Carnegie Shortlist 2009
April 25, 2009
Thanks to bookwitch for alerting me to the shortlist for this year’s Carnegie. While I’d agree with her and Nicolette Jones at the Telegraph that it is very boy-oriented, even more so what strikes me is that it skews older in terms of readership. (Something I love about the Carnegie is that they have a shadowing process — kids read and review the shortlisted books. We wanted to this with the BoB, but didn’t have time to get it organized this year. Next year though — hopefully we can pull it off!)
So here’s the shortlist:
Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Cosmic (which I loved, loved loved and can’t wait till it is published here this fall).
Kevin Brooks’ Black Rabbit Summer (which I must admit sounds a bit too darkly realistic for my taste).
Eoin Colfer’s Airman (which I also enjoyed tremendously — steampunk, Verne-ish, great fun indeed).
Siobhan Dowd’s Bog Child (admired and respected very much).
Keith Gray’s Ostrich Boys (haven’t read, but sounds interesting).
Patrick Ness’ s The Knife of Never Letting Go (also loved and adored this one).
Kate Thompson’s Creature of the Night (which I have on my to-read shelf because I like so many other of her books — need to get too it soon).
Entry Filed under: awards. .
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1.
bookwitch | April 25, 2009 at 8:07 am
True, most of the books are for older readers. Cosmic and Airman will work for younger, but not very very young readers. As so many people point out from time to time, we need awards specifically aimed at younger children, because the older books will always get favourable treatment from adult selectors and judges.
The awards that are voted for by children, tend to go to books that might not win with adults. But they also tend to be ‘lighter’ in type. Whether this means we are wrong to push for real quality, or if the children need help to find those, I don’t know.
2.
Nicolette Jones | April 28, 2009 at 2:30 am
Very interested in your discussion. In fact I think as Carnegie shortlists go this has more for younger readers than is often the case since Airman and Cosmic are listed for 8 and 9 plus respectively. Though it’s true that the Brooks, Dowd and Thompson are certainly young adult reads.
Just to point out that I’m not at the Guardian – that’s Julia Eccleshare’s job. I review for The Sunday Times, though in fact the feature you kindly link to was for the Telegraph.
3.
medinger | April 28, 2009 at 3:45 am
Nicolette,
Thanks for coming by! Sorry for mixing up the publication — it has been corrected. As for the other issue, while Airman and Cosmic are younger I think both are a bit of a stretch for most eight year olds to read on their own and probably quite a few nine year olds as well. I have given Airman to a few of my students who read at a high level and read aloud Cosmic to them all. (The only one truly juvenile is Cosmic I think).
4.
:) | May 3, 2009 at 5:37 am
Creature of the Night was a brilliant book, I highly recommend it.