CILIP Partners with Yoto to Unlock New Future for Carnegie Greenaway Awards
Long-term sustainability of the UK’s longest running and best-loved children’s book awards secured with new headline sponsor
carnegiegreenaway.org.uk / #CKG22
Wednesday 9 February 2022: CILIP, the charity that manages the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards, is pleased to announce it has agreed a three-year partnership with Yoto, the innovative, screen-free audio platform for children.
Together, they will work to increase the visibility, profile and reach of the Awards to inspire and empower a new generation of readers.
This year’s Awards will be re-named the Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Awards 2022 with immediate effect, ahead of the longlist announcement on 16 February.
The independent nomination and judging process for the Medals, which is uniquely carried out by librarians across the UK, remains the same. CILIP will continue working in partnership with the Awards’ existing sponsors including Peters, the official book supplier, and ALCS.
Nicholas Poole, chief executive of CILIP, says:
“We are hugely excited by our new relationship with Yoto, an innovative partner who shares our mission of inspiring and empowering a new generation of readers. Its support, along with that of our existing valued partners, ensures the long-term viability of the Awards and will enable us to increase their profile and visibility. Thanks to its involvement, the Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Awards – and the brilliant partners, librarians, publishers, authors, illustrators and retailers that we work with – will be able to engage and include more young people in reading the best books for pleasure.
“Yoto’s aim of putting kids in control chimes perfectly with the ambitions we have to further develop our Awards shadowing scheme and provide more opportunities for all children and young people to choose and access their favourite books from those selected by our librarian judges each year.”
Ben Drury, co-founder and ceo of Yoto, says:
“Yoto is dedicated to inspiring creativity and imagination in children. We are passionate about bringing the very best in children’s books to the widest audience through audio. We are hugely excited to be embarking on this new long-term partnership with CILIP where through the Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Awards we can celebrate the greatest children’s authors and illustrators being published each year. Yoto is thrilled to be associated with the most prestigious children’s books awards in the UK, and we look forward to helping ensure even more children can reap the benefits of the best books available.”
Jake Hope, chair of the CILIP Carnegie Greenaway Working Party, adds:
“Throughout their long history, the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals have celebrated outstanding writing and illustration, showcasing the expertise of librarians the length and breadth of the country who nominate for the Awards and who go on to pick the long and shortlists and the eventual winners. Today’s announcement about our new partnership with Yoto is particularly exciting because it enables us to make sure these books reach and connect with even more young readers in new engaging and creative ways.”
As part of the partnership, Yoto will work with publishers to access audio rights of the selected shortlist titles to create audio content for promotion through POS for retail, libraries and schools. Such a move means the best children’s books can reach an even broader audience to inspire and instil a love of reading across the UK.
Yoto is an audio platform that introduces children to a world of stories, music, educational activities, sound effects, podcasts and radio. Founders Ben Drury and Filip Denker were inspired by Montessori principles to create a screen-free audio device that kids could safely control themselves. The Yoto Player was listed as one of Time’s Best Inventions of the Year 2020.
Yoto’s platform features original content alongside audio licensed and co-created with partners including PRH, Macmillan, Sony, Disney, LEGO, Roald Dahl Story Company, HarperCollins, Hachette, Bonnier and Scholastic. In 2021, it partnered with the Puffin World of Stories initiative donating 90 Yoto Players, Card Cases and Card Sets to primary schools across the country.
Key Dates for the 2022 Awards:
The nominations for 2022 Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals were announced on 8 November with a total of 148 books nominated by librarians. Each nominated book is now being read by every member of the 2022 judging panel, which this year includes 14 children’s and youth librarians from CILIP’s Youth Libraries Group.
Wednesday 16 February 2022: Longlist announcement.
Wednesday 16 March 2022: Shortlist announcement and Shadowing begins.
Thursday 16 June 2022: 2022 Medal winners’ and Shadowers’ Choice announcement.
For media requests, including to arrange an interview with a spokesperson, please contact: Hannah Davies or Annabelle Wright at ed public relations on hannah@edpr.co.uk or annabelle@edpr.co.uk or 020 7732 4796
Notes to Editors
About Yoto
- Yoto is the audio platform that kids control. Our audio players let kids safely explore their favourite stories, music and more without a screen.
- Inspired by Montessori principals, Ben Drury and Filip Denker founded Yoto in 2017. The very first Yoto Player launched on Kickstarter, then sold out in 2019. The second generation Yoto Player was designed with renowned design agency, Pentagram, and launched in early 2020.
- Yoto Player has won awards and accolades from critics and toddlers alike. TIME Magazine even named it one of the Best Inventions of 2020.
- Yoto Mini – our portable audio player – launched in late 2021.
- Yoto’s platform features original content alongside audio licensed and co-created with partners. These include PRH, Macmillan, Sony, Disney, LEGO, Roald Dahl Story Company, HarperCollins, Hachette, Bonnier and Scholastic.
About the Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Awards and Shadowing Scheme
- The Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Awards celebrate outstanding achievement in children’s writing and illustration respectively and are unique in being judged by librarians. Alongside Yoto as the headline sponsor, the Awards are sponsored by Peters and ALCS.
- The Yoto Carnegie Medal 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 Yoto Kate Greenaway Medal, established in 1955, is named after the popular nineteenth century artist, known for her beautiful children’s illustrations and designs. The Yoto Kate Greenaway Medal 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 activity in groups, and vote for their favourite books to win the Shadowers’ Choice Awards.
- In 2021, the Carnegie Medal was won by Jason Reynolds for Look Both Ways, and the Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice was awarded to Manjeet Mann for Run, Rebel. The Kate Greenaway Medal was won by Sydney Smith for Small in the City and Sharon King-Chai was awarded the Greenaway Shadowers’ Choice for Starbird.
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 Youth Libraries Group (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 2022, the judging panel includes 14 volunteer judges from CILIP’s Youth Libraries Group. Find out more about this year’s judges here.
About the CILIP Equality and Diversity Action Plan
- An independent Diversity Review, chaired by Margaret Casely-Hayford, took place throughout the 2018 Medals cycle. CILIP announced the review of Medals – as part of the organisation’s wider Equality and Diversity Action Plan – following concerns raised about the lack of BAME representation on the 2017 Carnegie Medal longlist. The Review informed the annual evaluation process and long-term planning around the Awards and accompanying shadowing scheme. The annual reports pertaining to this review can be found here.
About CILIP’s Awards Partners
- Launched in 2013, Inclusive Minds is a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility in children’s literature and are committed to changing the face of children’s books. In February 2020 Inclusive Minds became a Community Interest Company (CIC) with a team of Ambassadors with lived experience as directors. This year Inclusive Minds CIC is lending its expertise to the 2022 Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Awards. The panel of judges will have access to the Inclusive Minds Ambassador Network, who will help to bring a broad range of voices and perspectives on the books in contention for the Awards.
- Royal National Institute of Blind People RNIB and Calibre Audio Library will be producing the Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Medal shortlisted books in accessible formats (compatibility permitting), including braille, giant print and audio books.
- Centre for Literacy in Primary Education and the English and Media Centre create expert teaching resources for the shortlisted books.
- Amnesty International is the world’s leading human rights organisation with more than seven million supporters worldwide. Amnesty’s partnership with CILIP focuses on strengthening its educational and training offer around human rights awareness and learning for shadowers, group leaders and shortlisted authors and illustrators.
