CILIP Carnegie And Kate Greenaway Medals 2021 Announced

The winners of the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medals, the UK’s oldest book awards for children and young people, were announced on June 16.

CILIP is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. The medalists were selected by an expert volunteer team of 15 librarians from across the UK. These titles reflect the very best in children’s writing and illustration published in the UK.

The winners each receive £500 worth of books to donate to their local library, a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.

The CILIP Carnegie Medal winner, Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds, is a work of genre interest.

2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal 

  • Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds (Knights Of)

2021 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 

  • Small In The City illustrated and written by Sydney Smith (Walker Books)

Look Both Ways author Jason Reynolds said:

In Look Both Ways I wanted to explore who it is that children are when the watchful eye of adults aren’t around. So often, children’s literature takes place either at school or at home but there’s an in-between that is the journey home. And even though they all sit in the classroom together, when that bell rings they go separate ways and go through separate things, as we all go through separate journeys in life, that influence and impact who it is that we are when we show up the following day. But the miracle of life is the idea that if we were to trust this process, believe in the power of humanity and speak to one another, no matter who you are or where you are from, all over the world there is a good chance that if we speak to each other long enough, we will probably have someone in common and that’s important, because it’s really difficult to hate someone when the two of you love the same person.

That’s what this book is really about. It’s an examination of autonomy, it’s this idea that every child has a different journey and it’s all about the fact that despite those journeys we are all interconnected. One people. One race. Having similar experiences and yet different experience altogether.

CILIP Carnegie And Kate Greenaway Medals 2021 Shortlists Announced

The shortlists for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medals, the UK’s oldest book awards for children and young people, were announced on March 18. CILIP is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. Sixteen titles have been shortlisted for the 2021 Medals (8 on each shortlist) selected from a total of 40 longlisted titles, read by an expert volunteer team of 15 librarians from across the UK. These titles reflect the very best in children’s writing and illustration published in the UK.

The winners will be announced on June 16. They will each receive £500 worth of books to donate to their local library, a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.

The 2021 shortlists are as follows. The works of genre interest are flagged with their book covers.

2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal longlist (alphabetical by author surname):

  1. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (Hot Key Books)
  2. The Girl Who Speaks Bear by Sophie Anderson, illustrated by Kathrin Honesta (Usborne)
  3. The Girl Who Became A Tree by Joseph Coelho, illustrated by Kate Milner (Otter-Barry Books)
  4. On Midnight Beach by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick (Faber)
  5. Run, Rebel by Manjeet Mann (Penguin Random House Children’s)
  6. Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds (Knights Of)
  7. The Fountains Of Silence by Ruta Sepetys (Penguin Random House Children’s)
  8. Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk (Penguin Random House Children’s)

2021 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist (alphabetical by illustrator surname):

  1. Starbird illustrated and written by Sharon King-Chai (Two Hoots)
  2. The Bird Within Me illustrated by Sara Lundberg and translated by B. J. Epstein (Book Island)
  3. It’s A No-Money Day illustrated and written by Kate Milner (Barrington Stoke)
  4. How The Stars Came To Be illustrated and written by Poonam Mistry (Tate Publishing)
  5. Hike illustrated and written by Pete Oswald (Walker Books)
  6. I Go Quiet illustrated and written by David Ouimet (Canongate)
  7. Arlo The Lion Who Couldn’t Sleep illustrated and written by Catherine Rayner (Macmillan Children’s Books)
  8. Small In The City illustrated and written by Sydney Smith (Walker Books)

Longlists Announced For 2021 CILIP Carnegie And Kate Greenaway Medals

The longlists for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medals, the UK’s oldest book awards for children and young people, were announced on February 18. CILIP is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. Selected by volunteer Youth Librarians from a total of 152 nominations, with longlists of 20 books per Medal, these titles reflect the very best in children’s writing and illustration published in the UK.

The 2021 longlists are as follows. The works of genre interest are flagged with their book covers.

The shortlists for both the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals 2021 will be announced on March 18, with the winners announced on June 16.

The winners will each receive £500 worth of books to donate to their local library, a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.

