The Blue Book of Nebo WINNER OF THE YOTO CARNEGIE 2023 MEDAL FOR WRITING

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I don’t know why I lied to him about my name when we first met. Maybe everything felt too personal in this new world, and my name felt like the only thing that belonged exclusively to me. Dylan called me Mam. No one said Rowenna anymore. Readers should be aware that there are discussions and descriptions of death, including the death of a child, as well as some implied sexual content. For 100 years, Scholastic Corporation has been encouraging the personal and intellectual growth of all children, beginning with literacy. Having earned a reputation as a trusted partner to educators and families, Scholastic is the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, a leading provider of literacy curriculum, professional services, and classroom magazines, and a producer of educational and entertaining children’s media. The Company creates and distributes bestselling books and e-books, print and technology-based learning programs for pre-K to grade 12, and other products and services that support children’s learning and literacy, both in school and at home. With 15 international operations and exports to 165 countries, Scholastic makes quality, affordable books available to all children around the world through school-based book clubs and book fairs, classroom libraries, school and public libraries, retail, and online.

CD: Was it the same when you translated your earlier work Blasu into English? That appeared in English as The Seasoning in 2015. Yoto is an interactive audio platform for kids. Yoto offer acatalogue of stories, songs, activities and more to inspire creativeplay andlearning without a screen. The carefully connected audio players, Yoto Player(3rd generation)and Yoto Mini, put kids safely in control. Nocameras. No microphones. No ads. No traffic had been on this road for years. Everyone else in the world was dead. So I stepped out onto the A487 that, years ago, had been a constant hum of cars and lorries. By now, moss and grass and weeds had grown over the tar. Centre for Literacy in Primary Education and the English and Media Centre have created expert teaching resources for the shortlisted books. With daily online content and weekly delivery to your doorstep, First News provides factual, impartial news, sports, science, and entertainment from the UK and around the world.

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I thought I was the only one left!” he said. “I live by Porthmadog. In the middle of nowhere. I don’t know whose house it is, but they’ve gone.” He looked up at the mallet in my hands, and he said, “Please. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just so happy to see another person.”

The Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing is awarded annually to a children’s book author whose writing creates an outstanding reading experience. It was established in 1936 in memory of the Scottish-born philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). Gwion stared at me, and was still for a while before he said, “I’m not going to hurt you. You shouldn’t lose faith in people like that.”The Blue Book of Nebo is at once heart-warming and gut-wrenching. Taking the form of alternating diary entries by fourteen-year-old Dylan and his mam, Rowenna, it follows the story of a small family trying to survive in North West Wales post-apocalypse. The changing perspective between mother and son allows the reader to see this strange world through interchangeably curious and jaded eyes, the contrast regularly presenting moments of revelatory poignancy. Ros skilfully crafts these opposing viewpoints, their unique perspectives allowing her to weave in each character’s life experience. While an optimistic Dylan makes the most of the apocalyptic life he’s lived since childhood, he can’t help imagining the folkloric world which existed before “The End” with unsubstantiated nostalgia. Rowenna, on the other hand, is less sentimental about the old world. Hers was miserable, filled with absent fathers, tedium and money worries – in her new life she can, at least, solely focus on survival and her children. Dylan’s unwavering optimism in the face of relentless challenges is delicately handled and compelling to read. His perseverance hardly ever wavers, and it is only in moments of solitude that he allows his sadness to creep in, (one poignant example being the crush he develops on the photograph of a teenage girl, long-since gone, found in a deserted house). Ros also examines the isolation of motherhood through Rowenna’s melancholic narration, yet also represents her strength – her voice never veering towards a hyperbolic hopelessness. In fact, Dylan and Rowenna’s sincere love for each other provides the root of joy which runs throughout this novel. Is that what you’d choose as a birthday present? If you could have anything you wanted?” Mam stared out over Anglesey and thought about it. She smelled like outside. Mam says that it’s best to write like this now. Because she can’t be bothered to teach me, I think. Can’t be bothered or can’t find the energy. I’m not sure which it is. Or if there’s any difference. MSR: It surprised me a little—my need as an author to differentiate between the novels, even to change some of the character names. I did it instinctively, without thinking really. I’m not sure even now why I did that, or why in both books Rowenna remains Rowenna. As well as her books for adults, Ros has found great acclaim in her children’s writing. She has won the prestigious Tir Na N-Og prize for Welsh children’s literature four times, with her novels Trwy’r Tonnau (2010), Prism (2012), Pluen (2017) and most recently Fi a Joe Allen (2019).

