Carnegie Children's Award

The Carnegie Medal is awarded annually to the writer of an outstanding book for children by children's librarians.

Year Title, Winning Author, Publisher

2002 Ruby Holler, Sharon Creech, Bloomsbury Children's Books
2001 The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, Terry Pratchett, Doubleday
2000 The Other Side of Truth, Beverley Naidoo, Puffin
1999 Postcards from No Man's Land - Chambers, Aidan
1998 Skellig - Almond David
1997 Riverboy - Bowler, Tim
1996 Junk Burgess - Burgess, Melvin
1995 His Dark Materials:Northern Lights - Pullman, Philip
1994 Whispers in the Graveyard - Breslin, Theresa
1993 Stone Cold - Swindells, Robert
1992 Flour Babies - Fine, Anne
1991 Dear Nobody - Doherty, Berline
1990 Wolf - Cross, Gillian
1989 Goggle-eyes - Fine, Anne
1988 A Pack of Lies - McCaughrean, Geraldine
1987 The Ghost Drum - Price, Susan
1986 Granny was a Buffer Girl - Doherty, Berlie
1985 Storm - Crossley Holland, Kevin
1984 The Changeover - Mahy, Margaret
1983 Handles - Mark, Jan
1982 The Haunting - Mahy, Margaret
1981 The Scarecrow - Westall, Robert
1980 City of gold - Dickinson, Peter
1979 Tulku - Dickinson, Peter
1978 The Exeter Blitz - Rees, David
1977 The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler - Kemp, Gene
1976 Thunder and Lightnings - Mark, Jan
1975 The machine gunners - Westall, Robert
1974 The stronghold - Hunter, Mollie
1973 The Ghost of Thomas Kempe - Lively, Penelope
1972 Watership down - Adams, Richard
1971 Josh - Southall, Ivan
1970 The God Beneath the Sea - Garfield, Leon
1969 The Edge of the Cloud - Peyton, Kathleen
1968 The Moon in the Cloud - Harris, Rosemary
1967 The Owl Service - Garner, Alan
1965 The Grange at High Force - Turner, Phil
1964 Nordy Bank - Porter, Sheena
1963 The Time of Trial - Burton, Hester
1962 The Twelve and the Genii - Clarke, Pauline
1961 A Stranger at Green Knowe - Boston, L M
1960 The Making of Man - Cornwall, I W
1959 The Lantern Bearers - Sutcliffe, Rosemary
1958 Tom's Midnight Garden - Pearce, Phillipa
1957 A Grass Rope - Mayne, M
1956 The Last Battle - Lewis, C S
1955 The Little Bookroom - Farjeon, Elenor
1954 Knight Crusader - Welch, Ronald
1953 A Valley Grows Up - Osmond, Edward
1952 The Borrowers - Morton, Mary
1951 The Woolpack - Harnett, Cynthia
1950 The Lark on the Wing - Foulds, Elfrida Vipont
1949 The Story of Your Home - Allen, Agnes
1948 Sea Change - Armstrong, R
1947 Collected Stories for Children - De La Mare, Walter
1946 The Little White Horse - Goudge, Elizabeth
1944 The Wind on the Moon
1942 The Little Grey Men - Watkins Pitchford, D J
1941 We couldn't leave Dinah - Treadgold, M
1940 Visitors from London - Barne, Kitty
1939 Radium Woman - Doorly, Eleanor
1938 The Circus is Coming - Streanfeild, Noel
1937 The Family From One End Street - Garnett, Eve
1936 Pigeon Post - Ransome, Arthur - It was first medal that was awarded .

The Carnegie Medal was established by The Library Association in 1936, in memory of the great Scottish-born philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). Carnegie was a self-made industrialist who made his fortune in steel in the USA. His experience of using a library as a child led him to resolve that "if ever wealth came to me that it should be used to establish free libraries." Carnegie set up more than 2800 libraries across the English speaking world and, by the time of his death, over half the library authorities in Great Britain had Carnegie libraries.

The medal is now awarded by CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, which is a new organisation formed by the Unification of the Institute of Information Scientists and The Library Association on 1 April 2002.

Website : carnegiegreenaway.org.uk

Related Links:

Donnelly is 2003 Carnegie Medal winner

A Gathering Light, Jennifer Donnelly, os a moving and unforgettable story of life in the Adirondack Mountains, in upstate New York at the turn of the 20th Century. The central character, Mattie struggles to choose between family duty and her burning desire for education and a better life. Her story is cleverly interwoven with a murder mystery which unfolds after the mysterious death of a woman guest at the hotel where Mattie works. This captivating novel is beautifully structured and perfectly captures the mood of time and place with many varied and vivid characters.

Those that nearly made it:

David Almond The Fire Eaters, ISBN: 0340773820 (Age range: 10+). Set at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, Bobby Burns tells the story of two transforming months of his life. Months when the world appears to be on the brink of a third world war, his home life seems to be falling apart and he meets the Fire-Eater. Almond’s writing is seamless, and evokes a strong sense of time and place. He cleverly juxtaposes world issues with domestic ones, and the characters and images live with you long after the last page.

Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, ISBN: 0099456761 (Age range: 12+). This is a book of great originality and conviction, about Christopher, a teenager who has Asperger’s Syndrome. The reader is completely sucked into his world, and experiences all his strange fears and obsessions, and total recall of detail. An outstanding use of visual images, and a vivid sense of what is going on in Christopher’s head enables the reader to understand the emotional turmoil which he cannot make sense of for himself.

Elizabeth Laird The Garbage King, ISBN: 0330415026 (Age range: 10+). This story of two homeless boys in Ethiopia - one rich one poor - who join a street gang explores loyalty, friendship and family relationships. The clarity of the prose, and quality of the storytelling make this an utterly compelling read. With its convincing descriptions Laird’s writing evokes a strong sense of place and characters the reader really cares about.

Michael Morpurgo Private Peaceful, ISBN: 0007150067 (Age range: 10+). This is a moving, sensitively told story which follows the Peaceful brothers Tommo and Charlie from their early village childhood to the trenches of the First World War. A beautifully written novel, which contrasts bittersweet childhood memories with the horrors of war. Told in the first person it alternates between past and present, creating both humour and heartache and building tension for its dramatic and thought-provoking conclusion.

Linda Newbery Sisterland, ISBN: 038560470X (Age range: 13+). This substantial novel moves skilfully and smoothly between Germany just before the Second World War and contemporary England, exploring issues of identity, secrets and betrayal. It offers a multi-stranded plot that is beautifully held together through the quality of the writing.