Now in its third year, the Shadowers’ Choice Award – voted for and awarded by the children and young people who shadow the Medals – will be announced alongside the two Medal winners in June 2021. This award has evolved out of CILIP’s Diversity Review, which identified opportunities to empower and celebrate the young people involved in the Medals through the shadowing scheme.

The 2021 CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals are sponsored by Peters and ALCS, and funded by Carnegie UK Trust.

2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal longlist (alphabetical by author surname):

  1. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (Hot Key Books)
  2. The Girl Who Speaks Bear by Sophie Anderson, illustrated by Kathrin Honesta (Usborne)
  3. The Space We’re In by Katya Balen, illustrated by Laura Carlin (Bloomsbury)
  4. The Short Knife by Elen Caldecott (Andersen Press)
  5. The Girl Who Became A Tree by Joseph Coelho, illustrated by Kate Milner (Otter-Barry Books)
  6. Beverly, Right Here by Kate DiCamillo (Walker Books)
  7. Furious Thing by Jenny Downham (David Fickling Books)
  8. Pet by Akwaeke Emezi (Faber)
  9. On Midnight Beach by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick (Faber)
  10. Deeplight by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children’s Books)
  11. And The Stars Were Burning Brightly by Danielle Jawando (Simon & Schuster)
  12. In The Key Of Code by Aimee Lucido (Walker Books)
  13. Run, Rebel by Manjeet Mann (Penguin Random House Children’s)
  14. The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Orion)
  15. Burn by Patrick Ness (Walker Books)
  16. After The War by Tom Palmer (Barrington Stoke)
  17. Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds (Knights Of)
  18. The Fountains Of Silence by Ruta Sepetys (Penguin Random House Children’s)
  19. Somebody Give This Heart A Pen by Sophia Thakur (Walker Books)
  20. Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk (Penguin Random House Children’s)

2021 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal longlist (alphabetical by illustrator surname):

  1. Just Because illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, written by Mac Barnett(Walker Books)
  2. The Wind In The Wall illustrated by Rovina Cai, written by Sally Gardner(Hot Key Books)
  3. The Misadventures Of Frederick illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark, written by Ben Manley (Two Hoots)
  4. My Nana’s Garden illustrated by Jessica Courtney-Tickle, written by Dawn Casey(Templar)
  5. Tibble And Grandpa illustrated by Daniel Egneus, written by Wendy Meddour(Oxford University Press)
  6. Where Happiness Begins illustrated and written by Eva Eland (Andersen Press)
  7.  The Fate Of Fausto illustrated and written by Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
  8. The Child Of Dreams illustrated by Richard Jones, written by Irena Brignull(Walker Books)
  9. Starbird illustrated and written by Sharon King-Chai (Two Hoots)
  10. Lights On Cotton Rock illustrated and written by David Litchfield (Frances Lincoln)
  11. The Bird Within Me illustrated by Sara Lundberg and translated by B. J. Epstein (Book Island)
  12.  It’s A No-Money Day illustrated and written by Kate Milner (Barrington Stoke)
  13. The Girl Who Became A Tree illustrated by Kate Milner, written by Joseph Coelho (Otter-Barry Books)
  14. How The Stars Came To Be illustrated and written by Poonam Mistry (Tate Publishing)
  15. Hike illustrated and written by Pete Oswald (Walker Books)
  16. I Go Quiet illustrated and written by David Ouimet (Canongate)
  17. Arlo The Lion Who Couldn’t Sleep illustrated and written by Catherine Rayner (Macmillan Children’s Books)
  18. Hidden Planet illustrated and written by Ben Rothery (Ladybird)
  19. Small In The City illustrated and written by Sydney Smith (Walker Books)
  20. Dandelion’s Dream illustrated and written by Yoko Tanaka (Walker Books)

CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal Winners 2020

The 2020 winners of the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals, the UK’s oldest book awards for children and young people, were revealed June 17. CILIP is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

CILIP Carnegie Medal for writing

  • Lark by Anthony McGowan (Barrington Stoke)

Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration

  • Tales from the Inner City written and illustrated by Shaun Tan (Walker Books)

This is the first time both McGowan and Tan have won a Medal in either category.

