The Carnegie Medal is a British literary award that annually recognises one outstanding new English-language book for children or young adults. It is conferred upon the author by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). CILIP calls it "the UK's oldest and most prestigious book award for children's writing".
Skellig is a children's novel by the British author David Almond, published by Hodder in 1998. It was the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and it won the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British author. In the US it was a runner up for the Michael L. Printz Award, which recognises one work of young adult fiction annually. Since publication, it has also been adapted into a play, an opera, and a film. In 2010, a prequel entitled My Name is Mina was published, written by David Almond himself.
The Kate Greenaway Medal is a British literary award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) which inherited it from the Library Association.
Ann Philippa Pearce OBE was an English author of children's books. Best known of them is the time-slip novel Tom's Midnight Garden, which won the 1958 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, as the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject. Pearce was a commended runner-up for the Medal a further four times.
Charles William James Keeping was an English illustrator, children's book author and lithographer. He made the illustrations for Rosemary Sutcliff's historical novels for children, and he created more than twenty picture books. He also illustrated the complete works of Charles Dickens for the Folio Society.
The Family from One End Street is a realistic English children's novel, written and illustrated by Eve Garnett and published by Frederick Muller in 1937. It is "a classic story of life in a big, happy family." set in a small Sussex town in the south east of England. It was regarded as innovative and groundbreaking for its portrayal of a working-class family at a time when children's books were dominated by stories about middle-class children.
Sharon Creech is an American writer of children's novels. She was the first American winner of the Carnegie Medal for British children's books and the first person to win both the American Newbery Medal and the British Carnegie.
Chris Riddell is a South African-born British illustrator and occasional writer of children's books and a political cartoonist for the Observer. He has won three Kate Greenaway Medals - the British librarians' annual award for the best-illustrated children's book, and two of his works were commended runners-up, a distinction dropped after 2002.
Lauren Margot Peachy Child is an English children's author and illustrator. She is best known for the Charlie and Lola picture book series and other book series. Her influences include E. H. Shepard, Quentin Blake, Carl Larsson, and Ludwig Bemelmans.
Winifred Shirley Hughes was an English author and illustrator. She wrote more than fifty books, which have sold more than 11.5 million copies, and illustrated more than two hundred. As of 2007, she lived in London.
The Graveyard Book is a young adult novel by the English author Neil Gaiman, simultaneously published in Britain and America in 2008. The Graveyard Book traces the story of the boy Nobody "Bod" Owens who is adopted and reared by the supernatural occupants of a graveyard after his family is brutally murdered.
Janet Ahlberg and Allan Ahlberg were a British married couple who created many children's books, including picture books that regularly appear at the top of "most popular" lists for public libraries. They worked together for 20 years until Janet's death from cancer in 1994. He wrote the books and she illustrated them. Allan Ahlberg has also written dozens of books with other illustrators.
John Burningham was an English author and illustrator of children's books, especially picture books for young children. He lived in north London with his wife Helen Oxenbury, another illustrator. His last published work was a husband-and-wife collaboration, There's Going to Be a New Baby, written by John and illustrated by Helen for "ages 2+".
Helen Gillian Oxenbury is an English illustrator and writer of children's picture books. She lives in North London. She has twice won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal, the British librarians' award for illustration and been runner-up four times. For the 50th anniversary of that Medal (1955–2005) her 1999 illustrated edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was named one of the top ten winning works.
Emily Gravett is an English author and illustrator of children's picture books. For her debut book Wolves published in 2005 and Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears published three years later, she won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal recognising the year's best-illustrated British children's book.
Patrick Ness is an American-British author, journalist, lecturer, and screenwriter. Born in the United States, Ness moved to London and holds dual citizenship. He is best known for his books for young adults, including the Chaos Walking trilogy and A Monster Calls.
Brian Lawrence Wildsmith was a British painter and children's book illustrator. He won the 1962 Kate Greenaway Medal for British children's book illustration, for the wordless alphabet book ABC. In all his books, the illustrations are always as important as the text.
Bog Child is a historical novel by Siobhan Dowd published by David Fickling (UK) and Random House Children's Books (US) on 9 September 2008, more than a year after her death. Set in the 1980s amid the backdrop of the Troubles of Northern Ireland, it features an 18-year-old boy who must study for exams but experiences "his imprisoned brother's hunger strike, the stress of being a courier for the provisional IRA, and dreams of a murdered girl whose body he discovered in a bog." In flashback and dream there are elements of the murdered girl's prehistoric or protohistoric life and death.
The Scarecrows is a young-adult novel by Robert Westall, published by Chatto & Windus in 1981. It is a psychological novel with a supernatural twist, featuring a thirteen-year-old boy's reaction to his mother's courtship and remarriage six years after his father's death. It deals with themes of rage, isolation and fear. Beside the inner themes, it "tells of a boy and his family brought to the brink of destruction by sinister external forces" and it may be called a ghost story. Its US Library of Congress Subject Headings are remarriage, stepfathers, and horror stories.
Orbiting Jupiter is a 2015 young adult fiction novel written by Gary D. Schmidt, the author of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and Okay for Now. The novel focuses on a Maine family as they begin fostering a teenage father.
