2009 CILIP CARNEGIE/GREENAWAY WINNERS

Two years after her untimely death from breast cancer at the age of 47, Siobhan Dowd’s fourth and final novel, ‘Bog Child’, has been awarded the UK’s premier accolade for children’s writing: the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2009. The Carnegie Medal is awarded annually to the writer of an outstanding book for children.
Dowd wrote her fourth and final novel ‘Bog Child’ in Spring 2007, completing it just as Waterstone’s named her one of only three children’s authors amongst their 25 ‘Great Writers of the Future’.
‘Bog Child’ is set in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. The story opens in 1981 close to the North-South border as teenager Fergus McCann makes an illicit raid to the South to gather peat with his uncle and discovers a child’s body buried in the bogs, perfectly preserved for 2000 years. The child’s history unfolds as Fergus struggles with the normal challenges of being a teenager: his driving test, ‘A’ levels, his ambition to study medicine and first love for the flighty Cora. But this is also a time of war in Northern Ireland and Fergus must deal with exceptional circumstances: his parents arguing over the Troubles, the mounting pressure on him to take sides in a raging sectarian conflict; and a brother on hunger strike in the Maze.

Inspired by a wild hare and her own large-ish feet, Edinburgh-based illustrator Catherine Rayner has won the 2009 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal, the UK’s most prestigious award for children’s book illustration. The CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded annually for an outstanding book in terms of illustration for children and young people
Rayner wins the 2009 Medal for only her second published book, ‘Harris Finds His Feet’ in which Harris, a small hare with big feet goes out into the world with his Grandad, from whom he learns not only how to hop high into the sky and run very fast, but also about the joys of growing up and of independence.
‘Harris Finds His Feet’ was inspired by a real and magical encounter with a hare in the wild, and by the size 8 feet of its author: a childhood embarrassment Rayner strove to turn into a positive feature for Harris, and for her audience of young readers.