Today, Tuesday 1 September, marks the opening of nominations for the 2016 CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals, the two most prestigious accolades in children’s books and illustration. For the first time, the Carnegie Medal will be open to first English translations of foreign language works published for children and young people.
Awarded annually to a book of outstanding literary quality, the CILIP Carnegie Medal is one of the oldest book awards in the UK. The decision to open up the Carnegie Medal criteria stems from CILIP’s (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) aim to be inclusive and demonstrates its commitment to the values of diversity and cross-cultural understanding in literature for children and young people.
Joy Court, Chair of the Working Party for both Medals, said: “As awareness of world literature in translation has risen within both the book trade and amongst the wider public, it feels absolutely right that, as a globally recognised award, the CILIP Carnegie Medal should reflect this. At CILIP, we believe that this clarification of the eligibility criteria will maintain and strengthen the reputation for our two Medals as recognising the most outstanding writing and illustration for children and young people in the world.”
Recognising the contribution made by translators in making stories originally written in another language accessible to English language readers, the updated Carnegie Medal criteria will see them listed as co-authors. The CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal criteria already allows translated works and works previously published as long as the illustrations are entirely new.
Past winners of the Medals include celebrated authors Arthur Ransome, C.S Lewis, Geraldine McCaughrean, Patrick Ness and Sally Gardner for the Carnegie and renowned illustrators Quentin Blake, Anthony Browne, Chris Riddell and Shirley Hughes for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Unique in that they are judged by a panel of expert librarians, the Medals are the awards that children’s book authors and illustrators say they ‘most want to win’.
The nominations window for the 2016 Medals opens on Tuesday 1 September and closes on Monday 5 October. The full criteria for eligibility for both Medals can be found on the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals website.