Two years after he died, children’s author Mal Peet may be set for a posthumous Carnegie medal win, after making the shortlist with his co-author Meg Rosoff.
Rosoff, who finished Peet’s novel Beck, a coming-of-age tale about a mixed-race boy in America during the 1900s, told the Guardian: “I was really worried about doing justice to his amazing writing, so this is a nice confirmation that I did an OK job.”
Rosoff, who won the Carnegie, Britain’s oldest and most prestigious children’s book award, in 2006, said a win would ensure Peet’s writing was remembered. “He was such an astonishing writer. Any attention that he can still get, even after he’s dead – not that he would care now – it is really important, because I’m not sure his books were ever read enough,” she said.
Peet died in 2015. If he wins the Carnegie, which celebrates outstanding writing for children and teenagers, it will be the second posthumous win in the prize’s history: Siobhan Dowd was the first, winning in 2009 for Bog Child.
Other fellow former Carnegie medal winners shortlisted this year are Frank Cottrell-Boyce, for his story of a boy raised in a foster family, Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth, and Philip Reeve for Railhead, set in a futuristic world where trains transport passengers between planets and galaxies.
Previously shortlisted author, Ruta Sepetys, is nominated for Salt to the Sea, a story of refugees after the second world war. Zana Fraillon, an Australian author whose book The Bone Sparrow was inspired by refugee children’s drawings from an Australian detention centre, is shortlisted for the first time, as is Lauren Wolk for her first children’s book Wolf Hollow, and Glenda Millard for The Stars at Oktober Bend.
There is one debut: journalist-turned-author Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock, who was also nominated for the Guardian’s children’s book award for The Smell of Other People’s Houses, inspired by her own experiences of growing up in Alaska in the 1970s.
Also announced at a ceremony in London on Thursday night was the shortlist of illustrators up for the Kate Greenaway medal, which celebrates art in children’s books. Children’s laureate Chris Riddell is in the running to win an unprecedented fourth time for his work on Michael Rosen’s book A Great Big Cuddle.
Twenty years after JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was shortlisted for the Carnegie, the book makes a surprise reappearance, with illustrator Jim Kay shortlisted for a new edition. Kay is joined by other previous winners Emily Gravett and her picture book Tidy, and William Grill, who wrote and illustrated The Wolves of Currumpaw.
German artist Dieter Braun is the first translated writer to be shortlisted for his pictorial guide Wild Animals of the North. Other first-timers include Francesca Sanna, for her picture book about refugees, The Journey; Brian Selznick, who was the first author-illustrator to be longlisted for both medals in the same year, with his novel The Marvels; and Lane Smith, for the picture book There is a Tribe of Kids.
The Carnegie medal, which has been won by the likes of Arthur Ransome and CS Lewis over the past 82 years, has never seen a non-white winner. This year’s longlist of 20 authors was entirely white, a decision that was highly criticised by authors including Philip Pullman and Alex Wheatle, who called for a boycott of the award. Afterwards, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip), which runs the awards, announced there would be an independent review of both medals to address the diversity problem.
The winners for both medals will be announced on 19 June at a ceremony in London. The winners receive £500 worth of books to donate to their local library, a golden medal and £5,000 each from the Colin Mears Award.
The Cilip Carnegie medal 2017 shortlist
- Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth, by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Pan Macmillan)
- The Bone Sparrow, by Zana Fraillon (Orion Children’s Books)
- The Smell of Other People’s Houses, by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock (Faber & Faber)
- The Stars at Oktober Bend, by Glenda Millard (Old Barn Books)
- Railhead, by Philip Reeve (Oxford University Press)
- Beck, by Mal Peet with Meg Rosoff (Walker Books)
- Salt to the Sea, by Ruta Sepetys (Puffin)
- Wolf Hollow, by Lauren Wolk (Corgi)
The Cilip Kate Greenaway medal 2017 shortlist
- Wild Animals of the North, illustrated and written by Dieter Braun (Flying Eye Books)
- Tidy, illustrated and written by Emily Gravett (Two Hoots)
- The Wolves of Currumpaw, illustrated and written by William Grill (Flying Eye Books)
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, illustrated by Jim Kay, written by J K Rowling (Bloomsbury)
- A Great Big Cuddle, illustrated by Chris Riddell and written by Michael Rosen (Walker Books)
- The Journey, illustrated and written by Francesca Sanna (Flying Eye Books)
- The Marvels, illustrated and written by Brian Selznick (Scholastic)
- There is a Tribe of Kids, illustrated and written by Lane Smith (Two Hoots)
• This article was amended on 24 March 2017. An earlier version said Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone won the Carnegie medal 20 years ago; it was shortlisted for the 1997 award.