#YAtakeover #CKG17 programme

The #YAtakeover: what is it?

YAtakeover logo

The #YAtakeover (the brainchild of blogger, Christopher Moore), was designed as a way to reach readers on a global scale, allowing avid readers of all demographics to connect with their favourite authors. While living in the U.K., I realised that most book launches and events took place in London and if not in London, predominantly in the major cities across the U.K., like Manchester and Edinburgh.

It's often not feasible to do author events in the more remote parts of the country but why should that prevent readers from spreading their love of reading, talking about what excites them with a community that values and champions their passion and getting the opportunity to ask some of Children's and Young Adult's most exciting authors their questions?

It shouldn't and that's where the #YAtakeover comes in!

The #YAtakeover is an online, Twitter festival that includes:

• author interview panels (usually themed around issues ranging from taboo to fantasy and magic and everything in between);
• general book discussion (around a theme or a particular book);
• a quiz (a variety of visual questions with bookish giveaways for whoever answers the most questions correctly) and
• competitions (where you have the opportunity to win the books our featured authors are discussing).

On 17 and 18 June, we'll be celebrating a very special #YAtakeover edition; with the announcement of the 80th Carnegie and 60th Kate Greenaway (CKG) Medals on 19 June, we'll be hosting author panels with previous winners in addition to shortlist discussion, competitions and our fantastic CKG-themed quiz). Join us on 17 and 18 June where we'll have some of the world's most prestigious Children's and YA authors taking part.

We have a competition running to win some of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway winning books. Simply join in the CKG celebrations by tweeting your thoughts or your favourite previous winners along with the #YAtakeover and #CKG17 hashtags.

The full #YAtakeover programme is now available.

Spread the bookish love.

Add some brand new books to your shelves this summer with a tweet

#YAtakeover / 80th Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal anniversary logos.

 As part of our #YAtakeover special edition, to celebrate the 80th Carnegie and 60th Kate Greenaway Medal anniversaries, we're giving away a copy of Tim Bowler's River Boy, Beverley Naidoo's The Other Side of Truth and Melvin Burgress's Junk.









How do you win these books?

It's simple. All you have to do is tweet to be in with a chance.

Tweet about the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals using BOTH the #YAtakeover and #CKG17 hashtags between Wednesday 16 June at 9am BST and Monday 19 June at 11.30pm BST. You can enter more than once. Some ideas for your tweets could be:

• My favourite Carnegie/Kate Greenaway book was _____ #YAtakeover #CKG17

• My favourite shortlisted book for this year's Carnegie/Kate Greenaway Medal is _____ #YAtakeover #CKG17

• I'm currently reading (insert Carnegie/Kate Greenaway book here) by (author/illustrator name) #YAtakeover #CKG17

Or, on the day, feel free to answer some of the author questions and tell us what you think or ask your favourite author a question at the end of their panel using the #YAtakeover and #CKG17 hashtags.

Enter as often as you like.
Help us spread the bookish joy.
And most importantly, have fun.

The full #YAtakeover programme is now available.

**********************************************************************************************************************************

Find out more information about The Other Side of Truth (Beverley Naidoo).
Follow Beverley on Twitter.

Find out more information about Junk (Melvin Burgess).
Follow Melvin on Twitter.

Find out more information about River Boy (Tim Bowler).
Follow Tim on Twitter.

Beverly Naidoo's 'The Other Side of Truth', Melvin Burgess' 'Junk' and Tim Bowler's 'River Boy'

Carnegie Controversy: Thoughts from the 5%

The CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals celebrate its 80th anniversay celebrating the best Children's books and with these longlist announcements, comes a wave of controversy. There's been much talk around the lack of BAME (Black Asian and Minority Ethnic) authors, particularly on the Carnegie list. I'm here to explore and combat the snub claims and controversy.


