CKG Shortlists announced!

Before I even got to school this morning the shortlists were announced:

CILIP Carnegie Medal 2014 shortlist:
Julie Berry ALL THE TRUTH THAT'S IN ME Templar (14+)
Kevin Brooks THE BUNKER DIARY Puffin (14+)
Rachel Campbell-Johnston THE CHILD'S ELEPHANT David Fickling Books (11+)
Susan Cooper GHOST HAWK Bodley Head (11+)
Anne Fine BLOOD FAMILY Double Day (14+)
Katherine Rundell ROOFTOPPERS Faber & Faber (11+)
Rebecca Stead LIAR & SPY Anderson Press (9+)
William Sutcliffe THE WALL Bloomsbury (11+)

CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2014 shortlist:
Rebecca Cobb (illustrator) Julia Donaldson (text) THE PAPER DOLLS Macmillan Children's Books (3+)
Olivia Gill (illustrator) Michael Morpurgo and Clare Morpurgo (text) WHERE MY WELLIES TAKE ME Templar (8+)
Oliver Jeffers (illustrator) Drew Daywalt (text) THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT HarperCollins Children's Books (5+)
Jon Klassen (illustrator) THIS IS NOT MY HAT Walker Books (5+)
Jon Klassen (illustrator) Lemony Snicket (text) THE DARK Orchard Books (5+)
Dave McKean (illustrator) David Almond (text) MOUSE, BIRD, SNAKE, WOLF Walker Books (9+)
Birgitta Sif OLIVER Walker Books (5+)

Some overlap with my lists but a few surprises!
 

CKG 2014 shortlist predictions

The official shortlists will be announced on Tuesday 18th March but earlier this week I, along with some other fantastic librarians and bloggers, made our predictions for the Carnegie shortlist on acaseforbooks.  I thought I'd just quickly put mine on here as well:

but also share my Greenaway predictions having had a chance to look through 17* of them today:

Open Very Carefully by Nicola O'Byrne (illustrator) and Nick Bromley (author) (Nosy Crow)
Weasels by Elys Dolan (Nosy Crow)
Puss Jekyll Cat Hyde by Jill Barton (illustrator) and Joyce Dunbar (author) (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)
The Day the Crayons Quit by Oliver Jeffers (illustrator) and Drew Daywalt (author) (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Mouse Bird Snake Wolf by David McKean (illustrator) and David Almond (author) (Walker Books)
Oliver by Birgitta Sif (Walker Books)
Jemmy Button by Jennifer Uman and Valerio Vidali (illustrators) and Alix Barzelay (author) (Templar)
Too Noisy! by Ed Vere (illustrator) and Malachy Doyle (author) (Walker Books)

This personal shortlist could very well be different to the 'real' one as I didn't think too much about the criteria, I just went for those I loved for their cleverness, cuteness (not allowed in the judging room) and originality!  My favourite is The Day the Crayons Quit.

*I wasn't able to get hold of:
The Dark by Jon Klassen (illustrator) and Lemony Snicket (author) (Orchard Books)
Where My Wellies Take Me by Olivia Lomenech Gill (illustrator) and Clare and Michael Morpurgo (authors)(Templar)
The Journey Home by Frann Preston-Gannon (Pavilion Children's Books)

The Official CKG Longlist is announced!

Today the longlist for the Carnegie Kate Greenaway Awards 2014 was announced:

• The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas by David Almond (Walker Books)
• All the Truth That’s in Me by Julie Berry (Templar)
• The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks (Penguin)
• The Child’s Elephant by Rachel Campbell-Johnston (David Fickling Books)
• Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper (Bodley Head)
• After Tomorrow by Gillian Cross (Oxford University Press)
• Heroic by Phil Earle (Penguin)
• Blood Family by Anne Fine (Doubleday Children’s Books)
• Infinite Sky by CJ Flood (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)
• Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn (Electric Monkey)
• Monkey Wars by Richard Kurti (Walker Books)
• Hostage Three by Nick Lake (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
• The Positively Last Performance by Geraldine McCaughrean (Oxford University Press)
• Brock by Anthony McGowan (Barrington Stoke)
• Binny for Short by Hilary McKay (Hodder Children’s Books)
• Far Far Away by Tom McNeal (Jonathan Cape)
• Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher (Indigo)
• Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell (Faber & Faber)
• Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead (Andersen Press)
• The Wall by William Sutcliffe (Bloomsbury)

I've highlighted the ones I've read, less than half :-/ so 11 more to go!  Am disappointed that some of my other favourites aren't there, and not surprised by a couple of the ones I haven't read yet that are on there.  I'd been avoiding reading the McCaughrean and McKay because I really don't fancy them :-( But a few of the ones I have on my TBR shelf that I've been looking forward to are there so swings and roundabouts!