The winning books were chosen by 14 volunteer Youth Librarians, from a total of 162 nominations this year, as the very best in children’s writing and illustration published in the UK. The winners will each receive £500 worth of books to donate to a library of their choice, a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.

Shaun Tan, AussieCon Four’s Artist GoH in 2010, previously won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (2011), and an Oscar in the Best Short Film (Animation) category for The Lost Thing (2011), based on his book.  Tan said:

“I am surprised, delighted and then deeply honoured – what a wonderful thing to be! I am especially thrilled to receive the Kate Greenaway Medal in the fine company of so many brilliant artists and authors, many of whom inspired my own love of illustrated stories as a young West Australian scribbler.”

“Tales from the Inner City is a strange book for strange times, suggesting that human frailty might well find expression in dreams of tigers, bears, frogs and lungfish reclaiming our cities. To know that I am not alone in enjoying such speculation – maybe even a bit too much – is no small thing. It is profoundly consoling, to feel part of a larger conversation about our relationship to this planet, particularly with younger readers, in whose imagination the future is already taking shape.”

2020 CILIP Carnegie and Greenaway Medal Shortlists

The shortlists for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medals, the UK’s oldest book awards for children and young people, were announced on March 19. CILIP is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. Selected by volunteer Youth Librarians from longlists of 20 books per Medal, these titles reflect the very best in children’s writing and illustration published in the UK.

The 2020 shortlists are as follows. The works of genre interest are flagged with their book covers.

2020 CILIP Carnegie Medal longlist (alphabetical by author surname):

  1. The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, illustrated by Anshika Khullar (Hachette Children’s Group)
  2. Nowhere on Earth by Nick Lake (Hachette Children’s Group)
  3. Lark by Anthony McGowan (Barrington Stoke)
  4. Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay (Little Tiger)
  5. Lampie written and illustrated by Annet Schaap and translated by Laura Watkinson (Pushkin Children’s Books)
  6. Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black by Marcus Sedgwick and Julian Sedgwick, illustrated by Alexis Deacon (Walker Books)
  7. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas (Walker Books)
  8. Girl. Boy. Sea. by Chris Vick (Head of Zeus)

2020 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal longlist (alphabetical by illustrator surname):

  1. You’re Snug with Me illustrated by Poonam Mistry and written by Chitra Soundar (Lantana Publishing)
  2. The Iron Man illustrated by Chris Mould and written by Ted Hughes (Faber & Faber)
  3. The Suitcase written and illustrated by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros (Nosy Crow)
  4. The Undefeated illustrated by Kadir Nelson and written by Kwame Alexander(Andersen Press)
  5. The Dam illustrated by Levi Pinfold and written by David Almond (Walker Books)
  6. Mary and Frankenstein illustrated by Júlia Sardà and written by Linda Bailey (Andersen Press)
  7. Tales from the Inner City written and illustrated by Shaun Tan (Walker Books)
  8. Child of St Kilda written and illustrated by Beth Waters (Child’s Play)

The winners for both the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals 2020 will be announced on June 17 at a special daytime event at The British Library. The winners will each receive £500 worth of books to donate to their local library, a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.

Now in its second year, theShadowers’ Choice Award – voted for and awarded by the children and young people who shadow the Medals – will be announced alongside the two Medal winners in June 2020. Now that the shortlists are announced, children and young people across the UK and internationally will take part in the Awards Shadowing Scheme, reading and reviewing the books and sharing their creative responses on the Awards website. CILIP partners with Amnesty International to provide human rights focused resources, activities and discussion points alongside questions on representation and inclusion from new partners, Inclusive Minds.

[Based on a press release.]

2020 CILIP Carnegie and Greenaway Medal Longlists

The 2020 longlists for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal were announced February 20. CILIP is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

The shortlists for both prizes will be announced on March 19, and the winners on June 17.

