Exclusive Interviews with the winners of the Carnegie & Kate GReenaway awards

Kevin Brooks: 
 

It’s without doubt the best thing that’s ever happened to me as a writer – a huge honour and a privilege, a dream come true, and something I’ve been hoping to achieve for a very long time.
   

So many reasons – its history and tradition, the great writers who’ve won it before, its prestige and respect. It’s the award that every children’s writer wants to win, and it also does a fantastic job of raising the profile of children’s literature. One of the best things about it, for me, is the shadowing programme, which has got better and better every year, and now involves hundreds of reading groups and literally thousands of young readers whose enthusiasm and insight is truly inspiring.   

 

Books are about life, and life is about all kinds of different stuff, some of which is pretty brutal and seemingly without hope and answers. 

 

Absolutely, and I think the world’s a better place for it. The more options there are, the better chance there is of young people finding something they like to read, something they can relate to. We need to keep reaching out to people who think they don’t like reading, because quite often it’s the case that they just haven’t found the right book yet. 

 

No. I always make sure that if I’m writing about a character or a situation that isn’t fully explained to the reader, then I don’t allow myself to know anything about them either. That way, there can’t be any sense at all that the author is hiding something – you know as much I do!

 

It depends if they want to read something similar or not – they might have had enough of darkness and captivity for a while! The kinds of books I had in mind when I was writing The Bunker Diary – ie, the types of stories that I’ve always loved and which inspired me to write the book – include: Lord of the Flies by William Golding; The Collector by John Fowles; Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe; My Side of the Mountain by Jean George. They’re all brilliant books, and I’d recommend them to anyone.      

 

 

Growing up in Canada we were familiar with a lot of the books that make up the amazing tradition the UK has of children's literature, to have made something that has been welcomed into the culture this way is extremely humbling and very meaningful.

 

It's great to have an award that distinguishes between the writing and the illustration. While of course you wouldn't have the story without the writing, there are many different ways you can decide to illustrate it. Children involved in the shadowing process get a chance to consider these decisions on their own which they might not have done otherwise.

 

I don't know if there are any hard and fast rules that you can apply, but I like it best when the different elements that make up a story seem to point to one unavoidable conclusion.

 

The words, but they are written with the illustrations in mind. It's important that the illustrations have their own information to convey.

 

No. There were a number of stories before This Is Not My Hat was written, but when this story showed up I liked the idea that the plot of this book is very much the same as I Want My Hat Back, but with almost everything inverted.

 

The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.