Kate Greenaway Medal Books

The Kate Greenaway Medal was founded in 1955 and named for the nineteenth-century English artist whose drawings of children shaped Victorian picture-book design. Like its sister award for writing, it is run by CILIP with the Youth Libraries Group and judged entirely by children's librarians, and it recognizes an outstanding book in terms of illustration, first published in the UK or Ireland.

CILIP renamed the medal the Carnegie Medal for Illustration in 2022 as part of a rebrand, over objections from illustrators and others who wanted Greenaway's name kept, so every winner before that year is catalogued under the Greenaway name. Because the judges are librarians rather than designers or booksellers, the shortlists favor books that survive repeat reading aloud, and they stretch from wordless picture books to graphic novels. For an American reader it is one of the better routes into British picture-book illustration that never got a large US release. Since 2019 the school and library groups that shadow the award have also voted a Shadowers' Choice medal, which does not always match the judges' pick.

Information from CILIP.