The works of genre interest are flagged with their book covers

2020 CILIP Carnegie Medal longlist

  • The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, illustrated by Anshika Khullar
  • A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby
  • Toffee by Sarah Crossan
  • Becoming Dinah by Kit de Waal
  • Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo
  • Monsters by Sharon Dogar
  • Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly
  • Lenny’s Book of Everything by Karen Foxlee
  • Nowhere on Earth by Nick Lake
  • Lark by Anthony McGowan
  • The Skylarks’ War by Hilary McKay
  • No Fixed Address by Susin Nielsen
  • Inkling by Kenneth Oppel
  • Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay
  • Lampie written and illustratedby Annet Schaap and translated by Laura Watkinson
  • Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black by Marcus Sedgwick and Julian Sedgwick, illustrated by Alexis Deacon
  • The Boxer by Nikesh Shukla
  • On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
  • Girl. Boy. Sea. by Chris Vick
  • Paper Avalanche by Lisa Williamson

2020 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal longlist

  • Captain Rosalie illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, written by Timothée de Fombelle and translated by Sam Gordon
  • Wisp: A Story of Hope illustrated by Grahame Baker Smith and written by Zana Fraillon
  • Quill Soup illustrated by Dale Blankenaar and written by Alan Durant
  • B is for Baby illustrated by Angela Brooksbank and written by Atinuke
  • And the Ocean Was Our Sky illustrated by Rovina Cai and written by Patrick Ness
  • Fanatical About Frogs written and illustrated by Owen Davey
  • Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black illustrated by Alexis Deacon and written by Marcus Sedgwick and Julian Sedgwick
  • Lubna and Pebble illustrated by Daniel Egneus and written by Wendy Meddour
  • When Sadness Comes to Call written and illustrated by Eva Eland
  • The King Who Banned the Dark written and illustrated by Emily Haworth-Booth
  • You’re Snug With Me illustrated by Poonam Mistry and written by Chitra Soundar
  • The Iron Man illustrated by Chris Mould and written by Ted Hughes
  • The Suitcase written and illustrated by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros
  • The Undefeated illustrated by Kadir Nelson and written by Kwame Alexander
  • The Dam illustrated by Levi Pinfold and written by David Almond
  • Mary and Frankenstein illustrated by Júlia Sardà and written by Linda Bailey
  • Little Wise Wolf illustrated by Hanneke Siemensma, written by Gijs Van der Hammen and translated by Laura Watkinson
  • Tales from the Inner City written and illustrated by Shaun Tan
  • Child of St Kilda written and illustrated by Beth Waters
  • Planetarium illustrated by Chris Wormell and written by Raman Prinja

Carnegie Medal Goes to Acevedo, Morris Receives Greenaway Medal

The winners of the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards were revealed June 18 in  at a ceremony at The British Library. The debut novel from Dominican-American author and slam poetry champion Elizabeth Acevedo clinched the CILIP Carnegie Medal, while British illustrator Jackie Morris earned her CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal with ‘cultural phenomenon’ The Lost Words. Acevedo and Morris also won the first ever Shadowers’ Choice Awards, chosen by thousands of schoolchildren

THE WINNERS:

  • CILIP Carnegie Medal 2019: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (Electric Monkey)

The Poet X explores themes of identity, freedom, first love and finding your own voice. A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. “I fell in love at slam poetry. This one will stay with you a long time.” – Angie Thomas, author of the bestselling The Hate You Give.

Elizabeth Acevedo was born and raised in New York City and her poetry is infused with Dominican bolero and her beloved city’s tough grit. Acevedo is a National Slam Champion, Beltway Grand Slam Champion, and the 2016 Women of the World Poetry Slam representative for Washington D.C, USA, where she lives and works.

  • CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2019: The Lost Words illustrated by Jackie Morris, written by Robert Macfarlane (Hamish Hamilton)

The Lost Words is a spell book that seeks to conjure the near-lost magic, beauty and strangeness of the nature that surrounds us, for readers both young and old. Taking the form of twenty ‘lost’ words, each word becomes a spell which summons the image and the word back into being, making this a book of enchantment in more than one sense.

Jackie Morris grew up in the Vale of Evesham and studied at Hereford College of Arts and at Bath Academy. She has illustrated for the New Statesman, Independent and Guardian, has collaborated with Ted Hughes, and has written and illustrated over 40 books children’s books. She lives in Pembrokeshire, UK.

The Carnegie and Greenaway winners were selected by 14 volunteer Youth Librarians, from over 254 nominations this year, as the very best in children’s writing and illustration published in the UK.

