Philip Pullman–Favourite Children’s Novelist
To mark the 70th award of the Carnegie Medal, the annual award for children's writers, Philip Pullman has been voted by readers the best of the 70 Carnegie award winners. His Northern Lights, the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy, polled 40% of the total votes, making it by far the most popular of the Carnegie winners, which include books such as Tom's Midnight Garden (1957) and a personal favourite of mine, The Borrowers (1952). The first winner of the award, in 1936, was Arthur Ransome's Pigeon Post:
It is without any question the most important honour I have ever received, and the one I treasure the most," said Pullman. "Personally I feel they got the initials right but not the name. I don't know if the result would be the same in a hundred year's time; maybe Philippa Pearce would win then. All we do know is that librarians will continue to choose well and to celebrate the best of writing for children and young people."
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