s.  Very gratifying.  Usually to arrange a school trip, we have to give six weeks notice, so I was a little wary when I took the pieces of paper over to the Bursar's office to start trying to make arrangments.  The lovely lovely trips organiser is being an absolute star and helping me to get everything sorted, so we will go to the ball! Phew.  Gold stars and thumbs up to school support staff everywhere (but particularly here).

The Carnegie Shortlist is coming!

This Friday, the Carnegie shortlist will be announced, and the race will be on to read the nominated books and review them all before the winner is announced on the 24th of June.

The KS3 Reading Group will be taking on the task of shadowing the awards, following a very similar process to the one taken by the judges.  Before the winner is announced, this group will come together as Shadowing judges and announce their own winner, based on their readings and opinions on the shortlisted titles.  They'll be recording their progress on their Wiki page and cross-posting to the Carnegie Shadowing site if you'd like to shadow the Shadowers*.

Last year, the judges and Shadowers disagreed on their final choices.  The Shadowers chose Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go as their favourite, while the judges chose Siobhan Dowd's Bog Child as the final winner. 

We'd love to hear what you think of the process, and whether the judges or the Shadowers should be the final decision makers.  Should a prize like this be awarded by the books' target audience?

If you'd be interested in joining them, please see Miss Adkins in the library as soon as possible! 

*Which I imagine is much like watching the Watchmen.