Issue 25 Autumn 1998 OVER-SHADOWING THE CARNEGIE? Carnegie Greenaway Shadowing - the Feedback Lynne Taylor Project Manager, Carnegie Greenaway Shadowing	Collections under which this       article appears:       Awards       Y L G Related Articles or Resources Other Articles by Author

This year saw The Library Association (LA) Carnegie and Kate Greenaway awards attracting mainstream commercial sponsorship from the Royal Mail. In addition, The Arts Council of England made a £6,700 award available for the development of the scheme involving children in shadowing the national judging process for the medals. The number of schools involved has quadrupled and the responses have been staggeringly positive in terms of generating responses to books and strengthening links between schools and libraries.

At least 500 schools and library-based reading groups are expected to take part in the shadowing scheme in the Year of Reading, potentially involving over 10,000 children. The direct impact of the Carnegie and Greenaway Medals on young people has never been higher, and this gives children's and youth librarians a golden PR opportunity. But is there a danger in handing over so much publicity to the young shadowing "judges"? The press love to seize on any tension between children's choices and the choices made for them by adults. It is important that the shadowing scheme should complement the official judging process, without threatening to over-shadow it.

This was a good year to test this point. Whereas for the past few years the children's choices have mainly backed-up the official judges', this year's winners River Boy and When Jessie Came Over the Sea received just a handful of votes. The children's choices were Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for the Carnegie and a tie for Greenaway between Mucky Pup and Willy the Dreamer. The national press were steered away from any questioning of the librarians' choices, focusing on the wide range of activities and the huge enthusiasm displayed by shadowing groups, but it could have been a different story.

Feedback from schools indicates in fact that a different choice of winners does not detract from the success of their shadowing projects. As one teacher put it:

"The fact that our judgement did not coincide precisely was an irrelevance. What had been important, worthwhile and exciting about the Carnegie Shadowing was the process; the reading - the discussions - the sense of being involved with a wider world outside the confines of our school". Sturminster Newton High School, Dorset

How it works...
The shadowing scheme is essentially a very fluid concept. Schools and libraries are invited to work with groups of children - either in reading groups or in class - to shadow the official YLG judges during the period between the announcement of the shortlist in May and the awards ceremony in July. They choose to work with the Carnegie, the Greenaway or both, and in this 10 week period the students read the books that have been shortlisted, debate their merits, and collectively vote on their own choice of winners. How they do this is entirely up to the group; so taking part can range from straightforward reading and discussing titles to a wide ranging cross- curricular approach involving drama, art, English, assemblies, debates, video creation and so on.

It was decided to take a strategic approach to developing the shadowing scheme by expanding it in stages and setting up an evaluation programme to highlight successful projects and any inherent difficulties. We wanted to work through libraries and school library services to ensure that wherever possible there is professional support. Having created leaflets and information packs explaining the scheme, we mailed each of the Heads of Children's Services with details. Information was also posted on The Library Association web site. As well as a strong response from the profession (44 responses and 25 different projects resulting) there were also a number of schools working independently, having heard of the scheme through reports in Youth Library Review, The School Librarian, Literacy Today, or via word of mouth.

Vital Statistics
Schools and reading groups are asked to register with The Library Association, to give us an idea of their approach and any interesting angles that are emerging. 150 schools registered this year and of these we had feedback from 76, who sent in reviews and their winners, and information on how well the scheme had worked for them. In addition to that there were numbers of schools involved through Schools Library Services and Public Libraries who didn't register, taking the number up to around 200 schools involved all together.

All of the schools and reading groups who responded reported that it had been a useful and rewarding experience, and that they want to take part again next year. The students totalled 2,400, suggesting that up to 7,000 children could have been involved all together. Nearly all schools were secondary, and were working with a school librarian, with the majority of children from years 7-9. It may be, however, that in primary schools, where there isn't a librarian, the teachers just didn't get around to filling out questionnaires. Geographically, there were schools from all parts of the country. However, although a number of schools undertook successful schemes in Scotland, there were difficulties as the school year ended at the end of June, before the announcement of the official winners. Unfortunately, the organisers are unable to bring the shortlist selection earlier in the year, due to the sheer number of nominations that the judges need to read and assess from the end of February.

