The Blue Book of Nebo WINNER OF THE YOTO CARNEGIE 2023 MEDAL FOR WRITING

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Yoto’s platform features both award-winning original content and audio that has been licensed or co-created with partners. These partners include PRH, Macmillan, Sony, Warner Music, Mattel, Disney, LEGO, Roald Dahl Story Company, HarperCollins, Hachette, Bonnier and Scholastic. The Yoto Carnegies are managed by CILIP, the library and information association. The Medals are awarded annually by CILIP and the Youth Libraries Group with longlists announced in February, shortlists in March and the winners announced at a ceremony in June. With daily online content and weekly delivery to your doorstep, First News provides factual, impartial news, sports, science, and entertainment from the UK and around the world. Yeah, but I think something needs to be written about The End. It doesn’t make sense otherwise. And I don’t know enough about it.’”

She smiled, a tight little smile I’d never seen before. “Good God, Rowenna, don’t overreact. We’ll be fine!”She was brushing the floor, a horizon of gray hairs stretching over the lino. I used to see the word Carnegie on the covers of my favourite books as a child, and the fact that The Blue Book of Nebo now has that honour bestowed upon it means more than I can say – and to be the first book in translation to win the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing is a source of great delight. One of the greatest privileges of my life has been the fact that I was raised through the medium of the Welsh language, and having access to two languages has brought me so much joy and opportunity. There’s a huge, lively, thriving Welsh language cultural scene that I’m honoured to be a part of. Each language offers a unique and enriching perspective on the world, and so literature in translation has the potential to enhance our lives greatly. Your favourite book might not yet be translated into a language that you understand.” For the first time in the awards almost 90-year history, the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing is awarded to a book in translation – The Blue Book of Nebo (Firefly Press), written and translated by Manon Steffan Ros. Told through the dual narrative of a mother and son in post-apocalyptic Nebo, this “compelling, conceivable” story explores Welsh identity and culture, and offers a beautiful appreciation of language. The original Welsh publication, Llyfr Glas Nebo, won multiple awards, including the 2019 Wales Book of the Year. Thanks to the young readers far and wide who have engaged with our shortlists and voted for their own deserving Shadowers’ Choice Medal recipients. Huge congratulations to all four of our Yoto Carnegie medal winners for this year, who demonstrate the best of children’s writing and illustration in its myriad of forms.”Rowenna is resourceful and has protected and nurtured her family since The End began. Dylan was only six when it happened and now aged 14, we find him a responsible, capable young adult. However, despite relying on, and only having each other, the relationship between mother and son subtly changes as Dylan must take on more adult responsibilities. Of course, it’s something that Rowenna is very uncomfortable with in the novel, as Dylan increasingly draws on the influences of the Bible he has amonghis salvaged books. That inner division must be in me too, in a way. An early review of the book that appeared in a papur bro [a Welsh-language local community newsletter] argued that it was a Christian novel. But anything creative is a mirror really, isn’t it? You see in it what you need to see. Curtains with tiny pink flowers on them, and the neatly made bed, the covers pulled tight and smooth. A wardrobe painted white, and little white tables on each side of the bed, books piled high but tidily on them.

CILIP is the leading voice for the information, knowledge management and library profession. Our goal is to put information and library skills and professional values at the heart of a democratic, equal and prosperous society. The winners were revealed at an in-person ceremony held at The Barbican, which was live-streamed and watched by shadowing groups around the country. The awards were hosted by former Children’s Laureate Lauren Child CBE, who won the Carnegie Medal for Illustration – then known as the Kate Greenaway Medal – in 2000 for her first Charlie and Lola book, I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato. In 2022, Katya Balen won both the Yoto Carnegie Medal and the Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice for October, October. The Yoto Kate Greenaway Medal – now named the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration – was won by Danica Novgorodoff for Long Way Down and Mariachiara Di Giorgio was awarded the Greenaway Shadowers’ Choice for The Midnight Fair.

No traffic had been on this road for years. Everyone else in the world was dead. So I stepped out onto the A487 that, years ago, had been a constant hum of cars and lorries. By now, moss and grass and weeds had grown over the tar. In this prize-winning novel, Manon Steffan Ros not only explores the human capacity to find new strengths when faced with the need to survive, but also questions the structures and norms of the contemporary world. David Almond introduces his new picture book, A Way to the Stars, a story about perseverance and finding a way to make dreams come true.