Children's Book Prizes

An Evaluation and History of Major Awards for Children's Books in the English-Speaking world.

Ruth Allen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429867507
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1998, this book is the first comprehensive survey of the awards made to children's books in the English-speaking world. The Volume covers nearly forty different prizes including well-known and established ones such as the Newbury Award, prizes instigated by the commercial sector such as the Smarties Prize, as well as nationally sponsored awards and prizes for illustrators. Detailed lists are provided of the winning titles and, where appropriate, the runners-up in each year that the award has been given. Ruth Allen also presents some fascinating and often entertaining insights into the motivations behind awards and how they are views by authors, illustrators, publishers, librarians, booksellers and potential purchasers. The various criteria applied by judges of these awards are also examined, with an assessment of whether they have always achieved the 'right' result. This Volume is both a useful guide for adults wishing to buy good books for children and an important tool for those researching the history of the children's book industry.

Part I: Introduction

1 About this book

The germ of this book was contained in the booklet Winning Books, published to accompany a collection of books exhibited for sale on the Bufo Books stand at the ‘Childhood Re-Collected’ Book Fair organized by the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA) in Oxford in 1994. In it were listed the winners of the Newbery, Caldecott, Carnegie, and Greenaway Medals, and the publishing details of those books which had won some of the other notable awards in the UK and US. In expanding that listing to cover nearly forty major awards for the English-speaking countries of the world, and by adding a discussion of the aims, achievements and merits of the awards whose winners are listed, my first thought was to change the title of the book. Then I wondered if it would be better to retain the original title, since no other seemed to embody the concept so well. I am now persuaded that the final choice is the most accurate description of what this book is attempting to do. The idea is to discuss the books which have won prizes, and the prizes awarded for these books. I have not attempted to deal with those awards which are made to authors in recognition of the body of their work. Thus the Hans Andersen Medal, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, the Hope Dean Award and others of that nature, worthy though they be, have no place in this discussion. Those awards are intended as an acknowledgement of the contribution made to children’s literature by an author, artist, or other worker in that field, and can be understood as a mark of appreciation made to someone by their colleagues or contemporaries. Awards given to specific titles, on the other hand, should not be subject to the considerations or influences of the author’s or artist’s previous work. It can however be shown that this has not always been the case, and that the motives of judges have not, consciously or otherwise, been as consistently pure as the criteria of their awards would imply. It is generally recognized, for instance, that at least two winners of the Carnegie Medal were given the award more as a recognition of past achievement than for the outstanding quality of the book they happened to produce in that year.

This book will attempt to discover what the prizes are, and what they set out to do. It will compare awards across the English-speaking world, their history, and the effect they have on sales and readership of their authors. In addition, the desirability of books, from a collecting angle, is discussed, alongside the readability and quality of writing. However, this is intended to be a book about books and reading. Thus, it will aim to show how well the books that won have stood up to the changed world in which they are now read. Books which did not win are also mentioned, particularly if they have proved to be of more lasting quality than the ones that did.

The different approaches of the countries which make these awards are inherent to the effects the awards may have. There is widespread agreement that the Newbery Medal is the giant among children’s book awards. It is also the oldest, and has just celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary. One of the advantages of the Newbery is that it confers immortality on a book: winning it guarantees that a title is kept in print in perpetuity. This is also true of its younger sibling the Caldecott Medal, awarded for illustration. Consequently a book published in the 1920s which was thought to speak to American children in its day, is still available to today’s young Americans. What do today’s children make of these books? Are they still held to be of equivalent value? All the other awards under discussion are in some degree either imitations of the Newbery, or reactions to it, but they do not share this particular feature. For example the UK awards which imitate and loosely match the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, the Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal, do not give any guarantee that the winning title will stay in print. Some have remained available, not always continuously, though many have been regularly reprinted; others are almost impossible to find, even in the second-hand market. This tells us almost as much about the differing publishing environments in America and England as it does about the books themselves.