There were regions where the schools or public library services had raised a great deal of interest; in Bucks, Devon, Hampshire, Leeds, Norfolk & Suffolk, London & the South East, Oxford, Portsmouth & the West Midlands (esp. Solihull & Dudley). There were also a number of schools who put heart and soul into the shadowing to make it a tremendously successful enterprise; special commendation is due to Withins School in Bolton, Harrow Way in Andover, Haberdasher's Monmouth School for Girls, Sturminster Newton High school in Dorset, Neville Chamberlain in Warwickshire - to name but a few.

Two-thirds of the groups were working with the Carnegie shortlist; just under one- third were working with both medals, and only a handful were working with the Greenaway shortlist alone. Over two-thirds of the schools were working with the support of a School Library Service or Public Library. There obviously was a sizeable impact in terms of book purchases. From the 76 that responded 1045 books had been borrowed and 1180 Carnegie titles and 96 Greenaway titles had been purchased.

What kinds of schemes emerged?
The shadowing scheme has been used as a focus for some very interesting work; bringing secondary school children into contact with young children from feeder schools and even pre-school groups; creating "buddying", or paired reading schemes; setting up public library-based reading groups; talking books with parents at pre-school groups; generating responses from special needs using the Greenaway shortlist (with adults with severe learning difficulties, school learning support groups), challenging brighter children; bringing together a home-educated group.

Regional discussion and voting days, organised by public and school library services and bringing schools and librarians together, have proved to be stimulating and a good way to encourage communication skills - Solihull, Devon, Leeds, Portsmouth, Oxfordshire, Norfolk are examples. Using the Internet via the LA web site added an extra national element which was well-received and encouraged schools to send in reviews. There was also a shortlist event - thanks to Anne Everall - organised as part of the Young Readers and Writers Festival in Birmingham. Four of the shortlisted Carnegie authors talked about their books at the Centre for the Child to an audience selected from four shadowing schools.

Evaluation
As well as the feedback we received from the registered schools, we identified a further 11 schools and groups as case studies that we would evaluate in greater detail. We issued all of the children in the groups with pre-test questionnaires, to get a picture of their current reading habits, and their familiarity with the awards. They were asked to fill in reading diaries as they worked through the shortlists, and at the end of the project they filled in questionnaires to give us their response to the scheme. This was followed up with interviews, both with children and with staff involved, to get an in-depth response.

The case studies fell into four different categories:

• Working with feeder schools/paired reading
• Working with library-based reading groups /pre-school group
• Encouraging reluctant readers
• Using the Kate Greenaway shortlist with special needs students.

1. Endorsement of the reading habit and a further stimulus to reading.
   Because it's a national scheme, which invites children and young people to express their own opinions about books, the shadowing acts as a trigger, a purpose, to get them reading. The shortlists introduce them to new authors, taking them away from their usual reading material. It also endorses reading as an accepted occupation, giving them confidence to talk to each other about books, generating word of mouth recommendations. Using the Internet to display reviews is an ideal way to cement the idea of a national project and stimulate discussion.

   "It has been wonderful to see pupils who, although capable, were not reading, but are now not only reading but are recommending books for others to read." Withins School, Bolton
   
   "It endorsed reading as a valued occupation. It's a difficult age [year 8]. If you can hook them well and truly at this stage, you'll keep them reading." The Amersham School, Bucks
   
   "The pupils involved in the scheme have a) read books they might otherwise have missed b) developed their reviewing skills to a marked degree c) thoroughly enjoyed the process of discussion and debate about the relative merits of the shortlisted novels." Coombe Girls' School, New Malden

2. Enjoying books - at all levels
   Working with the Carnegie and especially the Kate Greenaway shortlists and acting as judges has been highly successful in generating responses to books from special needs pupils who are wary of them because they have difficulty in reading. It liberates them from the pressure of working through reading schemes with their teachers, and lets them just appreciate a wide range of interesting, beautiful and often very funny books. It also worked amazingly well with a group of adults with severe learning difficulties at Melton Mowbray College.

   "The greatest benefit gained through the shadowing process has been to allow the students to experience what we all take for granted - the enjoyment of a good book." Melton Mowbray College
   
   "Before the shadowing I had no contact with Learning Support; now I've been asked to continue to attend on a weekly basis, bringing books to share that will have nothing to do with reading schemes." Eckington School, Derbyshire
   
   The students loved it - they wanted to read all the time! My most reluctant reader, a Special Needs student, started with Scribbleboy, loved it, and then read three more books. Uplands Community College, E. Sussex

3. Reinforcing the link between library and school
   The shadowing scheme is providing an ideal focus for bringing people together to talk about books, and the school or public library is the setting. Many schools are reporting that the reading groups created for shadowing the awards will be continuing after the project. Schemes that bring together children of different ages - working with feeder schools, buddying or paired reading - are proving to be very successful. Links with School and Public Library Services are also being strengthened and children are learning more about the role of a librarian.

