Last week I, along with some other girls on the course, were given the opportunity to help one of the judges of the The Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Medal. We were able to have a good look at all of the books nominated for the awards and and evaluate them critically allowing for Martha to have an illustrators understanding of the books.
This was such a valuable experience as it meant we could see what goes in to making an award winning children’s book. It was actually really useful to see the ones that weren’t as successful either as it meant we could also see what not to do in our books. Martha gave us a list of criteria to think about whilst looking at the books that I will a;so be using to self analyze my own book.
The books we, as a group, felt were most successful were both by Flying Eye Books and were The Journey illustrated and written by Francesca Sanna and The Wolves of Currumpaw illustrated and written by William Grill (which I have discussed before in an earlier post). Both books had excellent pacing, beautiful illustrations, but overall had a strong sense of emotion and integrity.
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