3/17/2017 Mal Peet in line for posthumous win as Carnegie shortlist announced | Books | The Guardian

Mal Peet in line for posthumous win as

Carnegie shortlist announced
Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Ruta Sepetys also make shortlist, while childrens laureate Chris Riddell is
nominated for Kate Greenaway illustration medal

He was such an astonishing writer the late Mal Peet, with co-author and friend Meg Roso. Photograph: Steven Haywood

Sian Cain
Thursday 16 March 2017 19.30GMT

Two years after he died, childrens author Mal Peet may be set for a posthumous Carnegie
medal win, after making the shortlist with his co-author Meg Roso.

Roso, who nished Peets novel Beck, a coming-of-age tale about a mixed-race boy in America
during the 1900s, told the Guardian: I was really worried about doing justice to his amazing
writing, so this is a nice conrmation that I did an OK job.

Roso, who won the Carnegie, Britains oldest and most prestigious childrens book award, in
2006, said a win would ensure Peets writing was remembered. He was such an astonishing
writer. Any attention that he can still get, even after hes dead not that he would care now it
is really important, because Im not sure his books were ever read enough, she said.

Peet died in 2015. If he wins the Carnegie, which celebrates outstanding writing for children
and teenagers, it will be the second posthumous win in the prizes history: Siobhan Dowd was
the rst, winning in 2009 for Bog Child.
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Other fellow former Carnegie medal winners shortlisted this year are Frank Cottrell-Boyce, for
his story of a boy raised in a foster family, Sputniks Guide to Life on Earth, and Philip Reeve for
Railhead, set in a futuristic world where trains transport passengers between planets and
galaxies.

Inspired by refugee childrens drawings Zana Fraillon.

Previously shortlisted author, Ruta Sepetys, is nominated for Salt to the Sea, a story of refugees
after the second world war. Zana Fraillon, an Australian author whose book The Bone Sparrow
was inspired by refugee childrens drawings from an Australian detention centre, is shortlisted
for the rst time, as is Lauren Wolk for her rst childrens book Wolf Hollow, and Glenda
Millard for The Stars at Oktober Bend.

There is one debut: journalist-turned-author Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock, who was also nominated
for the Guardians childrens book award for The Smell of Other Peoples Houses, inspired by
her own experiences of growing up in Alaska in the 1970s.

Also announced at a ceremony in London on Thursday night was the shortlist of illustrators up
for the Kate Greenaway medal, which celebrates art in childrens books. Childrens laureate
Chris Riddell is in the running to win an unprecedented fourth time for his work on Michael
Rosens book A Great Big Cuddle.

Twenty years after it won the Carnegie for JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosophers
Stone makes a surprise reappearance, with illustrator Jim Kay shortlisted for a new edition.
Kay is joined by other previous winners Emily Gravett and her picture book Tidy, and William
Grill, who wrote and illustrated The Wolves of Currumpaw.

German artist Dieter Braun is the rst translated writer to be shortlisted for his pictorial guide
Wild Animals of the North. Other rst-timers include Francesca Sanna, for her picture book
about refugees, The Journey; Brian Selznick, who was the rst author-illustrator to be
longlisted for both medals in the same year, with his novel The Marvels; and Lane Smith, for
the picture book There is a Tribe of Kids.

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An illustration from The Marvels by Brian Selznick. Photograph:

Brian Selznick

The Carnegie medal, which has been won by the likes of Arthur Ransome and CS Lewis over
the past 82 years, has never seen a non-white winner. This years longlist of 20 authors was
entirely white, a decision that was highly criticised by authors including Philip Pullman and
Alex Wheatle, who called for a boycott of the award. Afterwards, the Chartered Institute of
Library and Information Professionals (Cilip), which runs the awards, announced there would
be an independent review of both medals to address the diversity problem.

The winners for both medals will be announced on 19 June at a ceremony in London. The
winners receive 500 worth of books to donate to their local library, a golden medal and
5,000 each from the Colin Mears Award.

The Cilip Carnegie medal 2017 shortlist

Sputniks Guide to Life on Earth, by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Pan Macmillan)
The Bone Sparrow, by Zana Fraillon (Orion Childrens Books)
The Smell of Other Peoples Houses, by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock (Faber & Faber)
The Stars at Oktober Bend, by Glenda Millard (Old Barn Books)
Railhead, by Philip Reeve (Oxford University Press)
Beck, by Mal Peet with Meg Roso (Walker Books)
Salt to the Sea, by Ruta Sepetys (Pun)
Wolf Hollow, by Lauren Wolk (Corgi)
The Cilip Kate Greenaway medal 2017 shortlist
Wild Animals of the North, illustrated and written by Dieter Braun (Flying Eye Books)
Tidy, illustrated and written by Emily Gravett (Two Hoots)
The Wolves of Currumpaw, illustrated and written by William Grill (Flying Eye Books)
Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, illustrated by Jim Kay, written by J K Rowling
(Bloomsbury)
A Great Big Cuddle, illustrated by Chris Riddell and written by Michael Rosen (Walker Books)
The Journey, illustrated and written by Francesca Sanna (Flying Eye Books)
The Marvels, illustrated and written by Brian Selznick (Scholastic)
There is a Tribe of Kids, illustrated and written by Lane Smith (Two Hoots)
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Topics
Carnegie medal
Children and teenagers/Awards and prizes/Illustration/Mal Peet/Meg Roso/news

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