This term a group of Year 9s have been shadowing the Carnegie Book Award, meeting in the school library regularly to read and review a shortlist of books and voting for which was their favourite. This culminated in the students enjoying a live screening of the award ceremony from the British Library in London.
The CILIP Carnegie Medal is one of the UK’s oldest and best-loved children’s book awards, recognising outstanding reading experiences created through writing and illustration in books for children and young people. It is awarded by children’s librarians for an outstanding book written for children and young people and has been won in previous years by literary luminaries such as Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett and Anne Fine.
While we never did quite reach consensus on which was our favourite book, we all agreed that the recipient of the medal, Jason Reynolds for his book ‘Look Both Ways’, was a worthy winner. We liked how on the surface the book was a simple story told in ten blocks about a group of young people walking home from school but, as the novel progresses, it becomes apparent that each thread interlinks and, as we find out each character’s tale, we realise that no-one’s story is ever really simple.