The winners will each receive £500 worth of books to donate to a library of their choice, a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.

It is the first time in the Medals history that both winning titles have been written in verse: in The Poet X, in verse influenced by slam poetry; in The Lost Words, in the form of spells. Only one verse novel has previously won the Carnegie Medal: Sarah Crossan’s One, in 2016.

In both cases, the books use verse to create space for forgotten or marginalised voices and words. Acevedo conceived The Poet X whilst working as an English teacher at a secondary school in Maryland, USA. The daughter of Dominican immigrants, she realised that most of the books she had been teaching didn’t contain characters of colour that reflected the pupils she worked with, and that this feeling of being unseen consequently led to a marked disinterest in reading.

In her speech, Elizabeth Acevedo paid credit to a particular student who inspired her to write the book: “I felt like this student had given me a challenge, or at least permission to grab the baton. She gave me permission to write a story about young people who take up space, who do not make themselves small, who learn the power of their own words.” Closing her speech with an empowering poem celebrating girls of colour, Acevedo said: “I think we should have poetry in every room as much as possible, and because I fundamentally believe in Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop’s words that children’s literature should be a mirror and a window.”

The Lost Words was born in response to the removal of everyday nature words, such as ‘acorn’, ‘bluebell’, ‘kingfisher’ and ‘wren’, from a widely used children’s dictionary on the basis that they were not being used enough by children to merit inclusion. Since its publication in 2017, The Lost Words has gone on to become a ‘cultural phenomenon’ (Guardian) and adopted by environmental activists, most recently during the Extinction Rebellion protests in London, with actress Dame Emma Thompson reading one of the poems to crowds alongside Morris’s composition, ‘Letter to the Earth’. A proportion of the proceeds from each book are donated to youth charity, Action for Conservation.

In her speech, Jackie Morris, said: “The times ahead are challenging. It seems to me that artists, writers, musicians have one job at the moment – to help to tell the truth about what is happening to this small and fragile world we inhabit, to re-engage with the natural world, to inspire and to imagine better ways to live. Because there is no Planet B and we are at a turning point. And because in order to make anything happen it first needs to be imagined. And as writers and illustrators for children we grow the readers and thinkers of the future.

“I’m learning so much as I watch our young people call politicians to account. Together we can make a change. And we must. While politicians nod and pretend to listen to Greta Thunberg, declare Climate Emergencies, then continue with ‘business as usual’ finding money always for bombs and seldom for books we need to stand beside these children and hold our deceitful leaders to account.”

In a first for the Medals, the winners of The Shadowers’ Choice Award – voted for and awarded by members of the 4,500 school reading groups who shadow the Medals – were also announced at the ceremony. The shadowing groups’ choices matched those of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway judging panel. Jackie Morris and Elizabeth Acevedo took home the Shadowers’ Choice Award for the Kate Greenaway and Carnegie categories respectively.

This new award has evolved out of CILIP’s recent Diversity Review, which identified opportunities to empower and celebrate the young people involved in the Medals through the shadowing scheme by giving them a more significant voice and visible presence in the process and prize giving.

The Guardian’s coverage underscored that “Carnegie medal goes to first writer of colour in its 83-year history”:

Dominican-American slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo has become the first ever writer of colour to win the UK’s most prestigious children’s books award, the Carnegie medal, which has a history stretching back to 1936 and includes Arthur Ransome, CS Lewis and Neil Gaiman among its former winners.

… Acevedo’s win comes two years after the prize instigated an independent review into its historical lack of racial diversity, following widespread anger at 2017’s 20-book, entirely white longlist. After interviews with more than 600 people, from librarians to children, the review concluded that the UK’s overwhelmingly white librarian workforce, who nominate books for the medal, were mostly unaware of titles by writers of colour. It also found a dearth of books by writers of colour were being published in the UK.

[Via Locus Online. Based on a press release.]

2017 CILIP Carnegie and Greenaway Medal Shortlists

The 2017 shortlists for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal were announced March 16.

There is one finalist on each list of genre interest – which I have flagged with the book’s cover art.

