Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal Winners

Yesterday the big announcement was made!  

The 2015 winner of the Kate Greenaway medal was William Grill for Shackleton’s Journey and this years Carnegie Medal went to Tanya Landman for Buffalo Soldier.  Over the past weeks our steering group have enjoyed reading and discussing all of the books shortlisted for the awards; here they are enjoying words, illustration, tea and biscuits.  

Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medal steering group at Seven Stories

To fill the gap in our reading lists, I thought it would be a great chance to delve into the Carnegie and Greenaway treasure chest to the show you some of the items in our collections that have won prizes in the past. Our book and archive collections at Seven Stories represent work by hundreds of authors and illustrators and among them are many Carnegie and Greenaway prize winners.

This is a very small selection, if you’d like to see some more, or you have a Carnegie and Greenaway favourite that isn’t featured, let us know!

The second ever Carnegie winner was Eve Garnett in 1937 with The Family from One End Street, which was quite ground-breaking for its portrayal of a working class family.  It may not be considered anything revolutionary today but in 1937, children’s literature was dominated by middle-class children.  We don’t hold any original material but we do have multiple editions in our book collections.  

Eve Garnett's Family from One End Street (Puffin Books, 1945)

In 1961 Antony Maitland won the Kate Greenaway prize for his portrayal of Mrs Cockle’s Cat.  This image only demonstrates a small amount of material that we hold in our Antony Maitland Collection; we have the whole dummy book, original illustrations and a draft of the cover for Mrs Cockle’s Cat.  We also hold artwork from his other books.

Original artwork for Mrs Cockle's Cat, Anthony Maitland c. 1961 ©Anthony Maitland 

Seven Stories Visitor centre is based in Ouseburn Valley in Newcastle and our Collections are held at our Gateshead office so, this next winner is close to home.  Set in the fictional Garmouth, quite like our own Tynemouth, is Robert Westall’s 1975 Carnegie winner The Machine Gunners.  Westall wrote his draft for The Machine Gunners by hand in notebooks. Six years later Robert won the Carnegie again for The Scarecrows. We hold a selection of original work within our Robert Westall collection which includes material from the majority of his published books. Alongside the archive we also have an extensive Westall book collection, which includes some interesting translations.   

Draft of Machine Gunners, Robert Westall c. 1975 © Robert Westall Estate

Peter Dickinson also won the Carnegie prize two years running. Tulku won in 1979.  Here is an early, incomplete typescript manuscript which is a possible first draft of Tulku.  There is also preliminary material for City of Gold in our archive, which was Peter’s Dickinson’s second book to win the Carnegie in 1980.  City of Gold was illustrated by Michael Forman whose work you can see in our upcoming exhibition. 

Typescript draft of Tulku, Peter Dickinson c. 1978 © Peter Dickinson 

There are very few authors who have won the Carnegie prize more than once, Berlie Doherty is another.  Her first prize was for Granny was a Buffer Girl in 1986 and the second for Dear Nobody in 1991.  Berlie's books can be found in a number of our book collections and our archive collection includes material from her published books, story books and radio broadcasts. The original material for Granny was a Buffer Girl includes these drafts and photographs which we think were used for inspiration. 

Drafts and photographs for Granny was a Buffer Girl c. 1984 © Berlie Doherty

Anthony Browne won the Kate Greenaway in 1992 with Zoo, at Seven Stories we hold one preliminary sketch from the book which shows the zoo visitors looking into the orang-utan’s cage.  We also have a preliminary sketch from Gorilla which won Browne his first Kate Greenaway prize in 1983.

Original Illustration for Zoo c. 1992  © Anthony Browne

A lot of Philip Pullman’s collection is digital but this is a typescript draft from the 1995 Carnegie winner His Dark Materials: Northern Lights.  Some of my favourite items in our collections are Philip Pullman’s handwritten notes and drafts which show his doodling and thought process. Philip’s name is very popular, particularly within our ex-library book collections, it’s great to see how the artwork for ‘His Dark Materials’ developed over time into what is the very recognisable Philip Pullman cover. 

Typescript draft for His Dark Materials: Northern Lights c. 1995 © Philip Pullman 

Emily Gravett’s Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears won the Greenaway prize in 2008.  In our collection we have some original artwork of mice, these drawings were used to create the final artwork digitally.  The drawings were scanned and then digitally positioned into the relevant spreads like a collage.  

Original artwork for Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears c. 2007 © Emily Gravett

Come along to Seven Stories Visitor Centre after our grand reopening in August and you may be able to spot some of Emily’s mice in our Rhyme Around the World exhibition or...If you'd like to find out more about the Seven Stories Collection, then email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk or phone: 0191 495 2707 or comment on this blog.