Wednesday 15 January 2025: The Carnegies, the UK’s longest-running and best-loved book awards for children and young people, are thrilled to announce the return of the Carnegies Book Town Takeover in Sedbergh for a second consecutive year. The event will take place on Tuesday, 18 March 2025, marking a special collaboration with Sedbergh, England’s Book Town, during Sedbergh School’s 500-year anniversary celebrations.
This year’s headline speaker is Joseph Coelho, 2024 Carnegie Medal Winner for Writing, who inspired young people in his award speech with the words: “Allow time and space for the dreams you don’t yet know you have… And libraries and librarians can be a huge help in that endeavour because books do widen our horizons. They enable us to read about our own lives but also about each other’s lives, which is so essential in bringing us all together as one global family.”
Joining Joseph will be authors and illustrators featured on the 2025 longlists and shortlists of the Carnegies awards, with the full line-up to be announced after the official longlist and shortlist announcements.
The 2025 event will focus on delivering a dynamic daytime programme with free sessions designed for primary and secondary school groups, celebrating outstanding books, reading, and storytelling. The programme is made possible through the continued partnership with the Sedbergh Book Town Literary Trust, Sedbergh School, Sedbergh Prep School, and Pen&Inc magazine.
The Carnegies Book Town Takeover is part of the wider mission of the Carnegies to promote a lifelong love of reading and celebrate excellence in children’s and young adult literature. This partnership with Sedbergh offers a unique opportunity to unite authors, illustrators, and educators with young readers in a town steeped in literary heritage.
Registration is now open for school groups to attend the Carnegies Book Town Takeover on 18th March 2025 in Sedbergh, England’s Book Town. If you have any questions, please contact carnegies@sedberghschool.org.
For those who aren’t local to Sedbergh and cannot attend this event, there are still opportunities to get involved. Sign up your group to shadow the 2025 awards and join the Carnegies for other in-person and virtual events happening throughout the year as part of the 2025 awards.
The shortlists for the 2025 Carnegies will be announced at a panel event at London Book Fair beginning at 3.15pm on Tuesday 11 March. The winners’ ceremony will be hosted live and streamed online on Thursday 19 June.
Pen&Inc magazine and the Carnegies are partnered in their mission to create a better, more inclusive world through reading for pleasure, and are both a part of CILIP, the Library and Information Association. The Carnegies are supported by The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) and Scholastic as the official book supplier.
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For further information on the Carnegies 2025 please visit: www.carnegies.co.uk
#Carnegies2025 | @CarnegieMedals on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky and TikTok
For media and interview requests, please contact: Katie Cregg at ed public relations on katie@edpr.co.uk 020 7732 4796
NOTES TO EDITORS:
KEY DATES
Wednesday 12 February 2025: Longlists announced
Tuesday 11 March 2025: Shortlists announced (15:45 GMT)
Wednesday 12 March 2025: Shadowing begins
Thursday 19 June 2025: Winners announced at a live-streamed ceremony
About The Carnegies
The Carnegies celebrate outstanding achievement in children’s writing and illustration respectively and are unique in being judged solely by librarians.
The Carnegie Medal for Writing is awarded annually to a children’s book author whose writing creates an outstanding reading experience. It was established in 1936 in memory of the Scottish-born philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919).
The Carnegie Medal for Illustration (previously known as the Kate Greenaway Medal), established in 1955, is awarded annually to a children’s book illustrator whose artwork creates an outstanding reading experience.
Each year thousands of reading groups in schools and libraries in the UK and overseas get involved in the Awards, with children and young people ‘shadowing’ the judging process. They read, discuss and review the books on the shortlists, get involved in reading related activities in groups, and vote for their favourite books to win the Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medals for Writing and Illustration.
In 2024, the Carnegie Medal for Writing was awarded for the first time to a Black British author, and then Children’s Laureate – Joseph Coelho – for his novel in verse The Boy Lost in the Maze illustrated by Kate Milner (Otter-Barry Books). The 2024 Carnegie Medal for Illustration and Shadowers’ Choice Award for Illustration were both awarded to Aaron Becker in a double-win for his wordless picture book The Tree and the River (Walker Books). The Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medal for Writing went to Tia Fisher for her debut novel told in verse, Crossing the Line (Bonnier Books UK).
About Sedbergh Book Town
Sedbergh England’s Book Town became internationally recognised in 2005, joining Hay on Wye in Wales and Wigtown in Scotland.