   "The Greenaway titles provided us with the terrific opportunity to link up with the Pre- School Group... This proved to be a wonderful experience for both them and us." Harrow Way Community School, Hampshire
   
   "The success of this year's venture has encouraged those pupils taking part to start a Reading Club in September as part of our contribution to the National year of Reading." Pendeford High School, West Midlands
   
   "A direct result has been contact established with the City Library Services to Children." Leeds Grammar School

Difficulties
These can be divided into three areas: Time, budgets and the shortlists

1. Time
   The evaluation shows that the time factor has far greater impact than we had imagined. Only 17% of the students had read all the shortlisted Carnegie titles. 39% had read between 4 and 6 titles and 44% managed fewer then 4 titles.
   In fact only 41% had read River Boy - no wonder they hadn't selected it as their winner!. Books were being selected in order of preference by their jackets, so students were starting with the most interesting looking books (Scribbleboy, Harry Potter) whilst River Boy, along with Fire, Bed and Bone, seemed to many to be the least attractive.
   The ten-week period between the shortlist and the winning announcement can't be changed; the only thing we can do is try and iron out any difficulties in terms of book supply, so that schools can get started as soon as possible after the announcement.
2. Budgets
   The main constraint for groups taking part is the budget for buying the books; the inability to buy more than a few copies doesn't help with problem of sharing books and getting them read.
   Some schools have no problem with funding, but a lot have, and many areas are suffering from the situation with Schools Library Services being delegated out. One possibility is to try and get local sponsorship, as the shadowing is ideal for generating good, positive local press coverage.
3. The shortlists
   There can be difficulties for primary schools if texts are selected that are unsuitable for younger readers; this was a problem last year when Junk was on the shortlist and became the eventual winner. This year we had the opposite problem, as older students complained that that there was only one teenage book on the shortlist. However, the students that were interviewed enjoyed the variety of texts and even wanted a greater range, so what can be a problem is also a strength.

Summary: Enthusiasm goes a long way.....
The research has shown that the success of the shadowing scheme stems with the enthusiasm of those that are running individual projects. Its flexibility means that it can be used to achieve many different objectives in terms of generating responses to books and developing support for continued reading enjoyment. The school librarian and/or support from a School Library Service or Public Library is central to the scheme's effectiveness and in particular a number of schools reported of their School Library Service "we couldn't have done it without them." The children that take part get a lot out of being part of a national scheme, they want to feel that their opinions count. We need to build on their energy and commitment and make the shadowing scheme bigger and more inclusive, whilst taking care to maintain the prestigious nature of the awards and to celebrate the role of the children's librarian.

The aim is to involve 2-5 schools from each library authority next year. We feel that the Internet is an ideal tool to link schools together, offering a wealth of information and encouraging discussion about the shortlisted titles. If funding allows, we will be building on the shadowing web pages (accessed through LA web site). As well as including author information, author sound bites (interviews and readings), and a bulletin board for the latest discussions and reviews, we will be encouraging real time chat sessions between small groups of schools, and even video conferencing - maybe with an author or two, if they're willing. Watch this space.

A year into the development of the shadowing scheme, it's impossible not to feel buoyantly reassured and excited by the positive responses that we've had from the groups taking part. Optimistic too about children still reading, and enjoying reading, and the role of libraries and librarians in supporting reading development. It's exactly what the National Year of Reading is all about:

"Shadowing the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals shortlists is a brilliant project to engage young readers in thinking about how they and other readers respond to a variety of texts. Explaining why you like something is not always easy, but finding others who share your pleasure is rewarding and stimulating. This is a perfect way to develop reading skills and encourage a love of reading."
Liz Attenborough, Director, National Year of Reading

If you are not already registered with the LA for information pack and leaflets about the Carnegie Greenaway Shadowing Scheme, please e-mail Louisa.Myatt@la-hq.org.uk or phone on 0171 636 7543. To discuss any ideas for development of the scheme, please e-mail LynneTaylor@compuserve.com.