I think my no.1 so far is The Wall.  What's your favourite?

#CKG2014 - my personal longlist

I read a few more Carnegie nominations in January:

Bradford, Chris, Bodyguard: Hostage (Puffin Books)

Dockrill, Laura, Darcy Burdock (Corgi Children's Books)

Kessler, Liz, North of Nowhere (Orion Children's Books)
McDowell, Nigel, Tall Tales from Pitch End (Hot Key Books)

Pass, Emma, ACID (Corgi Children's Books)

Watts, Helen, One Day in Oradour (A & C Black)

Whyman, Matt, The Savages (Hot Key Books)

None of them were anything special so I haven't changed my mind about my personal longlist so far.  The official longlist will be announced tomorrow so I've run out of time to add to it!  Of the 27 books I haven't yet read I hope to see the following on the main list because they look like great reads:

Berry, Julie, All the Truth That's in Me (Templar)
Campbell-Johnston, Rachel, The Child's Elephant (David Fickling Books)
Carthew, Natasha, Winter Damage (Bloomsbury)
Jarratt, Laura, By Any Other Name (Electric Monkey) 
Jones, Gareth P., Constable and Toop (Hot Key Books)
Kuehn, Stephanie, Charm and Strange (Electric Monkey)
Kurti, Richard, Monkey Wars (Walker Books)
Lake, Nick, Hostage Three (Bloomsbury)
Mayhew Julie, Red Ink (Hot Key Books)
Sepetys, Ruta, Out of the Easy (Puffin Books)

Really excited to see what the judges have picked out as Carnegie worthy!

CKG2014 update

The longlist will be announced in about 4 weeks, on Tuesday 4th February, so I thought it was about time I updated my personal list.  Because I've been alternating nominations with new books, and read literally nothing during the Christmas fortnight, I've not added to my 'read' total by many titles:
Almond, David, The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas (Walker Books)
Bowler, Tim, Sea of Whispers (Oxford University Press)
Bryce, Celia, Anthem for Jackson Dawes (Bloomsbury) 
De Quidt, Jeremy, The Feathered Man (David Fickling Books) 
Fisher, Catherine, The Obsidian Mirror (Hodder Children's Books) 
LaFleur, Suzanne, Listening for Lucca (Puffin Books) 
McGowan, Anthony, Brock (Barrington Stoke)
Prue, Sally, Song Hunter (Oxford University Press) 
Yangsze, Choo, The Ghost Bride (Hot Key Books)

I'm half way through Cooper, Susan, Ghost Hawk (Bodley Head Children's Books)

Again, I enjoyed them all but don't think any stood out as definite winners, but there are still 34 (and a half) that  I haven't read! 

Unofficially someone involved in managing the CKG this year made an educated guess that the longlist might be about 20 books, so here (in alphabetical order) are my personal top 20 so far:
Brooks, Kevin, The Bunker Diary (Puffin Books)
Cooper, Susan, Ghost Hawk (Bodley Head Children's Books)
Cousins, Dave, Waiting for Gonzo (Oxford University Press)
Creech, Sharon, The Great Unexpected (Andersen Press)
Cross, Gillian, After Tomorrow (Oxford University Press)
Diamand, Emil, Ways to See a Ghost (Templar)
Dowswell, Paul, Eleven Eleven (Bloomsbury)
Earle, Phil, Heroic (Puffin Books)
McGowan, Anthony, Brock (Barrington Stoke) 
Mussi, Sarah, Seige (Hodder Children's Books)
Pitcher, Annabelle, Ketchup Clouds (Indigo)
Shearer, Alex, The Cloud Hunters (Hot Key Books)
Stead, Rebecca, Liar and Spy (Andersen Press)
Stiefvater, Maggie, The Raven Boys (Scholastic)
Stroud, Jonathan, Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase (Doubleday Children's Books)
Sutcliffe, William, The Wall (Bloomsbury)
Torday, Piers, The Last Wild (Quercus)
Wein, Elizabeth, Rose Under Fire (Electric Monkey)
Wooding, Chris, Silver (Scholastic) 
Yangsze, Choo, The Ghost Bride (Hot Key Books)
There are a number of other books I've yet to read, of those 34 there are at least a dozen that I would choose to pick up, so it could still change dramatically!

 Have a look at my initial post about the Carnegie nominations to see the whole list...hopefully I do a bit better in these next 4 weeks.