The runners-up, Commended or Honor Books, also have a great deal to say about the ‘spirit of the time’ in which they just missed the accolade. Some of these titles now seem more worthy of the medal than the titles which did win. Is there any pattern to this? Is the supposed timeless quality we recognize now in such a book as Alan Garner’s Elidor (Carnegie Commended in 1965) the very reason that it seemed such an unusual book in its year, so that the award was given to the more immediately accessible Grange at High Force by Philip Turner? Today it is all too easy to wonder at the choices our predecessors made. With more knowledge of the circumstances it may be possible to show why they chose the titles they did, and why a book which has survived as a ‘children’s modern classic’ or collectible of today would not have been the best choice at the time. There are other occasions when it seems inconceivable, even under the prevailing standards of the day, that a particular title won, where another published in the same year was not even commended.

The people who were making the judgements at the time were constrained by their time. Indeed, the historian wielding hindsight, insight, and any other sight available (other than second sight), is similarly bound in his or her own time, and must recognize that his or her view, too, is partial. With this in mind, I will state here and now that the opinions in this book are my own, and whilst I have consulted many people who have, over the years, expressed strong opinions of their own about the question of awards, I have only quoted them directly if I could do so without distorting what they said or meant. A questionnaire was sent to a number of authors and illustrators who, over the years, have won awards, or been runners-up. Their responses, too, have been quoted only sparingly, but selections from them form the bulk of Chapter 13. Those who responded, or to whom I have spoken in the course of my researches, are listed within the Acknowledgements.

No consensus has emerged from the authors consulted about their reactions to winning or being shortlisted for awards. In general they split along the line of the mid-Atlantic ridge. In the UK many authors felt that being shortlisted was the recognition of the quality of their work, and that whether or not it won after that was not of particular importance. This attitude stems in part from the lack of financial reward to accompany most awards. A big money prize would naturally be welcome, but despite the lack of it, the publicity which now accrues from being shortlisted (which was not always the case) is enough to affect the standing, status, reputation – the feeling of self-worth which all authors need. However, the opposing point of view was expressed by one author who felt that if a shortlisted book had then not won, someone must have disliked it very much! One advantage of winning an award agreed by most authors of English-language books in all the countries under discussion here, is in the area of translations and overseas editions. If editors from another country are looking to republish, whether in translation or not, they will be encouraged by the measure of supposed quality which winning an award confers.

In dealing with children’s book awards, an invention of the twentieth century, this book would seem to constrict itself and its discussions to this century, and particularly to the years after the First World War. This, still referred to as ‘The Great War’ in many circles, was a watershed of more aspects of western culture than just the world of children’s literature. However, there will be a brief survey of the history and development of children’s literature in Chapter 2. There will also be a brief retrospective look at the question of ‘prize books’. Did the choices made by teachers and ministers when awarding school and Sunday School prizes foreshadow the choices made by the early award judges, or was the idea of awarding a medal or prize to a specific title more in the way of a reaction to the industry which had built up around the provision of cheap ‘prize books’ for the many schools and churches in the English-speaking world?

It is worth noting that a large part of the thinking behind the establishment of children’s book awards stems from a concern with standards of writing for children. A closer look at these standards and how they are defined reveals that they have a great deal to do with the perception on the part of the award’s instigator that standards (of all sorts) have declined since the ‘golden age’ of his or, more rarely, her childhood.

Golden ages merit a study of their own; every generation, every culture since at least the ancient Egyptians, the classical Greeks and the Old Testament fathers has had one. There seems always to have been a legendary time or place, just out of memory or reach, from which we are supposed to have degenerated or been ejected. Each generation has something of this feeling for its own childhood. My generation found the 1950s a time of renewal and hope; for our elders it was a time of fear of ‘The Bomb’. Their generation looked back to the carefree years of the 1930s and early 1940s, which to their elders was full of the threat of war. The early 1920s, when so much hope was invested in the League of Nations and the new world of peace for which so many had died, was a golden age to the children of those for whom nothing could compare with the long Edwardian summer - and so it goes on. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Charles Lamb could write to Coleridge complaining that current authors were pushing the old stories from the shelves. However far back we may look, the idea that ‘Once upon a time’ there was a golden age seems to have been perpetually present.

