The 2013 Carnegie longlists

When the Carnegie longlists were made public on Monday, I was too busy with reviews to blog about them. Besides, I thought it would be good to let everything sink in a little.

It was quite nice to see that the Daniel Finn book I was reviewing right when I received the notification of the longlists had made it on. If not – I mean if I hadn’t read it just then – it would have been yet another book I’d neither read nor heard of.

I’ve been counting. Not an easy task because the longlists are long; I think 68 for the Carnegie Medal and 64 for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Then I counted some more, to see if I’d read a reasonable number of them or not. I must admit it’s more towards the ‘or not’ end. 21 and 6 respectively, of which one features on both the lists.

It’s too early to have witchy feels. But I reckon that An Illustrated Treasury of Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales by Kate Leiper and Theresa Breslin would be a pretty worthy winner.

When I reviewed Code Name Verity at the beginning of the year, I did say it was one of the best books ever, so I would obviously have no objection to Elizabeth Wein winning the medal. Several more of the 21 will make it on to my 2012 favourites list. They are all fantastic books. More of the longlist lie waiting in a fairly orderly fashion. Some will get my attention, and others won’t, despite their certain excellence.

Others, I have heard of. And many I’ve not. The question is why not, because they are hardly the Mills & Boon equivalents that I give a wide berth these days.

Taken together, the longlisted books are about as many as I have the capacity to read and review in a year. Seeing as I have read many others that haven’t made it on to the lists, despite being quality books, as well as recent enough, means the world is full of good reads.

See you for the shortlists in March!

A Pope kind of moment

I recall Putney Boy’s reaction to hearing that the Pope had died. Being very Italian and impatient with it, he pointed out to the bearer of this piece of news that it was old news. Very old news. What this favourite waiter of mine had missed was that Pope John Paul I had died, and that we weren’t still talking about the death of Paul VI.

But it’s easy to miss even the biggest news on occasion.

I had one of those dead Pope moments on Thursday evening. I saw a mention on facebook that Carnegie winner Patrick Ness had made some speech about the government and books. I thought irritably that it was all very well to post this if you care about books and reading, but that it had been a year since Patrick’s speech.

By Friday morning I had cottoned on to the fact that he had only gone and been awarded the Carnegie again. And the speech was a new speech. My next piece of intelligence suggested that A Monster Calls had actually won the Kate Greenaway medal, which to my tired mind (two days on the road and very little sleep) meant that it was really Jim Kay who had got the medal.

Over mugs of tea the witch family slipped onto the subject, and I shared this Greenaway thought when Daughter said A Monster Calls had received both awards. Personally I thought it unlikely, and we only managed not to come to blows over this by some unexpected maturity we must have had in us.

Struck by a need to know, I researched the whole thing and found she was correct, and that the 2012 medals had been awarded in an unusual way, with one book sharing both.

Well deserved, as everyone has been saying. And some of us feel that it is perhaps an award shared by three people if we count Siobhan Dowd as well.

I really, really need to get on a Carnegie mailing list, if there is such a thing. Longlists and shortlists and award dates and winners must no longer slip through my keyboard in this embarrassing fashion. And to think I was actually, for once, in London on the day, too…