Carnegie of Carnegies & Greenaway of Greenaways

In 2007 the CILIP Carnegie Medal celebrates its 70th Anniversary and the CILIP Kate Greenaway its 50th.

The Carnegie Medal is awarded by children’s librarians for an outstanding book for children and young people and the Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded by children’s librarians for an outstanding book in terms of illustration for children and young people.

To celebrate this double anniversary, a Top Ten online poll competition was held to name the Carnegie and Greenaway Award winners of all time.

Philip Pullman carried off the Carnegie of Carnegies for Northern Lights (later published as The Golden Compass, and now made into a movie to be released later this year) – Book 1 in the His Dark Materials trilogy. It took 40% of the votes cast in the U.K. and 36% of the votes worldwide. The only past winner to come close to Pullman was Philippa Pearce for Tom’s Midnight Garden.

Shirley Hughes won the Greenaway of Greenaways for Dogger. It polled 26% of the votes, with Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s Each Peach Pear Plum coming close on 25%.

 See also our listing of Children’s Literary prizes.