Awards

The Children’s Book Circle announces the winner of the 1989 Eleanor Farjeon Award as

Anna Home, Head of BBC Children’s Television

Few people have brought books and television together for children so successfully as Anna Home. A former bookseller and teacher, Anna has been working in television since 1960. Working as a Research Assistant, she was involved in the setting-up of Play School in 1964 and soon after Jackanory, of which she became Executive Producer in 1967. After a quarter of a century, Jackanory continues to bring together the best books for children read by a wide range of imaginatively chosen actors.

Throughout her television career, Anna Home has continued to strengthen the position of children’s literature through the medium of television. She has been involved in the growth of the Children’s Drama Unit, producing a number of book-based series such as Helen Cresswell’s Bagthorpe Saga and E Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet. In 1977 Anna started the award-winning and perhaps most controversial drama series, Grange Hill, which is still running on BBC1. 1979 saw the start of her teenage drama department for BBC2 with a series based on Joan Lingard’s character Maggie.

In 1981 Anna Home left the BBC to join TVS as one of the founder members of the franchise winning group. As Controller of Programmes and later Deputy of Programmes, and on the TVS Board, she was part of the senior management team responsible for policy and strategy, and created the Children’s and Young People’s Department out of which came a number of successful series including No 73 and Knights of God.

In 1986 Anna rejoined the BBC as Head of Children’s Television Programmes. She is currently responsible for some 900 hours of transmission each year, ranging from comedy to natural history. Again her belief in children’s books was shown last year when she introduced C S Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to millions of captivated children and parents.

Anna Home is respected throughout the world of television and publishing for her consistently high standards of work in children’s television over a number of years. She has shown that books and television are complementary arts, not sworn enemies as is often said to be the case, and she is actively involved in the campaign for the funding of children’s television at a time when it is under threat.

Previously winner of a BAFTA Award, recipient of a Pye Award for Distinguished Services to Children’s Television, and a Fellow of the Royal Television Society, Anna Home is a deserving winner of the 25th prestigious Eleanor Farjeon Award. BfK congratulates her!

The Eleanor Farjeon Award is presented annually by the Children’s Book Circle for distinguished service to children and hooks, and is sponsored by Books for Children.

The 1989 Earthworm Award Winners

The winner of the 1989 Earthworm Award, the UK’s only green prize for children’s books, is Awaiting Developments by Judy Allen (Julia MacRae, 0 86203 356 X, £8.95) which traces one girl’s campaign and battle to save a beautiful house and garden from unscrupulous developers. Judy Allen receives £1,000 and a specially carved wooden bowl which she keeps for one year.

Julia MacRae said at the award ceremony that she was ‘particularly pleased to have won this Award for the second year running (1988 winner was Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker). The environment is not only something we at Julia MacRae Books care about, but something which we know children care deeply about. We’ve been publishing “green” books for them for many years now, so it’s very rewarding to’ have them officially recognised by Friends of the Earth.’

The three runners-up, each receiving £250, are:

Tree, David Burnie, Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Guides, 0 86318 286 0, £6.95

Rainforest, Helen Cowcher, Deutsch, 0 233 98266 3, £5.95

Investigating Minibeasts pack, ILEA Learning Resources Branch, £35.00 (£28.00 ILEA)

The winning titles and the shortlist will be displayed in libraries and bookshops around the country, including branches of Hatchards, Waterstones and W H Smith.

The Earthworm Award was started three years ago. It aims to promote and reward environmental awareness and sensitivity in literature (fiction and non-fiction) for children of all ages.

The judges for the 1989 Award were Raymond Briggs, Michael Buerk, Sarah Greene, Jan Mark, Henry Pluckrose, Jonathon Porritt, Fiona Waters and Kaye Webb.

P.S. Friends of the Earth are setting up a new nationwide environmental competition for primary schools next year. Details should be available later this year.

And we at Books for Keeps have begun work on a ‘Green’ Children’s Booklist. It is very much at the planning stage but we’ll keep you posted. We’re hoping to publish it some time during 1990.

Carnegie and Greenaway: the 1988 Winners

These awards given by the Youth Libraries. Group of the Library Association – Carnegie for a work of children’s fiction and Greenaway for illustration – and probably the most important of any during the year, were announced too late for us to carry evaluative comment. It is interesting to note that both the winning books have won other awards.

The Carnegie Medal

has been won by Geraldine McCaughrean for A Pack of Lies (Oxford, 0 19 271612 3, £7.95). As reported in our May issue, the book received the 1989 Guardian Children’s Fiction Award.

Also shortlisted were:

The Monster Garden, Vivien Alcock, Methuen, 0 416 09192 X, £7.95

Awaiting Developments, Judy Allen, Julia MacRae, 0 86203 356 X, £8.95

A Map of Nowhere, Gillian Cross, Oxford, 0 19 271583 6, £7.95

Eva, Peter Dickinson, Gollancz, 0 575 04354 7, 0.95

The Lives of Christopher Chant, Diana Wynne Jones, Methuen, 0 416 10742 7, £8.95

Red Sky in the Morning, Elizabeth Laird, Heinemann, 0 434 94714 8, £7.95

The Kate Greenaway Award

has been won by Barbara Firth for her illustrations for Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear? by Martin Waddell (Walker, 0 7445 0796 0, £6.95). The book was also the 1988 Grand Prize winner of the Smarties Prize.

Also shortlisted were:

Ladybird, Ladybird, Ruth Brown, Andersen, 0 86264 200 0, £5.95

Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, ill. Anthony Browne, Julia MacRae, 0 86203 324 1, £12.95

Wake Up, Mr B!, Penny Dale, Walker, 0 7445 1085 6, £6.95

Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi, ill. Roberto Innocenti, Cape, 0 224 02523 6,;E8.95

Merlin Dreams, Peter Dickinson, ill. Alan Lee, Gollancz, 0 575 03962 0, £9.95

A Certificate of Merit was awarded to the entire team responsible for the ‘Eyewitness Guides’ and in particular for Bird (0 86318 270 4, £6.95) published by Dorling Kindersley.

Best Books for Babies

The £1000 Award given by Parents Magazine and administered by Book Trust for the best book for the under-4s. This year’s winner was Wake Up, Dad! by Sally Grindley and illustrated by Siobhan Dodds (Simon & Schuster, 0 671 69949 0, £4.95). The award is judged by ten families chosen by Parents.

Science Book Awards prizes

Science Museum, COPUS (Committee on the Public Understanding of Science)

The under-16 category of this award, now in its second year, went to The Way Things Work by David Macaulay and Neil Ardley (Dorling Kindersley, 0 86318 323 9, £15.00). If you want to know what we thought of this amazing and wonderful book, turn back to your March edition of BfK where we featured it on our cover and interviewed David Macaulay for our Authorgraph.