2024 Yoto Carnegies Shortlist
The shortlists for the Yoto Carnegies, formerly the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals have been announced. The shortlists were revealed at a special event at the London Book Fair on 13 March by a panel including Jake Hope, Carnegie Awards Executive, 2024 Chair of Judges Maura Farrelly, and 2023 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing winner, Manon Steffan Ros (The Blue Book of Nebo, Firefly Press).
The Yoto Carnegies celebrate outstanding achievement in children’s writing and illustration and are unique in being judged by librarians, with respective Shadowers’ Choice Medals voted for by children and young people.
16 books have been shortlisted in total, with eight in each category for the Carnegie Medal for Writing and Carnegie Medal for Illustration; whittled down from the 36 longlisted titles by the judging panel which includes 12 librarians from CILIP: the library and information association’s Youth Libraries Group.
Poetry dominates the shortlist for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing with three verse novels by Waterstones Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho, Kwame Alexander, and Tia Fisher. Nicola Davies’ collection Choose Love, illustrated by Petr Horáček, is also shortlisted.
Previous winner Catherine Rayner is shortlisted again for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration alongside three-time shortlisted illustrator Poonam Mistry and Klaus Flugge Prize and UKLA Book Award winner Mariajo Ilustrajo.
The shortlists are:
The 2024 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration shortlist
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 2024 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing shortlist
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)
Maura Farrelly, Chair of Judges for The Yoto Carnegies 2024, said, ‘The judges have worked incredibly hard to select 16 outstanding books; books that celebrate the very best of writing and illustration for children and young people. 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. We are excited to share these lists with shadowing groups and young readers, and very much look forward to reading their reviews and discovering their winners, alongside our own, at the announcement in June.’
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. Her second novel, The Crossing, was shortlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing in 2022.
The winners will each receive a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize. The winners of the Shadowers’ Choice Medals – voted for and awarded by the children and young people – will also be presented at the ceremony. They will also receive a golden medal and, for the first time this year, £500 worth of books to donate to a library of their choice.
As the official book supplier, Scholastic are working with CILIP to donate shortlist packs to 10 schools in disadvantaged areas to allow them to also take part in the shadowing and widen the reach of engagement with the awards. Applications will be open from 22 – 28 March with packs to be sent out immediately afterwards.