Here we go again...the Carnegie nominations 2014

I can't believe it is this time already, but the nominations were announced today!  I've highlighted those that I've already read:

Almond, David, Mouse Bird Snake Wolf (Walker Books)
Almond, David, The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas (Walker Books)
Barber, Elke, Is Daddy Coming Back in a Minute?: Explaining Sudden Death to Pre-School Children in Words They Can Understand (Elke Barber)
Beasley, Andrew, The Claws of Evil (Usborne Books)
Berry, Julie, All the Truth That's in Me (Templar)
Black, Holly, Doll Bones (Doubleday Children's Books)
Blackman, Malorie, Noble Conflict (Doubleday Children's Books) 
Bowler, Tim, Sea of Whispers (Oxford University Press)
Bradford, Chris, Bodyguard: Hostage (Puffin Books)
Brooks, Kevin, The Bunker Diary (Puffin Books) 
Bryce, Celia, Anthem for Jackson Dawes (Bloomsbury)
Campbell-Johnston, Rachel, The Child's Elephant (David Fickling Books)
Carthew, Natasha, Winter Damage (Bloomsbury)
Colfer, Eoin, The Reluctant Assassin (Puffin Books) 
Cooper, Susan, Ghost Hawk (Bodley Head Children's Books)
Cossanteli, Veronica, The Extincts (Chicken House)
Cousins, Dave, Waiting for Gonzo (Oxford University Press)
Creech, Sharon, The Great Unexpected (Andersen Press)
Crocket, S. D., One Crow Alone (Macmillan Children's Books)
Cross, Gillian, After Tomorrow (Oxford University Press)
Crossan, Sarah, Breathe (Bloomsbury) 
De Quidt, Jeremy, The Feathered Man (David Fickling Books)
Dennis, H.L., The Knights of Neustria (Hodder Children's Books)
Diamand, Emil, Ways to See a Ghost (Templar)
Dickinson, Peter, In the Palace of the Khans (Peter Dickinson Books)
Dockrill, Laura, Darcy Burdock (Corgi Children's Books)
Dowswell, Paul, Eleven Eleven (Bloomsbury)
Drewery, Kerry, A Dream of Lights (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Earle, Phil, Heroic (Puffin Books) 
Fine, Anne, Blood Family (Doubleday Children's Books)
Fisher, Catherine, The Obsidian Mirror (Hodder Children's Books)
Flood, C. J., Infinite Sky (Simon & Schuster Children's Books)
Gibbons, Alan, Raining Fire (Indigo)
Harris, Carol, Adventures of the Chickalloon: A Bird's Eye View of Earth (Pentre Publications)
Jarratt, Laura, By Any Other Name (Electric Monkey) 
Jones, Gareth P., Constable and Toop (Hot Key Books)
Jones, Rob Lloyd, Wild Boy (Walker Books)
Kessler, Liz, North of Nowhere (Orion Children's Books)
Kuehn, Stephanie, Charm and Strange (Electric Monkey)
Kurti, Richard, Monkey Wars (Walker Books)
LaFleur, Suzanne, Listening for Lucca (Puffin Books)
Lake, Nick, Hostage Three (Bloomsbury)
LaBan, Elizabeth, The Tragedy Paper (Doubleday Children's Books)
Mayhew Julie, Red Ink (Hot Key Books)
McCaughrean, Geraldine, The Positively Last Performance (Oxford University Press)
McDowell, Nigel, Tall Tales from Pitch End (Hot Key Books)
McFall, Claire, Ferryman (Templar)
McGowan, Anthony, Brock (Barrington Stoke)
McKay, Hilary, Binny For Short (Hodder Children's Books)
McNeal, Tom, Far Far Away (Jonathan Cape)
Morris, Jackie, East of the Sun, West of the Moon (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)
Mulligan, Andy, The Boy With Two Heads (David Fickling Books)
Murdoch, Emily, If You Find Me (Indigo)
Mussi, Sarah, Seige (Hodder Children's Books)
Pass, Emma, ACID (Corgi Children's Books)
Pitcher, Annabelle, Ketchup Clouds (Indigo)
Pratchett, Terry, Dodger (Doubleday Children's Books)
Prue, Sally, Song Hunter (Oxford University Press)
Robinson, Jon, Nowhere (Puffin Books)
Rundell, Katherine, Rooftoppers (Faber Children's Books)
Said, S. F., Phoenix (David Fickling Books)
Sepetys, Ruta, Out of the Easy (Puffin Books)
Shearer, Alex, The Cloud Hunters (Hot Key Books)
Smale, Holly, Geek Girl (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Stead, Rebecca, Liar and Spy (Andersen Press)
Stiefvater, Maggie, The Raven Boys (Scholastic)
Stroud, Jonathan, Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase (Doubleday Children's Books)
Sutcliffe, William, The Wall (Bloomsbury)
Syson, Lydia, A World Between Us (Hot Key Books)
Torday, Piers, The Last Wild (Quercus)
Watts, Helen, One Day in Oradour (A & C Black)
Wein, Elizabeth, Rose Under Fire (Electric Monkey)
Whyman, Matt, The Savages (Hot Key Books)
Wooding, Chris, Silver (Scholastic)
Yancey, Rick, The 5th Wave (Penguin Books)
Yangsze, Choo, The Ghost Bride (Hot Key Books)

