Stunning YA novel The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros and published by Firefly Press, has today won the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing.
Announced at a Barbican Award Ceremony this lunchtime, live-streamed to schools, The Blue Book of Nebo is the first book in translation to win this prestigious UK award.
Publisher Penny Thomas said: ‘Huge congratulations to Manon on this historic achievement. This superb young adult novel is a deceptively simple story of a dystopian future. It gives the reader pause for thought, infused with warmth, gentleness, and powerful new ways to look at our world and the ways we live in it.
‘It’s truly wonderful that a novel adapted from Welsh by the author is the first book in translation to win the Award. I hope there will be many more.
‘We’d like to thank the Carnegie judges for picking The Blue Book of Nebo as their winner, and all the CILIP members who nominated and championed it. We’d also like to thank the Books Council of Wales for its support for this title and for literature from Wales in both languages, without which Firefly would not have been able to publish this book.
‘Most of all we’d like to thank Manon on her brilliant, lyrical and deeply moving novel, which we feel is destined to become a modern classic, and for allowing Firefly to publish this English adaptation of Llyfr Glas Nebo. We are so happy to be a part of this journey.’
Read more about The Blue Book of Nebo here
Watch Manon read an extract from her book here.
Buy the Blue Book of Nebo from all good bookshops, bookshop.org, Gwales or www.fireflypress.co.uk
Find teacher resources here
The Blue Book of Nebo is also part of EmpathyLab’s Read for Empathy Guide Wales: Watch Manon Steffan Ros’ moving Read for Empathy video here