As a member of the steering committee for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award for grades 4-8 in Illinois I enjoy the opportunity to make presentations to colleagues around the state. 

Today, while presenting in Rockford, a question arose related to “current” titles by British authors; they needed a good list of more modern works to recommend to a faculty member.  I mentioned that there are British awards and perhaps that would be a place to start.  I have searched out the official award sites and linked to them directly below.

• The Carnegie Medal &The Kate Greenaway Medal (For illustration)

  • The Carnegie Medal is awarded by children’s librarians for an outstanding book for children and young people.
    The Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded by children’s librarians for an outstanding book in terms of illustration for children and young people.

• The Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction

  • Given annually by The Guardianfor an outstanding work of fiction by a British or Comonwealth author, which was first published in the United Kingdom during the preceding year. Picture books, and books by previous winners are excluded from consideration

• Costa Book Awards(Formerly The Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year)

  • The Costa Book Awards are a series of literary awards given to books by authors based in the United Kingdom and Ireland. They were known as the Whitbread Book Awardsuntil 2006, when Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship.  The awards, launched in 1971, are given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience.  Categories include First Novel, Novel Award, Children’s book award, Poetry Award, and the Biography Award.

• Smarties Book Prize

  • Discontinued in 2008.  You can read more on Wikipedia, including a list of previous award winners.

• Booktrust Teenage Prize

  •  Be sure to see the page of “longlists” of British titles for teenagers.

If you wish to investigate further on your own, Wikipedia has a category called British Children’s Literary Awards.  Be cautioned that some awards, including the Smarties Award, have been discontinued.

And another word of caution – as a professional library media specialist I would NEVER recommend a book I had not read.  You can point a faculty member or student to a list of books for them to investigate, but I would be certain to issue a disclaimer that you know nothing about the titles and are not necessarily recommending them.  Best practice would be to interlibrary loan the most promising titles so that you can make an informed recommendation!

My impression of British Children’s Literature is that their kids are more mature readers.  The books are often quite advanced in length and vocabulary – something to keep in mind when selecting appropriate books for your students.

As a member of an award steering committee, I also found the award criteria for the prestigious Carnegie medal to be of interest.  If you haven’t thought about what makes a book good, quality literature recently you might wish to read this!