1. This is a prize based on literary merit, NOT the author.

Firstly, I invite you to take a look at the CILIP judging criteria for the Carnegie Medal. Nominations for the 2017 awards opened on 1 September 2016 and ran until 14 October 2016. The award is judged on style, plot and characterisation, not based on theme or the author. There have been some questions around the bias of these criteria but these are the criteria that CILIP have put forward; criteria that CILIP hold as being objective. No set of judging criteria will ever be 100% free of bias. When you look at literature, how do you put in place a set of criteria that ensures the best books (in terms of literary merit) appear on the longlist? It is impossible but CILIP have set out the criteria that allows the judges to award the best books and limit bias.

"The book that wins the Carnegie Medal should be a book of outstanding literary quality. The whole work should provide pleasure, not merely from the surface enjoyment of a good read, but also the deeper subconscious satisfaction of having gone through a vicarious, but at the time of reading, a real experience that is retained afterwards." – CILIP website

If we were to take into consideration, the cultural background of any author, it would shift the focus of the award, moving it from the story to the storyteller. Including an author on a longlist based on the colour of their skin or their ethnicity is incredibly patronising and moves the goalposts of the award.

114 titles were nominated by librarians and only 20 of these made it onto the longlist. That's 17.5% of the nominated titles or to put it another way, for every 5 titles that did not make it onto the list, 1 title did. The 20 titles that were selected by the judging panel were deemed to better meet the criteria than the other nominated titles. One Twitter user commented as follows (image, right).

Twitter can be a social vacuum and while it works for some things, I'm not sure it serves as the right platform to debate this issue – as this string of tweets shows. The first tweet talks about diversity generally – not diversity of the authors or the books. There is a wealth of diversity when it comes to the longlisted titles. I'm currently working on a spreadsheet and will post this when my research has been concluded.

No books by BAME authors were ignored and to suggest this damages an award that for 80 years, has promoted incredible Children's and Young Adult (YA) literature and encouraged a broad breadth of themes to be explored. It is worth remembering that all of the nominated titles were recognised and championed by librarians.

To suggest that judges haven't noticed the BAME authors on this list or that they "haven't seen the missing pieces of the puzzle... [and] have never experienced not being included" is ludicrous and damaging. How much research has this person done into the Carnegie Medal - the nominations and judging processes, the criteria and the judging panel itself? She is right in one respect though. The judges have ignored the fact that some of the writers are BAME as they judged on the books alone. To suggest they had time to read all of these books and research which ones where BAME and deliberately ignore them – or anything of the sort – is a bitter pill to swallow while they looked after their families, worked and carried out the everyday responsibilities that their lives dictate alongside the careful reading and judging (not to mention the meetings) in narrowing down 114 books to the 20 featured on the 2017 longlist.

The reference to "the Britain that the Carnegie wants to narrate" (image, left) is ridiculous. 50% of the authors on the longlist are British and many of the stories on the list are not set in Britain and it's this inclusiveness that makes the Carnegie Medal such a special award.


2. The BAME argument is flawed since there ARE BAME authors featured on the longlist.

Let me back-track slightly. I previously mentioned that BAME stands for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnics but the inflammatory tweets of the majority seems to suggest that there is no authors of ethnic minorities featured on the list when, frankly, this is a lie. Oxford English Dictionary defines an "ethnic minority" as:

"A group within a community which has different national or cultural traditions from the main population."

Ruta Sepetys (author of Salt to the Sea) is Lithuanian. Glenda Millard (The Stars of Oktober Bend) and Zana Frauillon (The Bone Sparrow) are both Australian. The Carnegie medal is awarded in the United Kingdom – the same country where CILIP is based – and so, in this context, these authors would be considered BAME authors. However, the argument seems to be less of one around BAME authors than it does Black and Asian authors and as my previous point outlined, the author him/herself is irrelevant in the judging of the nominated titles.


3. Every author should have the opportunity to write about whatever they choose to.

I don't think it's entirely fair to suggest that themes encompassing immigration, refugees, detention centres (etc.) are only rewarded if you're white in relation to the Carnegie Medal. It casts a negative light on the prize when it's one of the more inclusive awards out there. It looks at all books that have been published in the United Kingdom. It does not discriminate against authors outside of the U.K..

