Carnegie and Kate Greenaway winners announced

Sally Gardner has just been announced as the winner of the 2013 CILIP Carnegie Medal for her book Maggot Moon. The Carnegie Medal was established in 1936 in memory of philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who funded libraries and promoted literature. Sally Garnder has been awarded a medal and given £500 to provide books to a library of her choice.

The CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal has been awarded to Levi Pinfold, for Black Dog. The Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded for distinguished illustration in a book for children, and is awarded along with a cash prize and a donation for books for a library. The medals were presented at an awards ceremony at the Natural History Museum in London. Congratulations to both of these worthy winners!

Now that the judges’ choice has been announced, the next question people are asking is: which books have proven most popular with children? We’ve been crunching the numbers to find out – with very interesting results.

Carnegie winner: Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

Under the ruthless regime of the Motherland, Standish Treadwell, a dyslexic teenager, realises that he must risk everything to expose the truth about a heralded moon landing. Standish’s heroism is the defining theme of the book, as a small rag-tag band of rebels stand up against a crushing authority.

Kate Greenaway winner: Black Dog

When a huge black dog appears outside the Hope family home, each member of the household sees it and hides. Only Small, the youngest Hope, has the courage to face the black dog, who might not be as frightening as everyone else thinks.

Most popular shortlisted titles

This year’s shortlists for the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals were very strong, so it’s unsurprising that all of the books on the shortlists have proven popular with readers. We’ve seen an increase in the number of children taking Reading Practice quizzes on the shortlisted books since the lists were released in March.

We’ve calculated the number of children taking Reading Practice quizzes on the shortlisted titles using Accelerated Reader from March, when the shortlists were released, to the announcement of the winners today. We can reveal that the most-read title from the Carnegie shortlist has been Wonder by RJ Palacio. Quizzes taken on Wonder accounted for almost a third of all the quizzes taken on Carnegie shotlisted books. The winner, Maggot Moon, was the third most-quizzed title. The breadth of popularity for these titles demonstrates the strength of this year’s shortlist, as well as the vibrant range of books available to children and young people to engage them with reading.

The Kate Greenaway shortlist contained six books that we have quizzed for AR and two which we deemed unsuitable for Reading Practice quizzing. Of the titles we were able to quiz, by far the most popular with children has been Black Dog by Levi Pinfold. The illustrations in Black Dog help to draw the reader into the story, which is itself a gripping tale with an important message about the perils of taking things at face value. Well over half of the quizzes taken on the Kate Greenaway shortlist were on Black Dog, meaning that child readers have joined the judges in their fondness for the book.