Carnegie Medal in Literature - Latest Rendition

Latest Rendition

Patrick Ness won the 2012 Carnegie Medal for A Monster Calls (Walker Books), illustrated by Jim Kay, who won the Greenaway Medal for the same book, which they completed without meeting. A Monster Calls is the first double winner of CILIP's two annual awards. It is recommended for readers age 9+.

Ness shares credit with Siobhan Dowd, deceased 21 August 2007. Dowd had discussed it with Ness's editor Denise Johnstone-Burt and contracted to write it.

There were eight books on the shortlist announced 27 March, each published September 2010 to August 2011. The official website provides bibliographic data, front cover images, capsules, annotations for the public by the judging panel, and reader ages (given here) that range from 8+ to 12+.

• ( 9+) David Almond, My Name Is Mina (Hodder)
• ( 8+) Lissa Evans, Small Change for Stuart (Doubleday)
• ( 9+) Sonya Hartnett, The Midnight Zoo (Walker)
• (12+) Ali Lewis, Everybody Jam (Andersen)
• (12+) Andy Mulligan, Trash (David Fickling)
• ( 9+) Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls (Walker)
• (10+) Annabel Pitcher, My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece (Orion)
• (12+) Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Grey (Puffin)

These are the first published children's books by Evans, Lewis, Pitcher and Sepetys. Ness is also the 2011 Medalist.

CILIP notes the young audience for the current contenders, "The eight books on this year's shortlist are variously suitable for readers of 12 years, or younger, bucking the trend of recent shortlists which have majored on teenage and young adult fiction." Suggested reader ages on the 2011 shortlist were 10+ to 14+ and there were at least two "14+" books on each of the last three shortlists.

Books were nominated in September and October, nominations announced in November, shortlist announced in March, and winner announced online 14 June 2012.