On Thursday 19th June, our College Book Groups came together to celebrate the final of the Carnegie Book Awards 2025.
The Carnegies are the longest running UK Children’s Book Award and recognise outstanding reading experiences created through books for children and young people. The Shadowers’ Choice Award is voted for by students across the country. The aim is to inspire students to use their local libraries (and school libraries where they have them), to open their minds about new books & authors and to work in harmony with other reading groups nationwide.
Reading groups that follow the awards are called Shadowing Groups. Our students at SHSCC have been shadowing the awards for several months, reading a total of 119 books between them! Each week we met in the library to discuss the books and in the end we voted for our favourite to win.
Miss Timms said, “I am unbelievably proud of all our students who took part in shadowing the Carnegie Awards this year. The programme is extremely prestigious and attracts some of the best schools in the country. Our students really held their own in the discussions & webinars, and took part in a wide variety of extra-curricular activities based on the nominated novels. It was really rewarding to see so many students reading outside of their comfort zone, embracing new genres and authors they had never even heard of! Our students read with enthusiasm, but also with a maturity beyond their years, as the books covered some challenging themes. On a personal level, it was so lovely to see our students using our library so productively, enjoying the space and representing our college so well through the work they submitted to the Carnegie judges. I am very much looking forward to running the programme next year.”
The Carnegie Medal for Writing was awarded to Margaret McDonald for her novel, ‘Glasgow Boys’; Margaret is the youngest ever author to win. The Shadower’s Choice Medal for Illustration was awarded to Theo Parish for his novel, ‘Homebody’. He summed up the sentiment of the awards and their importance in promoting libraries with his final statement: “A library is so much more than just a place where books live”.
We hope our students carry that sentiment forward and continue to enjoy the fantastic library facilities at SHSCC.
