Carnegie+Medal+2011

The Carnegie Medal shortlist is out and the reading has begun! Once again there are 8 titles which is a real challenge for the group, however a good start has been made.
The shortlist is as follows: Sarah Crossan 'The Weight of Water' - this book has chapters in verse to tell the story of life for Kasienka who has come to England from Poland Roddy Doyle 'A Greyhound of a Girl' - a moving story about four generations of the same family on a road trip, except that one is a ghost... Sally Gardner 'Maggot Moon' - an interesting novel which has clever plot lines, a conspiracy theory and on original central concept Nick Lake 'In Darkness' - set in Haiti after the earthquake, this book brings in gangster, voodoo, slavery butin the end is a story of survival R J Palacio 'Wonder' - this should be a sad story about the difficulties of the central character and his disability but it is full of unexpected kindness and humour Marcus Sedgewick ;Midwinterblood' - this book incoporates seven stories which are all linked as Eric and Merle search for each other through the centuries Dave Shelton 'A Boy and a Bear in a Boat' - a unique story of an unlikely pair adrift at sea and their adventures Elizabeth Wein ' Code Name Verity' - this book is really well written - a complex story of war-time with two friends' accounts of the capture and imprisonment of one of them

Really interesting selection of stories and if there ia s atheme then 'survival against the odds' might be it - why not try them yourself and see if you agree!

June 2012
==== The Carnegie Medal Winner for this year is 'A Monster Calls' by Patrick Ness, which our shadowing group also choise as their overall favourite book! The vote by the shadowing groups across the UK was for 'My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece' which was our third choice. Our second choice was 'Between Shades of Gray'. ====

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These are three very different books though the themes of 'hope' and 'survival' run throught them all. The Boclair group did very well this year and if you want to catch up with their on all the books they read, then click on this link [|Boclair's Home Page] ======

The Carnegie shortlist books are now in the library - there are 8 titles and the award will be made in the second week in June, so lots of reading to do.
==== The first thing the group did was to judge the covers and the favourites were The Monster Calls and Between Shades of Gray. We then judged the blurbs but there was no clear winner here. It will be interesting to see how this changes over the next two months. ====

News just in from the Carnegie Medal organisers is that the shortlist will now be announced in March, so better hone your speed reading skills now. ==== The Carnegie longlist is out and we already have some of the titles in the library and will be adding more as we can, we won't know until April which books will make it to the shortlist but it's worth reading those we have just in case! ====

====The Carnegie Medal 2011 shortlist came out in April and Boclair BookEnds rose to the challenge of reading 6 books in around 6 weeks. The 6 titles were: ====

====We had our discussion and voted for our winner at our end of term lunch and 'Monsters of Men' came out as the clear winner .====

====We were out of step for the first time with the rest of the shadowing groups in the UK who voted for 'Prisoner of the Inquisition' but for the first time ever we agreed with the judges! ====

The announcement was made on 24th June and 'Monsters of Men was the winner of the Carnegie Medal.
====Now's your chance to see who you agree with, the books are all available in the library, so why not read them and see whether you think we were right! ====