The CILIP Carnegie Medal Shortlist for 2017

Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth

Frank Cottrell-Boyce

The Bone Sparrow

Zana Fraillon

The Smell of Other People’s Houses

Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

The Stars at Oktober Bend

Glenda Millard

Beck

Peet with Meg Rosoff

Railhead

Philip Reeve

Salt to the Sea

Ruta Sepetys

Wolf Hollow

Lauren Wolk

The CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal Shortlist for 2017

Wild Animals of the North

Dieter Braun

Tidy

Emily Gravett

Wolves of Currumpaw

William Grill

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Jim Kay

A Great Big Cuddle

Chris Riddell

The Journey

Francesca Sanna

The Marvels

Brian Selznick

There is a Tribe of Kids

Lane Smith

The winners will be announced June 19.

Pixel Scroll 3/9/17 ‘Is There Anyone There?’ Said The Pixeler, Knocking On The Moonlit Scroll.

(1) DINOS DOUBLE DOWN. Jurassic Park 2, planned for release in 2018, is starting to crank up its publicity machinery 

(2) BLOGGERS STICK TOGETHER. Steve Vertlieb reminds me his blog Better Days, Benner Nights, is up for a Rondo Award as Best Blog of 2016.

It’s an affectionate remembrance of the Saturday Matinee and 1950’s television when classic cliffhanger serials thrilled and excited “children of all ages”… when careening spaceships and thundering hooves echoed through the revered imaginations and hallowed corridors of time and memory…and when Buster Crabbe lovingly brought “Flash Gordon,” “Buck Rogers,” and “Captain Gallant Of The Foreign Legion” to life in darkened movie palaces all over the world. Return with us now to “those thrilling days of yesteryear” when Zorro, “Space Patrol,” Ming, The Merciless, and Larry “Buster” Crabbe lit the early days of television, and Saturday afternoon motion picture screens, with magical imagery and unforgettable excitement.

Anyone can vote in the Rondos – see the nominees here —  just send your selection (along with your name and E-Mail address) to David Colton whose voting address is [email protected] prior to Sunday night, April 16th, 2017, at midnight.

(3) TO THE MOON. A Business Insider writer says we’re getting close to having a Google Lunar XPrize winner.

A real lunar race that has been in the making for years is now in the final stretch.

The Google Lunar XPrize Foundation recently announced five final teams that will compete for the honor of being the first private group to land on the moon — and a $20 million prize.

The Google Lunar XPrize is more than pronouncements by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. It will prove the utility of commercial lunar exploration.

Sometime before the end of 2017, one or more of the final five groups will shoot for the moon. The Final Five are Moon Express, SpaceIl, Synergy Moon, Team Indus, and Team Hakuto.

All the winning team has to do to gain the prize is to cross a quarter of a million miles of space, soft land on the lunar surface, return high resolution videos and images to Earth, and move 500 meters from the landing site.

(4) UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. Cat Rambo is grieving the loss of her cat Raven.

I record the notes of my grief: my eyes feeling as though filled with hot sand, the tired and lonely ache inside my heart, the way my throat hardens,  my vision blurring more at the bottom than the top when tears well. The wet tremble as they linger on my cheeks. It’s the only thing I can think to do.

(5) IT’S COMPLICATED. Paul La Farge writes about “The Complicated Friendship of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Barlow, One of His Biggest Fans” in The New Yorker.

On June 18, 1931, a young man named Robert Barlow mailed a letter to the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft’s stories about monstrous beings from beyond the stars were appearing regularly in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, and Barlow was a fan. He wanted to know when Lovecraft had started writing, what he was working on now, and whether the Necronomicon—a tome of forbidden knowledge that appears in several Lovecraft tales—was a real book. A week later, Lovecraft wrote back, as he nearly always did. It’s estimated that he wrote more than fifty thousand letters in his relatively short lifetime (he died at the age of forty-six). This particular letter was the beginning of a curious friendship, which changed the course of Barlow’s life, and Lovecraft’s, too—though almost no one who reads Lovecraft these days knows anything about it. Who keeps track of the lives of fans?

Raises hand.

(6) CARNEGIE AND GREENAWAY LONGLISTS. The longlists for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals have been announced.

The Carnegie Medal, established in 1936, is awarded annually to the writer of an outstanding book for children. The Kate Greenaway Medal has been given since 1955 for distinguished illustration in a book for children.