Run by a charity, The Sedbergh Book Town Literary Trust, 2025 marks England’s Booktown’s twentieth anniversary. Sedbergh is thrilled to partner with the Carnegies and Sedbergh School in this live event for the primary school children of the north west, building the readers of the future.
In 2025 Sedbergh Book Town will be hosting two surprising events:
Horror in the Hills, a spine-tingling exploration of the Macabre at Midsummer, 21st/22nd June;
Death in the Dales, the second annual Sedbergh Crime Writing Festival, 17th/18th/19th October.
Further 2025 events will include the writing competition for children and adults from Sept – December, Writing Showcase an open-mic event for the regions amateur wriiters and occasional Author and Storyteller Evenings.
Founded in 1525, Sedbergh School is one of the UK’s leading independent boarding schools, for boys and girls aged 3 to 18, offering a rich heritage and outstanding educational opportunities.
The school is renowned for its emphasis on academic excellence, personal development, and co-curricular achievements in sports, arts, and outdoor pursuits.
Notable alumni include Simon Beaufoy, Academy Award winning screenwriter, Brendan Bracken, Churchill’s Minister of Information, who funded the restoration of the School’s 18th century Winston Churchill Library, and the Brontë sisters, who attended the Clergy Daughter’s School which later became Sedbergh Preparatory School.
Alongside the Carnegies Book Town Takeover, the School is organising a range of events throughout 2025, as it celebrates its quincentenary, including a celebratory concert at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and Christmas Carols at York Minster.
Pen&inc. magazine champions inclusion and representation in children’s book publishing, celebrating authors, poets, illustrators, and characters from diverse and under-represented backgrounds.
Published twice a year (Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter), each issue includes interviews and features with new and established figures in children’s publishing, covering all genres and age-groups from pre-school to young adult, fiction, and non-fiction.
Launched in 2019 by CILIP, the library and information association, Pen&inc. supports libraries and schools to build representative book collections through its free listings guide.
Subscriptions to Pen&inc. help support its mission to improve diversity in young people’s books, while allowing a free-to-access digital version for all at www.cilip.org.uk/penandinc
About CILIP, the library and information association
CILIP is the leading voice for the information, knowledge management and library profession. Our goal is to put information and library skills and professional values at the heart of a democratic, equal and prosperous society.
CILIP is a registered charity, no. 313014. The YLG is a special interest group of CILIP who work to preserve and influence the provision of quality literature and library services for children and young people, both in public libraries and school library services.
YLG has 12 regional committees covering all of the UK, and each committee advertises and democratically recruits a judge to represent them on the panel of judges. Each judge serves a two-year term and each year the panel is a unique mix of new and experienced judges led by the Chair of Judges. Following the independent diversity review of the Awards, CILIP introduced a co-opting procedure so that if this recruitment process does not result in a sufficiently diverse and representative judging panel, up to two judges will be co-opted to join the panel.
In 2025, the judging panel includes 14 volunteer judges from CILIP’s Youth Libraries Group and Chair of Judges Ros Harding. Find out more about this year’s judges here.
About Joseph Coelho
Joseph Coelho is a best-selling, multi-award winning children’s playwright and author of over 50 books. His The Boy Lost in The Maze was the winner of the 2024 Carnegie Medal for writing and has received international acclaim appearing on the White Raven Book list – Munich, The IBBY UK Honour Books List and awarded The Extraordinary Book of 2023 by The International Children’s Literature Festival of Berlin. Joseph was the Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate 2022 – 2024.
About Scholastic
For 100 years, Scholastic Corporation has been encouraging the personal and intellectual growth of all children, beginning with literacy. Having earned a reputation as a trusted partner to educators and families, Scholastic is the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, a leading provider of literacy curriculum, professional services, and classroom magazines, and a producer of educational and entertaining children’s media. The Company creates and distributes bestselling books and e-books, print and technology-based learning programs for pre-K to grade 12, and other products and services that support children’s learning and literacy, both in school and at home. With 15 international operations and exports to 165 countries, Scholastic makes quality, affordable books available to all children around the world through school-based book clubs and book fairs, classroom libraries, school and public libraries, retail, and online.
The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) is a not-for-profit organisation started by writers for the benefit of all types of writers. Owned by its members, ALCS collects money due for secondary uses of writers’ work. It is designed to support authors and their creativity; ensure they receive fair payment and see their rights are respected. It promotes and teaches the principles of copyright and campaigns for a fair deal. It represents over 120,000 members, and since 1977 has paid over £650million to writers.