Ivybridge Community College hosted their very own group right here in the Learning Resources Centre (LRC), with students and staff making a huge effort to follow the very prestigious awards - reading, creating and making! The event is the UK’s longest running and best loved children’s book awards, and it aims to recognise outstanding reading experiences created through writing and illustration in books.

Every year, judges select 8 books (shortlisted in March) and students join in the “shadowing scheme”, with thousands of children and young people reading the shortlisted books. In their shadowing groups, students also vote for their favourite book, which becomes the recipient of the much coveted Shadowers’ Choice Award.

Some schools meet up and shadow together, but the College’s Carnegie has become such a huge success, the LRC found it more beneficial to host their own group of Year 7,8,9 and 10 students. The group met weekly and discussed the books they were reading, with students encouraged to read as many books from the list as they could. Other group activities included designing their own dust covers for the books and making cakes depicting a character from the book.

Following on from the huge success of last years “Design a Cushion Cover” illustrating students favourite Carnegie Book, the LRC decided to offer students the opportunity to design their very own T-Shirt. If Students did not wish to create their own T-Shirt, they could decorate one of the LRC ceiling tiles instead.

All resources were purchased by the LRC and students were removed from a whole days’ timetable to participate.

A student commented that:

The Carnegie group is great fun. You get to make friends, read books and have a really cool day doing something creative. I loved making the cushion cover last year and this year we got to decorate our own T-Shirts.

The awards are unique in that they are judged solely by children’s librarians. The Yoto Carnegie Medal is awarded to an outstanding book written in English and the Yoto Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded to an outstanding book in terms of illustration. The results of the Carnegie judging were watched by the students on the recently installed TV screens in the LRC, which was followed by discussions about the judges’ choices.

The winner of the Carnegie medal was Katya Balen, for her second novel October, October, whilst Danica Novgorodoff’s graphic novel, Long Way Down won the Kate Greenaway Medal. Excitingly, Balen’s October, October won double, also winning the Shadower’s Choice Award, alongside The Midnight Fair illustrated by Mariachiara Di Giorgio.

Sarah Hull, the LRC Coordinator, said the students involved were a fantastic group, meeting wholly for the love of books. Any students with a passion for books can still head down to the LRC, where they can read all the winners, as well as shortlisted books, for 2022.