Mar 12, 2024
Yoto Carnegies 2024 Shortlists Announced
The UK’s longest-running book awards for children and young people, the Yoto Carnegies, have announced their 2024 shortlists at the London Book Fair today. Judged solely by children’s and youth librarians, these annual awardscelebrate outstanding achievement in children’s writing and illustration.
16 books have been shortlisted in total, with eight in each category for the Carnegie Medal for Writing and Carnegie Medal for Illustration.
Notably, the 2024 shortlist for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing is dominated by poetry,with three novels written in verse – two by former shortlistees, Waterstones Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho, and New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander, and one debut, Tia Fisher – alongside a poetry collection by prolific children’s writer Nicola Davies. The list is heavily weighted towards YA readers.
Meanwhile, picture books prevail on the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration shortlist, which includes previous winner Catherine Rayner and three-time shortlisted illustrator Poonam Mistry.
Journeys, literal and metaphorical, are a common theme across both lists, with books encouraging empathy and hope and promoting an understanding of historical and contemporary global issues, including the environment.
The Chair of Judges for 2024 Yoto Carnegies said:
“These are books to empower young readers, and for some will provide validation and refuge; stories of courage, of characters thriving to find themselves and their place in the world, often in difficult or dangerous situations. The books shortlisted for the writing medal exemplify immersive and compelling writing with the power to inspire and move readers across a range of forms. The illustration shortlist is entirely comprised of picture books, with a strong theme of the environment, underlining the way picture books can speak to all ages, and showing how nature and illustrated books can heal and empower.”
The shortlisted books are available to buy online.
The shortlist for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing 2024:
- The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander (Andersen Press)
- The Song Walker by Zillah Bethell (Usborne)
- Away with Words by Sophie Cameron (Little Tiger)
- The Boy Lost in the Maze by Joseph Coelho, illustrated by Kate Milner (Otter-Barry Books)
- Choose Love by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Petr Horáček (Graffeg)
- Crossing the Line by Tia Fisher (Bonnier Books UK)
- Safiyyah’s War by Hiba Noor Khan (Andersen Press)
- Steady for This by Nathanael Lessore (Bonnier Books UK)
The shortlist for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration 2024:
- The Tree and the River by Aaron Becker (Walker Books)
- April’s Garden by Catalina Echeverri, written by Isla McGuckin (Graffeg)
- Lost by Mariajo Ilustrajo (Quarto)
- The Wilderness by Steve McCarthy (Walker Books)
- To the Other Side by Erika Meza (Hachette Children’s Group)
- The Midnight Panther by Poonam Mistry (Bonnier Books UK)
- The Bowerbird by Catherine Rayner, written by Julia Donaldson (Macmillan Children’s Books)
- The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish by Chloe Savage (Walker Books)
The winners will be announced and celebrated on Thursday 20 June at a live and streamed ceremony, hosted by Manjeet Mann, winner of the 2021 Shadowers’ Choice Medal for Writing for her debut novel, Run, Rebel.
The winners will each receive £500 worth of books to donate to a library of their choice, a specially commissioned golden medal, and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.
The shortlisted books are available to buy online.
For further information on the Yoto Carnegie Medals, please visit: yotocarnegies.co.uk.
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