Create an outstanding experience with young people by shadowing the Kate Greenaway Medal
First awarded in 1956 to Edward Ardizzone for his picturebook Tom All Alone, The Kate Greenaway Medal recognises an outstanding reading experience created through illustration. Awarded alongside the Medal is the Kate Greenaway Shadowers’ Choice, voted for by children and young people who shadow the Medal shortlist. In this article Jake Hope explores how taking part in shadowing the Greenaway Medal can connect young people of all ages to outstanding reading experiences.
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OS Harding, librarian at Kings School in Chester and winner of the School Library Association School
Librarian of the Year is a CKG MEDAL judge this year. She is a passionate advocate for the shadowing scheme and says: “Shadowing Carnegie and Kate Greenaway is absolutely fantastic. It took me a while to realise just how fantastic it is. When it works, and I feel I’ve got a plan that works, what you get out of it is amazing! Seeing students pick up books they’d never pick up on their own or not liking them and knowing why and being able to discuss that is amazing.’
Speaking across borders Shadowing the Kate Greenaway presents an important opportunity to equip children and young people with visual literacy skills, increasing understanding as to the ways images can help to carry story and convey information. Moreover, it can be an enjoyable and exciting way to engage less confident or keen readers and those who might not have English as a first language. The remarkable inclusiveness that illustrations allow was commented on by 2019 winner Jackie Morris, who said: “They say the pen is mightier than the sword.
But, I say that the brush speaks across borders in ways the pen can only dream of. Images need no translation.”
For anyone not familiar with shadowing, Amy McKay, the award’s co-ordinator describes the process which sees children and young people reading the books, discussing them and taking part in activities and formulating their responses and ideas into reviews which they can leave on the awards website.
“It involves tens of thousands of young people across the UK and internationally,“ she explains. “Shadowing takes many different forms. There is no right way, or wrong way, it is about what works best for the group leader, for the group and in their environment. It’s about using books to inspire and empower the next generations of readers.”
Against the backdrop of the pandemic, through which many readers have experienced lapses in reading and concentration, shadowing the Kate Greenaway offers particular potential. There is an immediacy to illustration that captivates and draws readers in and there are a surprising number of different forms which have won, whether that be picture books, playful game books which actively involve the readers, graphic novels, paper- engineered pop-ups or illustrated
Jake Hope (@Jake_Hope) is a freelance development and children’s book consultant, and the current chair of CILIP’s Youth Libraries Group (YLG) and CILIP Carnegie Kate Greenaway Awards Working Party. He is also the author of Seeing Sense Visual literacy as a tool for libraries, learning and reader development.
www.jakehope.org.
non-fiction and biographies. Considering the role that strong illustration can play across different formats, Akbar Ali, current judge and branch manager at a library in Hillingdon (an illustrator himself), says: “Good illustration considers its audience’s needs, hopes and experiences. It presents new ideas to the reader and allows them to play with unfamiliar perspectives. Illustration often plays with the reader’s experience of the story through layering the narrative and creating the overall aesthetic of the physical book.” Awards co-ordinator Amy McKay also works as a school librarian at Ullswater College in Penrith. Amy describes the benefits that shadowing the awards bring for young people. “It can be difficult to engage students in other texts beyond
Spring-Summer 2021
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