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.]