Carnegie Medal Winners

It would seem that I'm a bit slow off the starting blocks when it comes to the Carnegie Medal this year; I hadn't realised that the winner had been announced! For shame! I'm glad Philip Reeve took it though, with "Here Lies Arthur" (although I shamefully haven't read it), and for a bit of fun, here's a list of the Carnegie winners from the last 70 years, with the ones I've read in bold.

2008 Philip Reeve, Here Lies Arthur, Scholastic

2007 Meg Rosoff, Just in Case, Penguin

2005 Mal Peet, Tamar, Walker Books

2004 Frank Cottrell Boyce, Millions, Macmillan

2003 Jennifer Donnelly, A Gathering Light, Bloomsbury Children's Books

2002 Sharon Creech, Ruby Holler, Bloomsbury Children's Books

2001 Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, Doubleday

2000 Beverley Naidoo, The Other Side of Truth, Puffin

1999 Aidan Chambers, Postcards From No Man's Land, Bodley Head

1998 David Almond, Skellig, Hodder Children's Books

1997 Tim Bowler, River Boy, OUP

1996 Melvin Burgess, Junk, Andersen Press

1995 Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials: Book 1 Northern Lights, Scholastic

1994 Theresa Breslin, Whispers in the Graveyard, Methuen

1993 Robert Swindells, Stone Cold, H Hamilton

1992 Anne Fine, Flour Babies, H Hamilton

1991 Berlie Doherty, Dear Nobody, H Hamilton

1990 Gillian Cross, Wolf, OUP

1989 Anne Fine, Goggle-eyes, H Hamilton

1988 Geraldine McCaughrean, A Pack of Lies, OUP (I love this book. I can't recommend it enough)

1987 Susan Price, The Ghost Drum, Faber

1986 Berlie Doherty, Granny was a Buffer Girl, Methuen

1985 Kevin Crossley-Holland, Storm, Heinemann

1984 Margaret Mahy, The Changeover, Dent

1983 Jan Mark, Handles, Kestrel

1982 Margaret Mahy, The Haunting, Dent

1981 Robert Westall, The Scarecrows, Chatto & Windus

1980 Peter Dickinson, City of Gold, Gollancz

1979 Peter Dickinson, Tulku, Gollancz

1978 David Rees, The Exeter Blitz, H Hamilton

1977 Gene Kemp, The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, Faber

1976 Jan Mark, Thunder and Lightnings, Kestrel

1975 Robert Westall, The Machine Gunners, Macmillan

1974 Mollie Hunter, The Stronghold, H Hamilton

1973 Penelope Lively, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, Heinemann

1972 Richard Adams, Watership Down, Rex Collings

1971 Ivan Southall, Josh, Angus & Robertson

1970 Leon Garfield & Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea, Longman

1969 Kathleen Peyton, The Edge of the Cloud, OUP

1968 Rosemary Harris, The Moon in the Cloud, Faber

1967 Alan Garner, The Owl Service, Collins

1966 Prize withheld as no book considered suitable

1965 Philip Turner, The Grange at High Force, OUP

1964 Sheena Porter, Nordy Bank, OUP

1963 Hester Burton, Time of Trial, OUP

1962 Pauline Clarke, The Twelve and the Genii, Faber

1961 Lucy M Boston, A Stranger at Green Knowe, Faber

1960 Dr I W Cornwall, The Making of Man, Phoenix House

1959 Rosemary Sutcliff, The Lantern Bearers, OUP

1958 Philipa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden, OUP

1957 William Mayne, A Grass Rope, OUP

1956 C S Lewis, The Last Battle, Bodley Head

1955 Eleanor Farjeon, The Little Bookroom, OUP

1954 Ronald Welch (Felton Ronald Oliver), Knight Crusader, OUP

1953 Edward Osmond, A Valley Grows Up

1952 Mary Norton, The Borrowers, Dent

1951 Cynthia Harnett, The Woolpack, Methuen

1950 Elfrida Vipont Foulds, The Lark on the Wing, OUP

1949 Agnes Allen, The Story of Your Home, Faber

1948 Richard Armstrong, Sea Change, Dent

1947 Walter De La Mare, Collected Stories for Children

1946 Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse, University of London Press

1945 Prize withheld as no book considered suitable

1944 Eric Linklater, The Wind on the Moon, Macmillan

1943 Prize withheld as no book considered suitable

1942 'BB' (D J Watkins-Pitchford), The Little Grey Men, Eyre & Spottiswoode

1941 Mary Treadgold, We Couldn't Leave Dinah, Cape

1940 Kitty Barne, Visitors from London, Dent

1939 Eleanor Doorly, Radium Woman, Heinemann

1938 Noel Streatfeild, The Circus is Coming, Dent

1937 Eve Garnett, The Family from One End Street, Muller

1936 Arthur Ransome, Pigeon Post, Cape

Update the second - don't say I never do anything for you.

There's some crazy double-negatives going on in that title. But that's just the kind of girl I am. A girl on the edge! In a, er, double-negative sort of way.
Anyhow, I thought I'd do a quick update with the books I've been reading lately. They've all been Dorothy L Sayers books. There are no words for how wonderful these books are. Seriously, the progression of Peter from "Whose Body?" to "Busman's Honeymoon" is -insane-. He's REAL. Because he's so real and you love him so much, the relationship between Peter and Harriet Vane is really emotionally affecting. I can't explain what I mean, you'll have to read the books. So, in no particular order..

"Murder Must Advertise" - Dorothy L Sayers

I read this in one delicious sitting. I was initially unsure, but fell in love a few pages in - here is Peter at his witty best, undercover as his disreputable cousin Death Bredon at an advertising firm, trying to solve the murder of one Victor Dean. The actual crux of the plot, the device used (I'd elaborate, but I'd spoil it) is just genius and did actually make me shout "aha!" But we also see another side of Peter as the Harlequin, perhaps hinting at his shady (relatively speaking) past (the opera singer, anyone?!) as Sayers tackles head-on the problem of drugs. Fascinating.

"Gaudy Night" - Dorothy L Sayers

Harriet Vane is back. I think that the most remarkable thing about "Gaudy Night" is that whilst so much character progression occurs in the space of one novel, both for Lord Peter and especially for Harriet, it's believable. It's not strictly a murder mystery, there's no murder, but there's so much more for that...Harriet and Peter are so human and almost infuriating at times because you like them both so much and want them to find happiness with each other, and when they finally do.....*sigh*

"Busman's Honeymoon" - Dorothy L Sayers

The beginning of "Busman's Honeymoon", charting Harriet and Peter's engagement is told through letters and diary entries, an unusual and often amusing form and one that Jill Paton Walsh later utilises in "Thrones, Dominations". This is "a love story with detective interruptions"; the murder isn't even discovered until halfway through the novel, but in some regards it's not -about- murder, it's about so much more than that, and Peter and Harriet become even more real. The closing chapters of "Busman's Honeymoon" are absolutely tragic, but also Sayers on the top of her form. Quite simply, they're perfection. You'll weep. I did.

"Thrones, Dominations" - Dorothy L Sayers, Jill Paton Walsh

More Peter and Harriet! Whilst it's not strictly Sayers, Jill Paton Walsh has done a pretty good job with the characters. She's definitely understood Harriet; Harriet is brilliant here, and although unsure about the character development in Bunter, I'm glad that a little more is said about him. As for Peter, it's a trifle hit-and-miss in places, but it's a good effort, an enjoyable read and, at the end of the day, it's more Peter and Harriet.

I must away to work, where hopefully a copy of "A Presumption of Death" will be awaiting me.