Australian authors longlisted for 2017 Carnegie Medal

Australian authors Zana Fraillon and Glenda Millard have been longlisted for the 2017 Carnegie Medal.

Fraillon is longlisted for The Bone Sparrow (Hachette) and Millard for The Stars at Oktober Bend (A&U).

Presented annually by the UK’s Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), the Carnegie Medal is awarded to the writer of an outstanding book for children and young people, while the Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded for outstanding illustration in a children’s book.

The longlists were chosen from a list of nominees announced in October. To see the full longlists, click here.

This year’s longlists have been criticised for not including a single black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) writer. Wei Ming Kam, co-founder of the BAME in Publishing group in the UK, told the Bookseller that the lack of diversity was ‘appalling given the incredible quality of the few books by writers of colour in children’s literature this year’. CILIP has responded to the criticism by saying that the longlisted books were ‘judged on merit and on an equal playing field’.

Category: Awards Junior Local news