Awards, Glorious Awards!

CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenway Medals
The Carnegie award celebrates young adult fiction and is awarded to an author for “Outstanding” fiction, the Kate Greenway medal is awarded for brilliant illustration within works of fiction and both medals are given out on the same night. This year, something strange happened; both medals were given to the same book! This had never happened before but this year, Patrick Ness won the Carnegie medal for A Monster Calls and the illustrator of the book, Jim Kay, won the Kate Greenway medal!

Now I haven’t read A Monster Calls yet, I keep meaning to and keep wanting to buy it every time I see it in shops, but I’ve vowed not to until I’ve finished the Chaos Walking series, which I love so far. I’m fairly certain that Patrick Ness deserved to win, even if it was the second year running he has won, and I know from skimming through the book that Jim Kay is an amazing illustrator, so he really deserved the medal! I really can’t wait to read this book and if you want to know more about it I have included the summary below.

The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd — whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself — Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined. (taken from Goodreads)

The Branford Boase Award
This award was only announced on Thursday. From the shortlist I’d only read two books and I knew I really wanted Being Billy to win. Unfortunately Being Billy didn’t make it and was outvoted by My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece by Annabel Pitcher. The award was started up to celebrate first time authors and their editors for the most promising book for seven and up so not only did Annabel win the award but also her editor, Fiona Kennedy from Orion won too! 

Now I haven’t read My Sister Lives… and I wasn’t going to because it didn’t sound like something I’d enjoy – until I started reading more and more awesome reviews for it and my friend read it and forced her copy on me. I will get round to reading it soon because I want to know my opinion on it but I still would have loved for Phil Earle to have got the Brandford Boase award I think! 

taken from MaureenJohnsonBooks.com

The Queen of teen award celebrates real-life fiction for teens. It celebrates the authors who offer real-life situations and realistic solutions within their books and this year had a first – a male was nominated for the pink sparkly award. Unfortunately James Dawson didn’t win though and the third winner was the American author Maureen Johnson, famed for 13 Little Blue Envelopes among others. 
Now I like Maureen Johnson, I really do, but with James Dawson, Hayley Long, Cathy Hopkins and SC Ransom all on the shortlist I wanted them to win, I kinda feel as though Maureen Johnson has enough of a fan base and others, especially SC Ransom and Hayley Long, could have done with the coverage because they’re so less well known! Oh well, congratulations to Maureen and well done on the shortlist to the others!!

The Lancashire Book Awards 

This award isn’t very well publicised I’m afraid but I know more about it because I’m in Lancashire! This years shortlist really did have some great authors and books on it! The winner was He’s After Me by Chris Higgins, which I have heard some great things about but haven’t gotten round to reading yet! I would have much preferred Zoe Marriott to have won it for Shadows on the Moon because I love her but alas, we can’t always get what we want! 
Other books included Malorie Blackman’s Boys Don’t Cry, Mike Lancaster’s 0.4, The Dead by Charlie Higson and The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish. 


He’s After Me is definitely high on my to be read pile and if you want to know more about it I’ve included the summary below! 

Finally, I wanted to share with you some awesome news about the wonderful Tanya Bryne, Tanya’s book Heart Shaped Bruise has been longlisted for The CWA (Crime Writers Associations) John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger. This is awesome news and I’m so excited for Tanya, I really hope she gets it!! The shortlists will come out over the summer and the winner will be announced in the Autumn, fingers crossed Tanya! To find out more about the award visit the CWA here.