The shortlist for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals for 2021 have been announced. Read on for more about the shortlisted books, the authors and illustrators and these prestigous awards. And we have also included a few of our favourite past winners.
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CILIP Kate Greenaway 2021
CILIP Carnegie 2021
Some of our favourite past winners
This is the first time that Sydney Smith has written his own text for a picturebook and he demonstrates as much skill with words as with the art which has won so many accolades and reaches even greater heights of excellence in this stunning book. From the unusual thin skyscraper shape of the book to wordless passages of comic ...
Starbird is an original fable about love, freedom, and the wisdom of children, who are able to see more clearly than the adults around them, and Sharon King-Chai's intricate illustrations of plants and animals are utterly beautiful.
Smart, incisive, brimming with the breath of human experience and written with engaging age-appropriate verve, this clever concept (“a tale told in ten blocks”) is perfectly executed. For the chorus of kids whose lives play out on these impeccably-written pages, the walk home from school represents a rare time of freedom; a period of limbo ...
This debut novel was inspired by the author’s work creating Run the World, an organisation that empowers women and girls from marginalised backgrounds through sport and storytelling and the authenticity of this, at times harrowing story, is palpably evident. As is the skill of the accomplished writing which makes great use of typography and layout to really ...
The shortlist for the prestigious CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals has been announced. The Medals celebrate outstanding achievement in children’s writing and illustration respectively and are unique in being judged by librarians, with the Shadowers’ Choice Award voted for by children and young people. 16 titles have been shortlisted for the 2021 Medals (8 on each shortlist) selected from a total of 40 longlisted titles, read by an expert volunteer team of 15 librarians from across the UK.
Explorations of nature and the great outdoors are key recurring features across this year’s shortlists with themes of self-discovery and personal freedoms offering a sense of hope after a year of lockdown.
CILIP Carnegie Medal shortlist
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (Hot Key Books)
The Girl Who Speaks Bear by Sophie Anderson, illustrated by Kathrin Honesta (Usborne)
The Girl Who Became A Tree by Joseph Coelho, illustrated by Kate Milner (Otter-Barry Books)
On Midnight Beach by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick (Faber)
Run, Rebel by Manjeet Mann (Penguin Random House Children's)
Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds (Knights Of)
The Fountains Of Silence by Ruta Sepetys (Penguin Random House Children's)
Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk (Penguin Random House Children's)
CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist
Starbird illustrated and written by Sharon King-Chai (Two Hoots)
The Bird Within Me illustrated by Sara Lundberg and translated by B. J. Epstein (Book Island)
It's A No-Money Day illustrated and written by Kate Milner (Barrington Stoke)
How The Stars Came To Be illustrated and written by Poonam Mistry (Tate Publishing)
Hike illustrated and written by Pete Oswald (Walker Books)
I Go Quiet illustrated and written by David Ouimet (Canongate)
Arlo The Lion Who Couldn’t Sleep illustrated and written by Catherine Rayner (Macmillan Children's Books)
Small In The City illustrated and written by Sydney Smith (Walker Books)
Last years Carnegie winner was Lark from 
Anthony McGowan, the fourth and final story of brothers Nicky and Kenny, a tale modern poverty, the highs and lows of adolescence, and life with learning difficulties told across a sequence of short novellas. Anthony McGowan said: “Every writer for young people dreams of winning the Carnegie Medal. Its incredible history, the rollcall of the great writers who have won it and the rigour of the selection process, makes this the greatest book prize in the world. It is also a magnificent way of connecting with readers. The hundreds of shadowing groups in schools and libraries around the country provide that one thing that writers cannot do without: a living, arguing, debating, biscuit-munching population of brilliant readers!"
Australian author and illustrator Tan, who is of Australian, Chinese and Malay heritage, was the first illustrator of colour to win the Kate Greenaway Medal with Tales from the Inner City in 2020. Shaun Tan said: “I am surprised, delighted and then deeply honoured – what a wonderful thing to be! I am especially thrilled to receive the Kate Greenaway Medal in the fine company of so many brilliant artists and authors, many of whom inspired my own love of illustrated stories as a young West Australian scribbler. Tales from the Inner City is a strange book for strange times, suggesting that human frailty might well find expression in dreams of tigers, bears, frogs and lungfish reclaiming our cities. To know that I am not alone in enjoying such speculation – maybe even a bit too much – is no small thing. It is profoundly consoling, to feel part of a larger conversation about our relationship to this planet, particularly with younger readers, in whose imagination the future is already taking shape.”
The winners for both the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals 2020 were revealed with a media announcement on Front Row, Radio 4, on Wednesday 17th June 2020, in changes due to Covid-19 and the closure of schools. The winners received £500 worth of books to donate to their local library, a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.
Now in its second year, the Shadowers’ Choice Award – voted for and awarded by the children and young people who shadow the Medals – will be extended until October 2020 with the Shadowers' Choice Awards to be announced during Libraries Week 2020. This award has evolved out of CILIP’s Diversity Review which identified opportunities to empower and celebrate the young people involved in the Medals through the shadowing scheme.