from its pole. I sweated as I hit the metal with a heavy mallet, and I swore loudly, but I was enjoying it too, because I knew that I’d succeed. You’re still here! Brilliant!” said Gwion with a wide smile. “You’re surviving! It’s amazing, Greta!” CD: For me, there’s an emotional resonance in the biblical language and references that are central to The Blue Book of Nebo. Even as someone who’s moved away from that tradition, it feels so emotionally Welsh! It’ll be interesting to see how that resonates with US readers. You know, I’ve never traveled—never even lived outside Gwynedd—and I don’t have international experience to draw on, but the response to the Polish translation of the book showed me that each translation is a new and different work by default, proof that the reader finishes the author’s work. That book was translated directly from the Welsh, and yet the themes are somehow changed, the response so different to what it was in Wales. In Poland it was read as a feminist novel, and a lot was made of Rowenna’s experience as a single mother. I’d never considered the book from that perspective! Thinking about it, most of the books I write feature a single parent, but I’m not trying to make a point with it. It’s fascinating to see how broader political conversations and concerns—in this case women’s rights in Poland—feed into the story of the book. “I’ve never had an ambition to reach an audience outside of Wales.”The Blue Book of Nebo’s thorough appreciation for the Welsh language and Welsh literature is one of its prevalent themes, and most commendable features. It examines the common (though often difficult) relationship English-speaking Welsh parents have with their Welsh-speaking children; Dylan finds solace and escape in his Welsh books, and while Rowenna doesn’t speak Welsh fluently, she makes an effort to grant Dylan access to Welsh literature by stealing books from the abandoned houses of locals. Ultimately it is this thread which is used by Ros to demonstrate how pivotal literature is when it comes to connection; connecting with others, connecting with yourself, and connecting with personal culture and heritage. Still, it is a stark environment depicted by Ros. The bleakness of Dylan’s world is endless – there’s no one but his mother and baby sister in his life – and so literature and religion offer him a way to relate to things bigger than himself. This frequently renders him an endearing character – Dylan often comforts his mother by quoting Welsh writers to her, hoping this will console her in the same way it does him. A tender – though adolescent in nature – offer of hope. In the essentiality and urgency of Dylan’s need for connection, we see the importance of holding onto language as a personal as well as political matter. The intricate depiction of the mother-son relationship deftly wrapped up in the issue of Welsh language preservation.

She used to sit with me for an hour each morning, the hour when Dwynwen sleeps. Stuff like adding and reading. Not like we used to do at school, no graphs or times tables or anything like that. She got me to read books and then I had to write about them. She marked them with a red biro, telling me where I’d spelled something wrong or said something stupid. Then after doing adding up and taking away, there was no more math. She started to worry. About the biros too, because we don’t want them running out. She was awarded a CBE for Services to Literature in 2020; and was the 10 th Waterstones’ Children’s Laureate from 2017-2019. A spare and intimate story of a family surviving a near-future global apocalypse .. In a time rife with and ripe for stories of the end, this one stands out.’ Publishers Weekly

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The winners were revealed at an in-person ceremony held at The Barbican, which was live-streamed and watched by shadowing groups around the country. The awards were hosted by former Children’s Laureate Lauren Child CBE, who won the Carnegie Medal for Illustration – then known as the Kate Greenaway Medal – in 2000 for her first Charlie and Lola book, I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato. The Blue Book of Nebo won the Prose Medal at the 2018 Eisteddfod and won the triple crown of prizes at the 2019 Wales Book of the Year Award: the Aberystwyth University Fiction Award, the Golwg360 Barn y Bobl (People's Choice Award) and the Welsh-language Overall Winner. In The Blue Book of Nebo, the world building and distinct voices of the two main characters, the son and his mother, areexpertly realised and the reader is compelled to questiontheir own relationship with the modern world. Saving Sorya: Chang and the Sun Bear is a beautiful story, elegantly told, which brings together a global view ofconservation and an empowering true story of an inspiring female environmentalist, told through dazzling manga art and watercolours. Jeet has craftedevery illustration toimmersethe reader, just as Manon drawsthe reader in completely with her vivid, deliberate prose. Each year thousands of reading groups in schools and libraries in the UK and overseas get involved in the Awards, with children and young people ‘shadowing’ the judging process. They read, discuss and review the books on the shortlists, get involved in reading related activities in groups, and vote for their favourite books to win The Yoto Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medals for Writing and Illustration.