Ness wins Carnegie Medal

Patrick Ness’s Monsters of Men is the winner of the prestigious 2011 Carnegie Medal, awarded to “the most outstanding book for children” published in the UK. Monsters of Men is the third book in the Chaos Walking trilogy and its first two installments, The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer, were shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal  in 2009 and 2010 respectively, making this is the first time that all books in a series have been honored by the award.

Shortlisted books for this year included Meg Rosoff’s The Bride’s Farewell and Marcus Sedgewick’s White Crow. The award, administered by CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, is judged by a panel of children’s librarians.

“The list of Carnegie winners literally spans Arthur Ransome to Neil Gaiman. What and incredible, career-defining honor to be placed there, and I’m genuinely moved to have been chosen,” says Ness, who will receive a golden medal and £500 worth of books to donate to a library of his choice.