Annal:2001 Carnegie Medal

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Terry Pratchett

• 2001 Carnegie winner
• 2002 Guardian Award shortlist
• Score: 16.51

Maurice, a streetwise tomcat, has come up with the perfect scam. Inspired by the Pied Piper tale, cat and kid lead a band of rats from town to town to fake invasions of vermin. The rewards to get the rats out of town are plentiful. It works perfectly - until their little con game is sussed.

Jake's Tower

Elizabeth Laird

• 2002 Guardian Award shortlist
• 2001 Carnegie shortlist
• Score: 12.52

It's good that I've found this secret place. I can come here and make plans. My main plan for the future is my dream house. It's very tall and thin. A tower really. There'll be a lift to whiz me up to the top. No one can get to me up there. It's totally safe."

In real life, Jake is never safe. He lives in constant fear of his mother's violent boyfriend. But in his imaginary tower he can dream up his own father - the stranger who gave him a cuddle and a fluffy duck the day he was born and went away for ever. Jake doesn't believe dreams ever come true. But sometimes they do - in strange and surprising ways.

Journey to the River Sea

Eva Ibbotson, Kevin Hawkes

• 2001 Carnegie shortlist
• 2001 Whitbread-Children's shortlist
• 2001 Guardian Award longlist
• Score: 16.51

With the memorable characters and plot twists she brings to her best-selling fantasies, Eva Ibbotson has written a hair-raising novel, set in turn-of-the-last-century Brazil.

Maia, an orphan, is sent from England to live with unfamiliar cousins on a rubber plantation in South America. The brave, curious girl and her fierce but kind governess arrive in their new home, each with secret hopes of adventure. These are immediately quashed by the Carters, who hate their adopted land and its inhabitants. They are obsessed with re-creating England in the forest, right down to the watery puddings. It is only through friendship with a mysterious Indian boy (who just might be the heir to a large fortune) and a runaway child actor (who specializes in Little Lord Fauntleroy) that Maia and Miss Minton, her governess, find the excitement they longed for: an unexpected expedition into the heart of the Amazon, in search of a lost tribe and the legendary giant sloth.

The Kite Rider

Geraldine McCaughrean

• 2001 Carnegie shortlist
• Score: 6.51

Haoyou knows that his father's spirit lives among the clouds above Ancient China. He also knows that to save his mother from being forced into a new marriage he must now follow in his father's footsteps and take to the skies, riding a kite through the clouds and the spirits of the dead. Then the Jade Circus offers him a chance to escape his enemies and travel throughout the empire, and maybe even perform before Kublai Khan himself. But is going with the circus really the best option? It could be that the circus master is leading him into even greater danger.

Love That Dog: A Novel

Sharon Creech

• 2001 Carnegie shortlist
• 2004 YRCA-Junior nominee
• Score: 10.51

I guess it does
look like a poem
when you see it
typed up
like that.

Jack hates poetry. Only girls write it and every time he tries to, his brain feels empty. But his teacher, Ms. Stretchberry, won’t stop giving her class poetry assignments—and Jack can’t avoid them. But then something amazing happens. The more he writes, the more he learns he does have something to say.

With a fresh and deceptively simple style, acclaimed author Sharon Creech tells a story with enormous heart. Written as a series of free-verse poems from Jack’s point of view, Love That Dog shows how one boy finds his own voice with the help of a teacher, a writer, a pencil, some yellow paper, and of course, a dog.

The Ropemaker

Peter Dickinson

• 2002 Mythopoeic-Children winner
• 2002 Printz honor
• 2001 Carnegie shortlist
• Score: 22.52

Tilja has grown up in the peaceful Valley, which is protected from the fearsome Empire by an enchanted forest. But the forest’s power has begun to fade and the Valley is in danger. Tilja is the youngest of four brave souls who venture into the Empire together to find the mysterious magician who can save the Valley. And much to her amazement, Tilja gradually learns that only she, an ordinary girl with no magical powers, has the ability to protect her group and their quest from the Empire’s sorcerers.

Stop the Train

Geraldine McCaughrean

• 2001 Carnegie shortlist
• Score: 6.51

It's 1893 and for Cissy and her family, a new life beckons on the prairies of Oklahoma. Along with other settlers, they travel to Florence - a town yet to be built - and prepare for business alongside the Red Rock Railroad track. But the railroad company has other ideas. It wants to buy the land for itself - and when the settlers refuse to sell, the railroad boss swears his trains will never stop in Florence again. Without the train, there is no way the town can survive. So Cissy, her friends, family, and neighbours resolve to stop that train, come what may - by fair means or foul.