'Teenagers are as smart and sensitive today as they've always been' … author Patrick Ness, winner of the Carnegie and Greenaway medals. Photograph: Debbie Smyth
Author Patrick Ness, who yesterday won British children's books' highest literary honour the Carnegie medal for the second year running, used his acceptance speech to attack what he sees as the government's negative attitude towards teenagers.
Ness, whose winning novel A Monster Calls is the story of Conor, a 13-year-old who is visited by the creature of his nightmares as his mother dies of cancer, criticised education minister Michael Gove as a "man with no classroom teaching experience" who views teenagers as "laboratory animals to be experimented upon".
"The worst thing our current government and, in fact, we as a culture do about teenagers is that we only seem to discuss them in negative terms. What they can't do, what they aren't achieving. Why have we allowed that to happen?" said Ness.
He particularly criticised Gove's "demonisation" of "hard-working, dedicated teachers for no other reason, it seems, than because they disagree with his policies, which include – incredibly – the idea that private companies making a profit on tax-funded schools might be an OK thing".
He dedicated his award to his young readers: "The ones who are a walking, talking rebuttal to every negative thing that gets said about them, the ones who stick two fingers up to us and thrive anyway."
The Carnegie medal, which is chosen by librarians, has been running since 1937. Its winners are a roll call of the great and the good in British children's literature, from Arthur Ransome to Elizabeth Goudge and Penelope Lively. Ness took the medal last year for the final volume in his young adult fantasy trilogy, Monsters of Men, and today became only the second author ever to win the Carnegie in consecutive years, after Peter Dickinson won in 1979 and 1980. A Monster Calls also made history by taking the prestigious illustrators' award the Kate Greenaway medal, for Jim Kay's illustrations of Ness's story, making it the first book ever to win both prizes.
Full story at The Guardian.
Ness, whose winning novel A Monster Calls is the story of Conor, a 13-year-old who is visited by the creature of his nightmares as his mother dies of cancer, criticised education minister Michael Gove as a "man with no classroom teaching experience" who views teenagers as "laboratory animals to be experimented upon".
"The worst thing our current government and, in fact, we as a culture do about teenagers is that we only seem to discuss them in negative terms. What they can't do, what they aren't achieving. Why have we allowed that to happen?" said Ness.
He particularly criticised Gove's "demonisation" of "hard-working, dedicated teachers for no other reason, it seems, than because they disagree with his policies, which include – incredibly – the idea that private companies making a profit on tax-funded schools might be an OK thing".
He dedicated his award to his young readers: "The ones who are a walking, talking rebuttal to every negative thing that gets said about them, the ones who stick two fingers up to us and thrive anyway."
The Carnegie medal, which is chosen by librarians, has been running since 1937. Its winners are a roll call of the great and the good in British children's literature, from Arthur Ransome to Elizabeth Goudge and Penelope Lively. Ness took the medal last year for the final volume in his young adult fantasy trilogy, Monsters of Men, and today became only the second author ever to win the Carnegie in consecutive years, after Peter Dickinson won in 1979 and 1980. A Monster Calls also made history by taking the prestigious illustrators' award the Kate Greenaway medal, for Jim Kay's illustrations of Ness's story, making it the first book ever to win both prizes.
Full story at The Guardian.
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