Cover Story: The Abingdon Carnegie Forum 2008

In a review of one of the titles on the Carnegie Shortlist, one young Shadowing Group member started by writing in big, bold letters "DON'T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER". Which is excellent advice. Hoary old chestnut that it is, it's a sound piece of folk wisdom nonetheless.

As long as it's you following the advice.

If you work in publishing, however, it's actually better if you completely ignore that piece of wisdom - because it's utterly useless. Almost everyone DOES judge a book by its cover - and the penalties for getting this wrong can be costly. This is doubly true for children's books.

I dwell on this because covers - their design, how the get chosen, their suitability for the titles - loomed large at the annual Abingdon Carnegie Forum. I had the honour and privilege of being a judge at the event today - and it was a lot of fun, but quite an eye-opener.

I tend to obsess about what people think about books, especially when it's me who's done the recommending. How nice then to have a list of books recommended by other people - and then have the chance to eavesdrop on a series of heated debates and impassioned presentations that formed the core of the activities at Abingdon School.

The Forum itself was run with a precision and attention to detail that you would expect from the involvement of (as far as I could tell) eight current and retired school librarians (there may have been more). The Abingdon Carnegie Forum involves the six secondary schools in Abingdon: Abingdon School, Fitzharry's, John Mason, Larkmead, Our Lady's Abingdon and St Helen's and St Katherines.
In welcoming the students to the Abingdon School, Mark Turner (Abingdon Schools' headmaster) set the scene with some impressive statistics: in the 8 weeks or so between the shortlist being published and the Carnegie winner being announced, over 90,000 students will have taken part in the shadowing around the country (and one imagines, in a few locations elsewhere in the world). Yes, there is no getting round the fact that it's an institution, and not as sexy as some of the other awards out there, but for all the sniffy accusations of 'worthiness' it represents an important quality benchmark in children's fiction. And anyway, from what I saw today, there was plenty of buzz that should keep the marketing folk at the big publisher very happy, thanks very much.

The kids that take part in the shadowing have to get through the shortlist at a fair old crack (I know, I've had to read the books in the last few weeks). They then submit reviews, which are whittled down by the respective school librarians and submitted for judging - which was our role today.

For those that haven't seen the list, here it is:

Gatty's Tale - Kevin Crossley-Holland
Ruby Red - Linzi Glass
Crusade - Elizabeth Laird
Apache - Tanya Landman
Here Lies Arthur - Philip Reeve
What I Was - Meg Rosoff
Finding Violet Park - Jenny Valentine

We were also very lucky to have one of the shortlisted authors addressing the forum. Linzi Glass - author of Ruby Red - gave a short speech and then took questions from the audience. There were some good ones: was the main character based on her ("no, well not much"), did she pick the cover ("no, that was her publisher, Puffin"), what were her favourite children's books when growing up ("Folk of the Faraway Tree - and others"), was she writing another book ("yes, one children's book, one book for adults").


(She was pressed again on the cover by another young interlocutor - this time giving an extremely diplomatic answer about "trusting that the marketing department knows what they are doing". We always ask authors who come to mostly books about covers, and almost invariably it's been a bit of a fight, with some suspicion raised that perhaps the marketing people are not always right. The only authors who get to change their covers of course are the big names...)



Linzi was genuinely impressed by the questions - many focusing on aspects of the book and its characters which were perceptive and original - and I got the impression she would have loved to have carried on for a while longer - but we were on a tight schedule!

The students were broken up into groups, and whilst we judges were marshalled into a small meeting room with plenty of coffee to discuss the reviews, the groups set about discussing their particular book - with the end goal of preparing a presentation to convince us which book deserved the medal. Listening in on some of the disussions was very revealing; as well as the ever-present cover discussions, one theme I heard being discussed on more than one table was "is this a book for boys or girls".


Following the review judging, we then watched the presentations - and then had to decide on a winner from all the groups. Given that groups were mixed between schools, and they had had very little time to prepare their presentations, the standard was very high - and the case was made for the book on grounds of style, character, readability and plain old enjoyment. It was good to see.

Whilst we were away finalising the winners, all the students had a chance to vote on the book they felt deserved to win the medal. Perhaps swayed by the appearance of Linzi, Ruby Red pipped Finding Violet Park by a short head.

For what it's worth (and we'll know in a few hours time, making this bit somewhat superfluous) I reckon Crusade will win, with Apache as my each-way bet. But what do I know - my favourite was the Meg Rosoff, and I did wonder - as some of the reviewers did - whether this should be classified as a young adult or an adult book? And in any case, whichever book wins is not really the object of the whole Shadowing exercise - it's understanding that, whilst you might get to appreciate why a book is a great piece of literature, in the final analysis, it's what you think of the book that's important - and makes it a worthy winner. But, you know, if that cover isn't right, it can really put you off reading a book in the first place...



