Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Ceremony

It was the announcement ceremony for the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals and, as past chair, I was invited to the ceremony - an even so full of joy that I would not want to miss it. This year did not disappoint. The two books I was rooting for not only won the Medals, awarded by the panel of judges but also both won the inaugural Shadowers Choice Award, voted by the kids and teens shadowing the awards all over the country. This answers one frequent criticism that the books who win the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals are “not for kids”, “too intellectual”, etc...
The winners both gave a really good speech https://www.cilip.org.uk/page/ckgspeeches2019. A young Amnesty International activist also talked about the Convention for the Rights of Children which is 30 years old and has been signed (but sadly not always honoured) by every country expect one, the United States of America!
After the ceremony and a lot of mingling with colleagues, we had a meal in honour of Joy who had been an amazing chair of the the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway working party for 8 years.
Finally we went to a panel discussion to celebrate Refugee Week. Three picture books authors and illustrators were on the panel, Nicola Davies and Rebecca Cobb creator of When War Came and Chris Naylor-Ballesteros for The Suitcase, as well as a representative from Help Refugees.
Finally, a long walk to clear the head..