So there are 76 books here, blimey!  I've already read 32 of them, not quite half, so that's my tbr pile out of the window :-)

I haven't read any that I really didn't like, but my top 8 (with the CKG criteria in mind) so far are:

Brooks, Kevin, The Bunker Diary (Puffin Books)

Cross, Gillian, After Tomorrow (Oxford University Press)

Diamand, Emil, Ways to See a Ghost (Templar)

Dowswell, Paul, Eleven Eleven (Bloomsbury)

Shearer, Alex, The Cloud Hunters (Hot Key Books)
Stead, Rebecca, Liar and Spy (Andersen Press)
Sutcliffe, William, The Wall (Bloomsbury)
Torday, Piers, The Last Wild (Quercus)

My favourite to win so far is:

addendum: confusingly, this year for the first time they've announced all the nominations but will make a longlist from them in February from which the shortlist will be chosen...why publish the nominations then?  Who knows...now I can't decide whether to bother reading them all or not

Image and Imagination at the YLG National Conference

Friday and Saturday of last week were the most intense days of my year!  Starting on Friday with a 4.30am alarm it was non-stop until 5.45pm on Saturday (apart from a small gap of about 7hours sleep).

Play by the Book has written a lovely blog post about all the fantastic authors, with some great pictures, so I just thought I'd write a little bit about the library-ish bits which were also fascinating, engaging and enthusing.

At the joint YLG/SLG/SLA conference in June last year I was a bit disappointed by the workshops that I went to, but I'm pleased to say this definitely wasn't the case this year.  I started with a session about ideas for shadowing the CKG awards, beyond reviewing on the shadowing site, during which I picked up some great ideas for planning really fun activities for reading groups that have (possibly a mildly tenuous) link to one of the books, an example from last year was making the kind of sandwiches the Bear in "A Boy and a Bear in a Boat" might have enjoyed.  My second was about graphic novels in the library.  There were no amazing revelations but the Peters book reviews, with notes of any potentially contentious content, were new to me so I look forward to checking them out.  Finally, I attended a session run by the lovely Emily Diamand (I only just realised it isn't 'Diamond'!) about running creative writing groups in libraries which left me really inspired to try something with pupils back at school.

The plenaries were all really interesting although I do sometimes feel that it is a case of "preaching to the converted" and that we really need to find a way to "get out of the echo chamber", but on the other hand it was these sessions that reminded me why I'm passionate about being a school librarian and getting pupils reading for pleasure, and we can use a lot of it as ammunition to defend our cause.  On Friday, Professor Teresa Cremin talked about the study she carried out on behalf of the Carnegie Trust into the CKG awards shadowing process, and gave us the executive summary, and the people behind the The Phoenix Comic gave an impassioned talk about the importance of comics in engaging and developing readers.  Saturday included Ian Dodds teaching us some visual literacy techniques (building on the fascinating history of the art of visual story telling that Professors Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles gave us on Friday) and the managing director of Barrington Stoke talking about reaching dyslexic and reluctant readers.

The more conferences I attend, and the more I veer towards the challenge of encouraging "reading for pleasure" in school, the more I enjoy the exhibition.  Reps from a variety of children's publishers are there, a number of whom I've now met on numerous occasions and who thrust books into my hands, eagerly telling me why I will love them.  A large suitcase is definitely required!

This year, as usual, I was on a book buying ban but was tempted too strongly by Marcus Sedgwick's new book "She is not Invisible" because of the fantastic detail of the number 354...

I spent the night with a friend who lives in Birmingham and then went to have a look at the new Library of Birmingham on Sunday.  It is amazing, a beautiful building and thousands of books, but for me it was an incredible disappointment because of the missed opportunity to engage teenagers.  Their books are right in the middle of the children's library, signposted simply as "fiction" with toddlers colouring at tables right next to them (I imagine it won't be long before a mother complains about her 5yr old picking up one of the "teen graphic novels").  Apparently there is a seating area for them near the music section, but there are no books there and nothing indicating that it is a teen space.

But, all in all a great weekend!