Carnegie and Greenaway Shortlists announced

Patrick Ness is up for a hat-trick for the Carnegie Medal with other shortlisted authors for the 2018 CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals - announced today - including Geraldine McCaughrean, Angie Thomas, Levi Penfold and Teckentrup.

The Medals are the UK's oldest book awards for children and young people, and are judged by children's librarians. Hundreds of schools across the country will begin to shadow the awards prior to the winners being announced on Monday 18th June 2018.

The shortlisted titles for the Carnegie Medal are firmly in the realm of YA, putting the shadowing out of the reach of primary schools. The trend to illustrating older books means that one of the titles on the Kate Greenaway shortlist, Thornhill (ages 13+), will also be too old for young shadowers although the other books offer plenty of scope for discussion among young reviewers. This year Patrick Ness is in the running for his third Carnegie Medal win with Release, which would make him the first author to secure a hat-trick in the Medal's 81-year history.

To date, Ness has been shortlisted for all seven of his children's books and won twice, with A Monster Calls (2012) and Monsters of Men (2011). Geraldine McCaughrean and Marcus Sedgwick - who have both been shortlisted for the Medal for the seventh year (McCaughrean was shortlisted twice in one year in 2011) - are also shortlisted this year, with Where the World Ends and Saint Death respectively; McCaughrean has won the Medal once before, with A Pack of Lies (1988). Other authors on the Carnegie shortlist include teen-rapper-turned-debut-author Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give), former shortlistees Lauren Wolk (Beyond the Bright Sea) and Lissa Evans (Wed Wabbit), and Will Hill (After the Fire) and Anthony McGowan (Rook).

The seven-strong Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist - which recognises children's book illustration - include Debi Gliori's Night Shift, Pam Smy's Thornhill and Britta Teckentrup's Under the Same Sky. All three illustrators have also written the books. Others on the Greenaway shortlist include former Kate Greenaway winner, Levi Pinfold, with The Song from Somewhere Else, alongside Laura Carlin (King of the Sky), Petr Horacek (A First Book of Animals) and Sydney Smith (Town is by the Sea).

Three of the illustrators have been shortlisted before including Levi Pinfold, Debi Gliori and Sydney Smith. The 2018 shortlists are: The CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL 2018 shortlist Wed Wabbit by Lissa Evans (David Fickling Books) After the Fire by Will Hill (Usborne) Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean (Usborne) Rook by Anthony McGowan (Barrington Stoke) Release by Patrick Ness (Walker Books) Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick (Orion) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Walker Books) Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk (Corgi) The CILIP KATE GREENAWAY MEDAL 2018 shortlist King of the Sky illustrated by Laura Carlin and written by Nicola Davies (Walker Books) Night Shift illustrated and written by Debi Gliori (Hot Key Books) A First Book of Animals illustrated by Petr Horacek and written by Nicola Davies (Walker Books) The Song from Somewhere Else illustrated by Levi Pinfold and written by A.F. Harrold (Bloomsbury) Town is by the Sea illustrated by Sydney Smith and written by Joanne Schwartz (Walker Books) Thornhill illustrated and written by Pam Smy (David Fickling Books) Under the Same Sky illustrated and written by Britta Teckentrup (Little Tiger) True stories and timely issues inspire several titles across both shortlists. On the Carnegie shortlist, historical events are reimagined in Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean, a novel set around a true survival story from 18th century St Kilda, After the Fire by Will Hill, which takes as its premise the siege of US federal agencies on Seventh-day Adventist sect, the Branch Davidians, and Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk, a book inspired by events that unfolded on Penikese island, Massachusetts - once home to a leper colony - in the 1920s.

More recent global events are reflected in Angie Thomas' powerful debut The Hate U Give, which intersperses family with the ethical concerns fuelling the Black Lives Matter campaign, whilst Marcus Sedgwick's timely novel Saint Death looks at migration along the border of Mexico and the United States of America. Rites of passage appear on both shortlists, starting with the Carnegie Medals'inclusion of Release by Patrick Ness, a coming-of-age novel based on the author's experience of growing up gay in a deeply religious family, and Rook by Anthony McGowan, the third instalment chronicling the lives and growing pains of brothers Kenny and Nicky.

On the Kate Greenaway shortlist, Night Shift by Debi Gliori and Thornhill by Pam Smy both use monochrome, pictorial storytelling to explore dark themes of depression and bullying, whilst Levi Pinfold's illustrations in A.F. Harrold's The Song from Somewhere Else bring a novel about two loners finding friendship to life in an unsettling and surreal way. Equally dark, but more satirical, is Lissa Evans' Wed Wabbit; the Father Ted-writer turned author uses playful language to explore the inner imaginative world With the story of 10-year-old Fidge, who is thrown into the bizarre world of her little sister's favourite story.

For younger readers, the natural world is gloriously evoked in Petr Horacek's illustrations for Nicola Davies' A First Book of Animals and Britta Teckentrup's Under the Same Sky, with both using rich colour palettes and clever techniques to create a visually arresting experience. The bleakness of coal mining towns and tunnels are contrasted with the beauty of Rome and land- and seascapes respectively in Laura Carlin's illustrations for King of the Sky (Nicola Davies) and Sydney Smith's for Town is by the Sea (Joanne Schwartz). The winners of the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals 2018 will be announced on Monday 18th June 2018 at a special daytime event at The British Library, hosted by June Sarpong.

The winners will each receive 500 worth of books to donate to their local library, a specially commissioned golden medal and a 5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize. At the ceremony in June, one title from each shortlist will also be named the recipient of the Amnesty CILIP Honour, which is awarded to the books that most distinctively illuminate, uphold or celebrate human rights.

The Honour aims to increase awareness of how great children's books encourage empathy and broaden horizons. The Amnesty CILIP Honour is selected by a separate team of judges.