Friday, June 15, 2012

“DEFINING BOOK OF ITS GENERATION” SCORES UNIQUE DOUBLE VICTORY


Press release from an ecstatic Walker Books !

A Monster Calls written by Patrick Ness and illustrated by Jim Kay has become the first book ever to win both the CILIP Carnegie and CILIP Kate Greenaway Medals.

Walker Books is delighted to be a part of this historic announcement marking a unique moment in the 75 year history of the UK’s oldest and most prestigious children’s book award.


In winning the CILIP Carnegie Medal, Patrick Ness also becomes only the second author to win the award in consecutive years. He scooped the coveted Medal in 2011 for Monsters of Men.

Commenting on today’s historic announcement, Rachel Levy, Children’s Library Services Manager for Sutton Libraries and chair of the 2012 CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway judging panels said:

A Monster Calls is outstanding in every way: Patrick Ness’s story is exquisitely told with not a word out of place. Jim Kay’s bold, haunting illustrations beautifully complement, and even expand the text. This is a book readers will remember and return to over and over again. It is, quite simply, one of the defining books of its generation”.

One young reviewer from this year’s CILIP Carnegie shadowing scheme wrote of A Monster Calls:

“Patrick Ness has written a book that not only has the ability to break your heart, but heal it as well”

Asked what winning his second consecutive CILIP Carnegie Medal meant to him, Patrick Ness said:

“It’s extremely humbling - and a little unnerving - to win the CILIP Carnegie Medal two years in a row. I also can’t tell you how happy I am that not only has the extraordinary work of Jim Kay been recognised with the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal (truly couldn’t happen to a nicer guy), but that this will all help keep people reading and talking about the wonderful, wonderful Siobhan Dowd, which was the best outcome I wanted when I set out to write the book”.

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