Locus Online identified the following as titles of genre interest:

Carnegie Medal

  • Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth, Frank Cottrell Boyce (Pan Macmillan)
  • Whisper to Me, Nick Lake (Bloomsbury)
  • Beetle Boy, M.G. Leonard (Chicken House)
  • Beck, Mal Peet & Meg Rosoff (Walker)
  • Railhead, Philip Reeve (Oxford University Press)
  • Orbiting Jupiter, Gary D. Schmidt (Andersen)
  • Island, Nicky Singer (Caboodle)
  • Time Travelling with a Hamster, Ross Welford (HarperCollins)

Greenaway Medal

  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling, illustrated by Jim Kay (Bloomsbury)

The shortlists will be announced on March 16, and winners will be announced June 19.

(7) ALETA JACKSON OBIT. Loretta Jackson Delong, known in fandom as Aleta Jackson, died December 4, 2016.

Aleta worked for Xerox for ten years as a repair technician and wrote both science fiction and non-fiction stories. She worked for the L-5 Society, both in Tucson and later in Washington DC. During her stay in DC, Aleta became an aide to General Daniel Graham and helped create the DC-X launch vehicle, later renamed the Clipper Graham. She also edited the Journal of Practical Applications of Space while with Graham’s Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.

As an indefatigable supporter of launch vehicle development, Aleta then became one of Rotary Rocket Company’s first employees, where she was general office manager. When the propulsion group was laid off from Rotary, Aleta was the person who told Jeff Greason, Dan DeLong, and Doug Jones that they had to stick with it, and founded XCOR Aerospace.

I first met her at NOLAcon II in 1988. Years later, when she was at XCOR and I was organizing Loscon program we crossed paths again.

(8) WELCOME ABOARD. “’Star Trek: Discovery’ Finds Its Captain In Jason Isaacs” reports Deadline Hollywood.

Former Awake and Dig star Jason Isaacs has been cast in Star Trek: Discovery for CBS All Access as Captain Lorca, Captain of the Starship Discovery. It is a major role opposite lead Sonequa Martin- Green in the series, which eyes a debut in late summer or fall….

Isaacs’ recently co-starred in the Netflix mystery drama series The OA and will next be seen in Weinstein Co.’s Hotel Mumbai and Armando Iannucci’s Death of Stalin.

(9) FACE THE TRUTH. Wesley Chu, the Edison of digital publishing, has invented a new service for authors.

(10) ANOTHER GAME OF THRONES CASUALTY? The Azure Window of Malta collapsed into the sea after a recent storm. The Azure Window was a backdrop for the wedding of Daenerys Targaryen, a recurring character played by Emilia Clarke, to Khal Drogo, portrayed by Jason Momoa, in the first episode in mid-2011.

(11) TRASH BECOMES TREASURE, AGAIN. Atlas Obscura says they were hidden in a circulation chamber in an old Chicago theater — “Found: A Treasure Trove of Candy Wrappers Dating Back to the Depression”. Pictures over there.

Eric Nordstrom of Urban Remains has been exploring Chicago’s Congress Theater, which was built in 1926 and is currently under renovation. Earlier this year, Nordstrom, whose business reclaims objects from old buildings, started working his way through the old theater, finding newspapers, pipes, tools, and blueprints left there since the 1920s.

Recently, he returned to the theater, and this time, as DNAInfo reports, he found a trove of candy wrappers and matchbooks that date back to the theater’s earliest years.

(12) WHEN MAN PURSUETH. Motherboard says the “Anti-Social ‘Shybot’ Rolls Around the Sonoran Desert, Running Away From Humans”.

We’re all afraid of our future robot overlords, but what if those robots were afraid of us, too?

Over the course of the last week, California’s Coachella Valley hosted a strange, anti-social visitor. Its name was Shybot, a six-wheeled rover whose only purpose in life is to roam the Sonoran desert avoiding humans at all costs.

(13) A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. In “This Land of Mine Revised” on Vimeo, Nina Paley updates the classic song from Exodus to show the bloody history of the Middle East.

[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Carl Slaughter, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Rambo, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Nigel.]