The kind of thinking implied by this tweet suggests that only Black and Asian authors should be able to discuss themes of immigration, refugees (etc.). This mentality that you should only write what you experience is dangerous thought because it limits the different lenses with which we can view important issues in our world and also limits discourse and discussion. This kind of thinking also has the potential to sway the kinds of stories that an author might tell rather than allowing them freedom to write from the heart.

If we had a write-what-you-are/write-what-you've-experienced mentality, then I should only write stories that feature a protagonist that is a gay man with a chronic illness. It's the equivalent of saying that I cannot write about witches because I am not a witch or because I am not female, I shouldn't write about female characters. This limits the infinite possibilities and perspectives that fiction offers us for both authors and readers.


4. Attacking the Carnegie questions 80 years of celebrating the best Children's and YA literature.

The criteria for this award are completely different to that of any other award as are the judges. Looking at the Costa Children's Book Award 2016, there were four books on the shortlist and no longlist published. Patrice Lawrence's Orangeboy was shortlisted for the award though only one of the titles on this shortlist, Ross Welford's Time Travelling with a Hamster, made the Carnegie longlist. The winner, Brian Conaghan's The Bombs that Brought us Together, did not make it onto the Carnegie longlist.

The judging panel also differed greatly from that of the Carnegie - an author-illustrator, a journalist/writer and the owner of a Children's specialist bookshop. The judging criteria too are also different:

"The judges’ brief is to select well-written, enjoyable books that they would strongly recommend anyone to read."

This is just one example but if you compare both prizes, the Costa Book Award is awarded to a well-written, enjoyable book (and there is nothing wrong with this) whereas the Carnegie is judged beyond surface enjoyment.

I'm quite saddened that The Guardian and particularly The Bookseller – the leading book industry media channel and magazine, have taken inflammatory opinions from Twitter and pasted them into an article alongside the generic opinion from CILIP's Nick Poole without looking at some of the other opinions on Twitter that counter and contrast the snub claims. All they have done is accelerate and misdirect attention towards damaging one of the world's oldest and most prestigious book prizes rather than allowing a platform for those that disagree. I'm annoyed too that CILIP released a generic reply to the controversy instead of producing an engaging article that tackles the claims of racism and inequality head-on. I understand that the judges are not allowed to comment which is unfortunate since some of the comments are targeted towards the judges who are unable to defend themselves.


One of the nominated authors raised an important point about the gatekeepers or diversity who, ultimately, are the publishers and everything is a ripple effect to this. A writer pens and submits their story, An agent only makes money when the author makes money and so, if the publishing industry dictates certain kinds of stories, the agent will likely supply these kinds of stories to publishers.

The lack of diverse stories on Children's and YA bookshelves would reinforce the claims this author makes but regardless of whether you agree or not, there is a clear lack of BAME stories on bookshelves. Instead of focusing on this issue, we're attacking the Carnegie; damaging 80 years of literary merit and recognition in the field. Inflammatory tweets are problematic and sometimes misleading, and do not provide a solution or a way forward so that we can focus our energies onto the positive ways we can push for change.


And FINALLY...

You're welcome to challenge my points and I suspect I may get some rather fruity comments tweeted my way. However, my opinion is my opinion and it is backed up by research. I won't be bludgeoned into submission by people that can shout the loudest and are suggesting a boycott of an incredible award that has done so much for Children's literature over the years and spit in the face of Andrew Carnegie, for whom the award is established (in his memory). What will a boycott achieve? What satisfaction will that bring other than to take away an accolade that rewards Children's author and further shrink the media coverage and awards that Children's books receive?

Matt Imrie, former CILIP Carnegie Medal judge, wrote an article on the controversy which I would strongly advise you to read. Matt raises some really important points and shines a light on the judging process for the Carnegie Medal.

To those that are "appalled" and "disappointed" by the longlist, I ask you:

• How many of the longlisted titles have you read before you tweeted your views?
• How many of the nominated titles did you read?

