The Carnegie Shortlist 2014

This year was the first year that the organizers of the award published a long list. Previously it has been just the 8 finalists. Ordinarily I would be all over it (as it featured a slice of my TBR pile too), but this year I've been involved in reading and selecting the books given out as part of the BookTrust's BookBuzz programme and y'know- 72 middle grade titles aren't going to read themselves.

But that's almost done now. So I will be all over this like a rash. The whittling of the long list to the short one has been controversial I believe. The predictions of librarians, readers and the like were compiled, curated and arranged at acaseforbooks.

I must say though, despite having read none of the long list, I had expected the short list to look quite different. Based only on hunch, obviously. Liar & Spy and Rooftoppers were, I was sure, dead certs. I am surprised at the omission of Ketchup Clouds, which I have been enthusiastically recommended by stuents, and by the omission of Brock, which I expected to see based on the positive Twitter buzz that it created.

Looking forward to getting a shadowing group together at work, and looking forward to shadowing on Twitter again (#tweetCKG if y'fancy it).

They've just arrived!! Eeeee! BRB, unboxing.