CONGRATULATIONS to Firefly authors, Luke Palmer, Nicola Davies, Alex Wharton and Manon Steffan Ros as FOUR Firefly titles are nominated for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing 2025!
The Carnegies are the UK’s longest running children’s book awards, recognising outstanding reading experiences created through writing and illustration in books for children and young people.
Read on to find out more about these brilliant nominated books…
Four boys grow up together at school, itching to get out of their small town. They play games, scoring points from each other, anything to pass the time until they’re free.
Matthew slips into his imagination, Luc pushes his body to the limit, and Johnny … well who knows what Johnny’s up to. But when Mark starts running errands for his older brother’s mysterious associate, he thinks he’s found the best game of all. There’s money in his pocket and his friends have started looking at him differently.
Then Mark breaks a rule, and quickly realises that the penalties in this game far outweigh the prizes. Can they all make it to the finish line before someone loses more than just face?
PLAY is a superbly written, tense and moving drama – a terrific second YA novel from Luke Palmer, whose debut title, Grow, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase first novel award and longlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal 2022.
From Children’s Laureate Wales Alex Wharton comes an innovative poetry ‘how to’ collection aimed at school pupils. Doughnuts, Thieves and Chimpanzees is packed full of fun poems, limericks, haiku, song and rap from Alex Wharton, all illustrated by Rhiannon Smith.
From 2023 Yoto Carnegie Medal winner Manon Steffan Ros, Me and Aaron Ramsey tells the story of Sam and his dad who both love football, which is always there for them however tough real life becomes. That is, until Dad’s dreams of football stardom go horribly wrong. Sam’s love for the footballing legend becomes tangled with his relationship for his father as things go south in their family life.
From Nicola Davies, the Wales Book of the Year children’s winner and Wainwright Prize shortlisted prequel to the Song that Sings Us, Skrimsli, illustrated by Jackie Morris, makes the Carnegie nominations today.
This epic tale of tiger sea captain Skrimsli, and his friends, Owl and Kal is a ‘must-read’ adventure! Skrimsli must escape the clutches of the tyrannical circus owner Kobret Majak, and his twin assassin-acrobats, then stop a war and save the ancient forest, where the Tiger, and the Owl are sacred guardians. Skrimsli and his friends are helped by the Palatine – a desert princess, a chihuahua who thinks she’s a wolf, a horse with heart of gold and the crew of a very unusual ship.
This is a story full of excitement and danger, that explores themes of friendship, loyalty, identity and love, in the context of some of humanity’s toughest problems.