Thanks to everyone who made it a very successful day - and to my fellow judges, thanks for tolerating my request for a group shot at the end (and many thanks to whoever it was from John Mason that I press-ganged into taking the photo!)

(Update 2013: see what happened at this year's Carnegie event with tear-stained pages and some good deaths...)

Meg Rosoff: What She Is

An invitation to sell books at a school talk given by Meg Rosoff is the sort of invitation you don’t so much need to think about as jump at. Meg Rosoff is author of some stunning young adult novels and has a rare talent that balances quality writing, memorable characters and plots that can fly off in such unexpected directions they can plummet into fantasy or leave you reeling from the brutal reality.

It’s hardly surprising that Meg Rosoff has been showered with awards and she was in Abingdon to talk to some school girls about books and the writing life in general, just before the final judging takes place for this year’s ‘children’s book of the year’ – which will be awarded the Carnegie Medal.

She was in Abingdon as the town’s schools have a growing reputation as one of the places where schools do Carnegie shadowing really well (a national scheme where schoolchildren read the books on the shortlist and learn to judge and review them). In Abingdon it’s a big thing – involving both state and independent schools, where judging takes place on which schools and individuals have performed well in written reviews and presentations, and prizes given.

As a recent survey showed many school librarians don’t read around children’s books and recommend only a narrow band of authors, it’s great to be in a town where the opposite is true. And this is particularly true of St Katherine’s and St Helen’s School, where the librarian, Donna Bell, gets her children reading all sorts of new and exciting writing.

This year’s Carnegie shortlist is also particularly strong with a choice of books that must surely have something for everyone, from epic historical battles to sensitive issues of race and class.

Meg Rosoff writes books where teenagers are often thrust into a world where they have to survive without adults. But her stories are not of long summers of picnics and freedom where the children round up a few baddies after a few scrapes. All sorts of horrific things happen to her young folk. But the thing they all discover is that they are survivors.

Her first, How I Live Now, was showered with awards, and her appeal has already spread into adult readership.

Her second, Just in Case, could have been the difficult second book after such a debut, but switching her voice to a teenage boy and involving fate as a character, made it just as original and succeeded in winning the Carnegie Medal last year.

Whether What I Was will make it a Carnegie two in a row will be decided on June 26.

Her audience on Thursday were treated into some great insights into her writing processes, including how and why she came to writing so late – an inspiring talk about following your dreams. She was in her forties and had never even tried to write, when her sister’s death from cancer made her realise she really ought to start doing what she wanted to do.

The result, she said, was a horse book that ended up having lots of sex in it, which got her an agent, but instructions to go away and try again. She was also given the advice not to ‘read around’ too much. She writes for a ‘young adult’ audience – a niche that is newly invented and her books do manage to successfully bridge that tricky gap by having as much appeal for adults as children.

This is probably why Meg Rosoff is also at the forefront of being one of the few children’s writers who have come down firmly in favour of age banding on books. She feels very strongly that children over a certain age will get a lot more out of her books.

It’s no real surprise to hear that she doesn’t plot her books implicitly beforehand, as they tend to fly off to new places with little sympathy or preparation for the reader. The cornerstone of the afternoon’s session, with an older and more feisty audience, was a masterclass in not being intimidated by the blank page.

She says her friend still has the email she sent while writing How I Live Now in which she said she felt things were getting a little boring and how she thought she’d introduce World War 3. As part of the lively afternoon session she also regaled her audience with plenty of entertaining stories about what life in advertising is really like.

Her vivid talk inspired bristling questions – from does she write her own blurbs to has she re-used characters in any of her books. And there was a scramble for books and signings for a full hour.

The ability to generate so much enthusiasm for taking a book away and reading it is a rich and rare talent. Those girls will take away so much from those books – whether they particularly love them or not – they will think about what went into them and all the other great and wise things the author said.

It was one of those occasions which reminds you that bookselling is such a pleasure and a privilege. So thanks to Donna, all the girls who took part, and to Meg Rosoff for such a brilliant and inspiring day.

It’s great that Abingdon’s efforts in this have been rewarded with such supremely good authors agreeing to speak to the schools. Another shortlisted author, Linzi Glass is to speak on Carnegie Day as well.

This year Mark has been invited to be on the judging panel and is really looking forward to being part of it all.