Issue 27 Autumn1999 Snapshots from the Album of a Carnegie Judge Delivered on 14th July 1999 Eileen Armstrong >>>>>>>>>>>> Next Carnegie/Greenaway Item	Collections under which this       article appears:       Reading Related Articles or Resources Other Articles by Author

Eileen Armstrong is the Learning Resource Centre Manager at Cramlington High School in Northumberland, and was, until this year, an innocent, unsuspecting member of the Northern Branch of Youth Libraries Group. A self-confessed biblioholic since birth, being nominated as Carnegie/Greenaway Rep was a dream come true.

CARNEGIE FEVER HITS CRAMLINGTON HIGH!
Whoever said teenagers don't read has never been to Cramlington. I can't praise highly enough my student "quality controllers", pictured here with some of the 102 titles from the Longlist.

The Shadowing took on a breath-taking momentum of it's own, as books were suddenly cool and as enthusiastically discussed as last night's TV soap. With a real reason to read and interact with other readers students had to be evicted from the library at 5.30 each evening. Shadowers enthusiastically e-mailed fellow shadowers at neighbouring High Schools; road-tested picture books in First Schools and redesigned Greenaway nominations to create textured, pop-up versions. Statemented students rated books online for younger siblings, posting reviews on the LA website and the daily BookBites, read over the intercom, culminated in the whole school voting: Carnegie met Eurovision!

The students' feedback, surprisingly perceptive and honest, was invaluable - the Longlist nominations may have been submitted by adults, but they were to be read by children - hopefully lots of them.

Never has so much been read by so few in so little time! Amazingly I'd only read 19 of the 102 titles on the Longlist - an ecliptic and intriguing mix of familiar authors, new talent and next-in series, which took me into exciting and charted reading territory, well beyond my usual reading comfort zone.

Dillons saved the day by providing the majority of the Longlist, on Sale or Return, no doubt relieved that I'd no longer be found lurking among the picture books on a Saturday afternoon, terrorising teenagers and interrogating unsuspecting parents. They also saved me from the combined wrath of the Bank Manager and the School Finance Officer, neither of whom would have looked sympathetically on an overdraft application for "Carnegie Reading"!

Thankfully the books arrived just as the bell rung signalling the start of the Easter holidays. Publishers do provide reading copies to the Co-ordinator who performs miracles in posting them around the country, but there's not a minute of valuable reading time to waste!

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM
Carnegie Shadowers find fame if not fortune after a TV appearance.

With this year's winner, David Almond, being a "local lad", media coverage was unprecedented and students featured in a radio interview, a double-page newspaper article and 2 TV broadcasts: 6 brain-numbing hours of filming preceeded the above photo-opportunity for a "long-by-normal standards" 6 minute slot on local news the day the winners were announced.

First School pupils were undaunted by the intrusion of the cameras, settling down to a satisfying helping of Pumpkin Soup in the company of Zagazoo, a duck called Daisy and a blue kangaroo. High School Students confidently expressed their likes and dislikes, the need for humour, realism and really good page-turners, which are well written too.

I scored less well. Ready prepared selection criteria committed to memory - relationship to child perception ... imaginative sympathy with the text ... subject appropriate style ... mood creation ... subconscious satisfaction ... a real and pleasurable experience that is retained afterwards ... - were useless as the interviewer went straight in for the kill: "Surely young people today need computers not books?"

How long have I got??!!

GOING FOR GOLD!
The efforts of the Shadowers were rewarded with coveted places at the Going for Gold ceremony in Birmingham.

The Shortlisted authors and illustrators, almost like old friends now, were bombarded with questions collected from students back home. New friendships were made with fellow shadowers; e-mail addresses exchanged and books hotly debated!

They were desperate to know the winner, to be announced the next day, but until then my lips had to remain firmly and infuriatingly sealed! I would have been held personally responsible if their favourite hadn't won - shadowing is a powerful testimony to the importance for children of personal reading recommendations, book talk and an in-depth knowledge of contemporary authors and genres.

SMILE YOU'RE ON CARNEGIE CAMERA!
Authors and illustrators looking nervous at the fantastic, star-studded Shortlist Party hosted by Peters.

I was humbled and surprised by the authors' and illustrators' gratitude, privileged to have played a small part in their success and in this chapter of the Carnegie/Kate Greenaway story.

Their fate, and future, was in our hands ... the power to make or break careers, create new generations of new and eager readers ... its an awesome responsibility - I knew we'd got some worthy winners on the Shortlist. Would the rest of the book world agree?

THE GLITZ AND THE GLAMOUR

We'd stuffed the press packs, pointed out the loos to the author/illustrator we were "minding", handed round the champagne, now it was time to face the music ...

Even Jeremy Paxman was stunned into silence by the uplifting, inspiring words of acceptance and thanks from Helen Cooper and David Almond, championing Libraries and unfettered lifelong learning.

Minding the winner of the Carnegie was not as easy as it looks. At 12pm the embargo was lifted and everyone wanted a photo ... an interview ... a quote ... at once!

IT'S ALL OVER NOW!
One for the album.

It was hard to believe that a few short weeks ago I was terrified of meeting fellow Judges, convinced that their knowledge and experience would be vastly superior to my own. Human after all, we were a fascinating mix of children's specialists, schools librarians and parents, from inner cities and rural areas, all unashamed book addicts concerned every day with connecting the most discriminating of book consumers with richly rewarding reading experiences.

Far from being exposed as a fraud I relished every minute of the nail-biting, nerve-wracking debate - punctuated by copious cups of coffee and comfort breaks, alternately fuelled and cooled by thoughtfully provided chocolate, culminating in heart-stoppingly close voting, even the final count ... and recount.

So many issues: "picture books" for adults, age-appropriate fiction content, parental concern, photographic enhancement, eligibility of past medal-winners, sequels, previous works, series publishing, etc.

It was eye opening to see how opinions can change in the light of each revisiting, how passionately personal choices could be promoted.

How to: compare a sitting on the knee, time-for-bed, cutesy cuddly toy tale with a historical autobiography in cartoon form? Contrast the wacky humour of a first-read with a creation tale of epic proportions? Debate the complex moral and social issues of a teenage novel? Small wonder that the entire days of discussion spilled over into dinner, then to book talk in the bar 'til the early hours ... BLISS!

BACK TO BASICS!
The media circus over, this is what the Carnegie/Kate Greenaway medals are all about. The thrill of the story is among the most important things in the world.

This was what made it all worthwhile: the overflowing bags of fluorescent index tabs; the colour coded index cards; the myriad of multi-coloured biros; the ever-increasing piles of books barricading the front door, imprisoning me in my own house; the sleepless nights; the missing nights-out and birthday parties (including mine!); the frantic phone calls; the frenzied last-minute faxing; the hours dividing the number of pages by the days left in which to read them; the weeks of secrecy; the bleary-eyed, early morning visits to parcel collection; the 9000+ painstakingly annotated pages ... and the countless hours of sheer enjoyment and self-indulgence!!!

It is impossible to imaging life without the Carnegie/Greenaway. Even when I'm retired, I'll be following the Longlist, mentally marking my favourites against the criteria, until then I've got the nominations for next year to work on and the agonising over adjectives in those supporting statements:

Complete the following in no more than 50 words: "I think ... should win the Carnegie/Kate Greenaway medal because ..."!!!

These snapshots were taken from the article "The Secret Diary of a Carnegie/Greenaway Judge" which appears in the Autumn edition of ARMADILLO Magazine: to be followed by the "True Confessions".