We may come closer to understanding the origin and ubiquity of this notion by reflecting how, within our own lives, our perception of time changes. Most of us remember what Lewis Carroll called a ‘golden afternoon’ which seemed to last for ever. The luckier among us may remember several of these idylls, or the seeming eternity of the six weeks of summer holiday which stretched before us in late July. And we all now remark how quickly the years go by as we grow older. But for an eight-year-old six weeks is nearly one and a half per cent of the total experience of his or her life; a year is twelve and a half per cent. By the time s/he is twenty, that six weeks has shrunk to just over half a per cent of his or her life, and a year to five per cent; at the age of forty-eight, six weeks is less than a quarter per cent and a year only just over two per cent. Each successive day is a diminishing proportion of our lives as we experience them. No wonder childhood is so often remembered as a time of endless sunshine.

Concern for high standards in children’s literature is none the less a larger issue than nostalgia. All of us who are engaged in the provision of books to children, be they our own children or grandchildren, the children whom we teach or those who come into our libraries and bookshops, are concerned to offer the best we know. To this extent prizes and awards for children’s literature may provide some signposts along the path between the books we remember with affection from our own childhood reading, and the jewels among the recent – and not so recent – publishing output.

Most of the awards were set up with the stated aim of improving the quality of children’s book publishing in their particular country. In the early years of this century members of the new profession of children’s librarianship were trying to carve out their own niche. It is hardly surprising that they should look closely at what was being published and, in their terms, find it wanting. Cheaply produced books had been flooding the market since the later years of the nineteenth century, aimed at the school prize market. They were printed on thick brittle paper to bulk the book out and make it seem to contain more pages than was the case. Illustrations were often crude and sometimes bore little resemblance to the characters or events described in the text. Their subject matter ranged from the overtly pious and moralizing tales which were thought particularly suitable for Sunday School prizes to the blood-and-thunder adventures not much superior to the ‘penny dreadful’ thrillers.

The first awards were made in America, and named after the early publisher John Newbery, and the famous illustrator Randolph Caldecott. When the British introduced their similar awards, they honoured the great benefactor of libraries and the arts Andrew Carnegie, and the Victorian illustrator Kate Greenaway. More recently introduced awards commemorate authors (Kathleen Fidler Award), journalists (Esther Glen), or publishers (Kurt Maschler). In addition several commercial concerns have inaugurated prizes which are fiercely contested each year. These include the UK brewery firm of Whitbread and the Canadian biscuit firm Christie Brown Nabisco, the South African broadcaster M-Net, the Guardian newspaper in the UK and the American periodical on children’s literature the Horn Book, in conjunction with the Boston Globe newspaper. These awards include cash prizes, whereas, at least at first, those set up by librarians did not, hence the designation ‘medal’. The early awards were solely concerned with the honour of winning, with no financial benefit to the author at all.

The original purpose of the awards considered in this book was to highlight individual outstanding titles each year, and in time other awards were established which allowed an author’s or illustrator’s body of work to be honoured. One of these is named for Eleanor Farjeon, though it is open not just to authors and illustrators, but for substantial contributions to children’s literature by anyone working in that field. In the US, the Hope Dean Award, also for a body of work, is administered by the Foundation for Children’s Books, Boston. Another, the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, is awarded by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), again for a body of achievement, and now made for both illustration and writing. These awards, together with the proliferation of other awards world-wide for individual books, have freed the major national awards for their real purpose.

There is sometimes confusion over the year to which an award should belong. In most cases the award is judged and presented in the year after publication. Practice of terminology in different countries means that for instance the 1997 Carnegie and Greenaway Medals (UK) are awarded in mid-1998. However, the 1997 Newbery and Caldecott Medals (US) were awarded early in that year for books published in 1996. Where possible I have indicated which practice is followed in the appropriate chapter.