I'm willing to bet that the only people that read all 114 books are the judges themselves.

'One' book with the heart of two: 'One' book review

'One' by Sarah Crossan

Review by Christopher Moore

 

Summary:

Grace and Tippi are twins - conjoined twins. And their lives are about to change. No longer able to afford homeschooling, they must venture into the world - a world of stares, sneers and cruelty. Will they find more than that at school? Can they find real friends? And what about love? But what neither Grace or Tippi realises is that a heart-wrenching decision lies ahead. A decision that could tear them apart. One that will change their lives even more than they ever imagined...From Carnegie Medal shortlisted author Sarah Crossan, this moving and beautifully crafted novel about identity, sisterhood and love ultimately asks one question: what does it mean to want and have a soulmate? Winner of The CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2016.

 

 

Review:

The first book I ever read by Sarah Crossan was Apple and Rain. Apple and Rain stuck to me like glue so I knew One was a winner from the start. I love that it’s written in verse; firstly, because it is beautiful and the poetic nature adds layers of meaning to the little complexities of Tippi’s and Grace’s stories and secondly, because this style and the white space makes it easier for those with reading difficulties to enjoy.

It’s hard to say what my favourite part of this book was. Let’s start with the cover and remark on how beautiful the new jacket is. Tippi and Grace – there’s too much to say. They are beautiful human beings. The meaning behind their names, their passion and support for each other is emotional in small gestures and in key scenes, heart-shattering.

My favourite character though, is probably Dragon. I love how she supports her sisters. She never complains that their parents’ attention is focused on them. She doesn’t protest when she is denied the opportunity to travel to Russia and dance. The scene where she helps Tippi and Grace climb a tree was probably one of my favourites. I won’t say anymore because I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone.

Crossan infuses other issues into the story to create a multi-faceted narrative that ticks all my boxes and ones I never even knew existed. Alcoholism, financial constraint, family, friendship, love; One has it all but none of this overshadows Tippi’s and Grace’s incredible bond. The panoramic scenes are as short as a few words and as long as six pages but this episodic scenes knit together to create the seamless, over-arching story. I don’t know how to sum up how I feel articulately because One has left me feeling rather emotional, grasping at oxygen atoms like they might somehow lend me the words I need to describe what is a story that draws tears, induces laughter and brings an eye-crinkling smile that touches your eyes.

Sarah Crossan’s One is sadder than:

• Titanic
• My Dog Skip (this movie devastated me as a child)
• Marley & Me (beginning to see a trend?)
• Stay by the Shakespeare Sisters
• Paris Hilton’s attempts at a pop career

 

But it was like: 

• Your first kiss that fizzles through your body and sends hundreds of fireworks firing off in your head
• That rush of adrenaline you get right before a big race
• The feeling you get when someone smiles at you and it makes you smile from the inside out
• The feeling you get when you see tragedy on the news and while you send out prayers into the universe, it brings your family closer together, making you cherish every hug, kiss breath and step.

  

Nothing I ever say about One will ever do it justice. It’s refreshing and poignant and it touched my heart in ways I never thought possible. It very nearly brought me to tears but it made me want to reach into the book and hold Tippi and Grace so tight that I’d never let them go. It made me laugh and opened up the corners of my world to be a little kinder, a little gentler and to never be afraid to love and live who and how I want.

 

I can't do a giveaway for this book because between these pages is a story and each word is perfectly placed and that placement and the sheer weight of those words creates what can only be described as perfection. It would have been a grave injustice if Sarah Crossan didn't win the Carnegie Medal 2016. Congratulations, Sarah!

Rating: 5/5 Stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

 

Christopher Moore:

  

Christopher is a co-founder of the YAfictionados blog and is best known as the YAblooker. He is a twenty-five year old book blogger who has previously worked in marketing and consumer insight for various publishing houses and writes in his spare time. He loves to travel and will read anything YA-related and some general fiction and fantasy.