Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal Winners
14/06/2012 by David Maybury · No Comments
Patrick Ness and Jim Kay have been announced as the winners of the CILIP Carnegie Medal and CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for A Monster Calls. The win is unprecedented - with no other book ever taking away both prizes. While Patrick Ness joins Peter Dickinson as the two authors to have ever won the Carnegie Medal two years running.
A Monster Calls was completed after Walker Books invited Ness to consider writing a novel based on notes left by Siobhan Dowd, a former winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Bisto Book of the Year Award.
The shortlist for both awards featured some of the best known name and most celebrated books in children's writing with David Almond, Lissa Evans, Sonya Hartnett, Ali Lewis, Andy Mulligan, Annabel Pitcher and Ruta Sepetys nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Former winners Emily Gravett and Catherine Rayner alongside Dave McKean, Viviane Schwarz, Petr Horáček, Rob Ryan and Vicky White led the way for the Greenaway Medal.
Rachel Levy, chair of the CILIP judges, celebrated the book for its "perfect synergy between the text and illustrations.” Kay said earlier that he had “no idea how people would react to the illustrations, especially as they are black and white. To see the book on a shop shelf is still strange, to be shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway – well, I can’t quite get my head around it yet. I’m delighted and extremely grateful.”
Speaking about the award Ness said that it is "extremely humbling - and a little unnerving - to win the CILIP Carnegie Medal two years in a row. I also can't tell you how happy I am that not only has the extraordinary work of Jim Kay been recognised with the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal (truly couldn't happen to a nicer guy), but that this will all help keep people reading and talking about the wonderful, wonderful Siobhan Dowd, which was the best outcome I wanted when I set out to write the book".
Congratulations to CILIP, the judges, illustrators, authors and publishers for what was one of the most competitive years - and to the winners - we're already looking forward to next year!