Book prizes are a source of endless disagreement. For every librarian who tries to promote ‘good’ reading to the children coming into the library there is a bookseller who thinks the whole concept of awards is simply a publicity stunt by the publisher. However, it has been said that, to adults at least, awards do sell books. How often children buy books for themselves, and what notice – if any - they may take of award stickers, is more difficult to determine. In the United States the inclusion of a book in even the Honor list makes an immense difference to sales, as well as status. There, the publicity machine for the Newbery and Caldecott Medals is so effective that being ‘the winner’ is a significant achievement. In the years when only one or two Honor Books are chosen, inclusion in this list, too, will have a good effect on sales. The constituency of children’s book buyers in the US is so much greater, and the propensity of

American book buyers to be more ‘award-led’ makes an immense difference to the sales and therefore the print-runs of US winning authors. There has been considerable discussion as to the merit of prizes; whether in fact they have contributed in any way to the improvement in the range of books available to children; whether indeed the range of books available to children, though greater, has actually improved. Whilst this has largely to be a matter of opinion, it need not be uninformed opinion. This book sets out to find a way through the maze of children’s literature. It does not purport to show the only path, but one which it is hoped will be enjoyable and rewarding.

2 Books and children

Bringing children and books together is a task shared by parents, teachers and librarians. In an ideal world the balance is about equal, though at different points in the child’s life, one will have more input or influence than the others. Dorothy Butler, in Babies Need Books (1980), puts the strongest case for introducing children to books at an extremely early age. Stories are the way in which we make sense of our world; one is never too young to be given the first pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of life. Bruno Bettleheim’s Uses of Enchantment (1975) makes a convincing case for the relevance of fairy stories in the world of today’s child. Other books, in particular those of Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), trace the development of the hero figure in story, myth and legend. In the same way that it is known that music can be heard in the womb, and that talking to very young babies is vital for their mental development, there is overwhelming evidence that fiction, far from being mere escapism, or simply recreational reading, plays an important part in the healthy psychological growth of the child.

The association between children and stories is naturally far older than that between children and books. One can imagine children, perhaps half asleep, wrapped in furs, rugs, or woven grass mats, long before there were duvets or sheets and blankets, listening to the stories their elders told round the fire. Perhaps they would be about the cunning of the animals hunted that day; the enemies defeated; the mountains climbed or the rivers forded; or about new food plants discovered. They might have been stories woven about the stars and planets; about the gods of earth, sky and sea; or about the ancestors of the people. They could have contained elements which would reach us as tales of the fairies or the little folk. These were stories for everybody: the concept of a separate literature for children would not develop for thousands of years. Some of these stories might have been sung rather than spoken. The repetition that we notice when – as readers of the written word – we consider a text on the page, is a mnemonic and reinforcing technique for tellers and hearers of the oral tradition. It was no accident that among the earliest English printed texts were the ballads of Guy of Warwick, Robin Hood and Bevis of Hampton. Such stories were known to have the necessary popular appeal to guarantee sales and, together with the Arthurian cycle, were thus natural choices. The early printers realized that it would be necessary for the fruits of this untried method of production to make some profit, and used texts that they knew would sell in large numbers. Here is not the place for a lengthy history of books and printing: those who would be interested to read a fuller treatment are referred to F. J. Harvey Darton’s Children’s Books in England, which is still arguably the best history of children’s books as literature, even though it was first published more than sixty years ago. I merely wish to touch on a few of the landmarks within that development where improvements in techniques resulted in children and books coming closer together.

Ballads were certainly one early link between stories, books and children, but there are other points of contact. It should be noted that ballads and chapbooks, cheaply produced small booklets usually containing a woodcut illustration, continued to be available from at least the seventeenth until well into the nineteenth century, and whilst their quality, in terms of paper as well as textual content and illustration, was variable, they did serve to disseminate many of the rhymes and stories we now consider to be traditional. ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’ is well-known to have arisen from a description of the symptoms of the Black Death. Many other nursery rhymes which are now considered an intrinsic part of children’s literature had their origins in satirical verse and political commentary. These found their way even into remote country districts through pedlars and chapmen, or itinerant salesmen.

An important point of correspondence between children and books occurred in the eighteenth century, when the publisher John Newbery was one of the first to direct his sales pitch at those who might buy books for their children. Literacy among the middle and especially the growing professional classes of the eighteenth century was relatively high, and parents were concerned that their children should have at least the standard of education they had themselves received. The methods by which that education was imparted were in a state of flux, however. N...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: The Awards
• Part III: The Right Decision
• Index