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News from CILIP 
Friday 9 July 2004 
For immediate release  (Please copy to online discussion lists)


NEW LITERARY PHENOMENON BEATS OFF WHITBREAD WINNERS TO TAKE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL


Lizo Mzimba presenter of CBBC's Newsround announced today that  'A Gathering Light' by Jennifer Donnelly has won the UK's most prestigious award for children's writing, the CILIP Carnegie Medal.

An American writer, Jennifer Donnelly is relatively unknown in the UK and has scooped the Medal ahead of Whitbread Book of the Year winner, Mark Haddon and Whitbread Children's Book of the Year winner David Almond.  
 
"This was an incredibly strong and diverse shortlist, but one compelling novel swept all before it," says Colin Brabazon, Chair of this year's judges.  "A Gathering Light' impressed the judges immensely - the striking luminosity of its prose, its tangible sense of place and the integrity of its vision combine to produce an extremely impressive first novel for this age range.  It is a book about hard choices and the power of language to free us from the constraints of everyday - outstanding in every way."

'A Gathering Light' is Donnelly's first novel for teenagers, although the quality of the writing and its subject has ensured the book's popularity with adults as well.  Now described as an outstanding 'cross-over' title, 'A Gathering Light' has confirmed its wide appeal by being selected as one of Richard & Judy's six 'Summer Reads' on Channel 4.    

Though a newcomer to the literary scene, Donnelly's talent has brought her immediate recognition from her peers.  A finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction in April, she was completely taken-a-back to find herself the winner, and in June she was awarded a Michael L Printz Honor from the American Library Association.   

"Winning the UK's CILIP Carnegie Medal means a great deal to me," says Donnelly. "It's an incredible honour because it comes from people in the trenches. People who fight the good fight every day. The librarian judges understand their young readers and know what they want. They understand the deep need children and teenagers have to see themselves - their experiences, their hopes and dreams - in the books they read. That level of dedication - to young readers and to their books - that's what makes this award so special." 

After years of rejection slips, Donnelly now has three books in print.  An adult novel, 'Tea Rose' (the first in a trilogy), a children's picture book 'Humble Pie' and 'A Gathering Light'.

'A Gathering Light' was inspired by an infamous murder case that gripped America in the early 1900s - described as 'the OJ Simpson case of its time'.  It involved the mysterious drowning of Grace Brown, an unwed pregnant 19 year-old.  Her boyfriend Chester Gillette was arrested and tried for murder.  There were no eye-witnesses, but Grace's letters, entreating Chester for help were recovered and used as evidence in court.   He was found guilty and finally executed in 1908.  

Donnelly is not the only author to have found inspiration in this tragedy.  It led Theodore Dreiser to write his novel 'An American Tragedy' and was made into a film both in the 1930s and again in 1951 as 'A Place in the Sun' starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

Every treatment has been different, and Donnelly's is no exception.  "I knew of the story from my grandmother who worked in a hotel on the lake at the time," says Donnelly.  "My mother gave me Dreiser's novel and a factual account of the story.  I read Grace Brown's letters - I was so moved and became increasingly haunted by them.  I needed to deal with that emotion in the way that writers do, by writing about it." 

"I wanted to speak to a 16 year-old girl; I wanted to get to someone just before Grace's age and say don't make the same mistake.  You have options, you have choices, use them."

From this inspiration came Donnelly's fictional character, Mattie, a 16 year-old girl growing up in an unforgiving rural environment in early 1900s America.  Donnelly skilfully weaves Mattie's story with that of the murder victim who has been staying at the hotel where she works.  Mattie is small, plain and fiercely intelligent torn between duty and the desire to shape her own future.  Her gradual realisation of how Grace Brown might have died, sits uncomfortably alongside her own dilemma.  As her understanding grows and develops she finds the courage to make her choice.  

The Carnegie Medal is awarded annually by CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals for "an outstanding book for children and young people".  Now almost 70 years old, its first winner was Arthur Ransome in 1936, since then it has been awarded to many of the great names of children's literature including CS Lewis, Eleanor Farjeon, Anne Fine and Philip Pullman.  This year's announcement is made at a special award ceremony at The British Library at 12 noon on Friday 9 July, at which the winner of the CILIP Carnegie's sister award, the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal, for an outstanding work of illustration for children, will also be announced.

The full shortlist for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2003 was:

DAVID ALMOND            The Fire-Eaters                         (Hodder Children's Books)
JENNIFER DONNELLY               A Gathering Light                               (Bloomsbury)    	
MARK HADDON                     The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time       (David Fickling Books)                 	
ELIZABETH LAIRD         The Garbage King                                (Macmillan)             	
MICHAEL MORPURGO                Private Peaceful                                (Collins)               	
LINDA NEWBERY           Sisterland                                      (David Fickling Books)	

For more information about the awards and background on Jennifer Donnelly and 'A Gathering Light' visit http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/press/press.html


Contact:                Louisa Myatt, CILIP Marketing Manager
                        Tel: 020 7255 0650  Email: [log in to unmask]


Notes for Editors
*       The winners of the 2003 CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards are announced in 2004. Books published between 01/01/03 and 31/12/03 are eligible.
*       CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is the leading professional body for Librarians and Information Managers. It was formed in April 2002 by the unification of The Library Association and the Institute of Information Scientists. It has 23,000 members, most of whom are personal members whose working environments include libraries in higher and further education, industrial and commercial organisations, the health sector, professional and learned societies, government departments and agencies, schools, voluntary organisations and national and public libraries.
*       The Youth Libraries Group (YLG) is a Special Interest Group of CILIP. It works in a "pressure group" role, independently and with other professional organisations, to preserve and influence the provision of quality literature and library services for children and young people, both in public libraries and school library services.

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