Haha, I read Each Peach Pear Plum to my baby sister so many times that over 20 years later I can still recite it from memory!

I just read Jethro Byrd, Fairy Child which won in 2002. I wasn't spectacularly impressed, but it was OK. As I note in my review it is interesting to see that this book was eligible for both the Kate Greenaway Medal (because it was published in the UK) and the Children's Book Council of Australia Awards (becuase Bob Graham is Australian) - the book took out the Kate Greenaway Medal but only managed to get to the shortlist of the CBCA Awards. Given the different eligibility criteria (and hence different competition), different judging criteria and panels, etc, etc I suppose it doesn't mean much - but interesting nonethless.

I'm always seeing Each Peach Pear Plum at various bookstores and libraries, but I've never picked it up. I'll make sure to try it out next time I see it! Thanks for the tip!

When the Wind Blows also looks very interesting!

Each Peach Pear Plum (1978 winner) is a classic that I can highly recommend.

I loved Raymond Briggs's When the Wind Blows when I was in high school. Recently I discovered his Mother Goose Treasury which won way back in 1966, making it one of his earliest works - its a collection of Mother Goose stories with illustrations that show the promise of what was to come later. Very useful for those (like me) who only had a vague recollection of all those famous nursery rhymes.

I'm slowly making my way through these (along with the Caldecott Medal winners, the Children's Book Council of Australia Picture Book and Early Childhood Book of the Year, the New Zealand Post Picture Book of the Year, and hopefully the Canadian Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award) - but I'm also having problems getting access to the majority of the non-Australian ones from my local library :(

I found another Chris Riddell illustrated book this week titled The Swan's Stories.

The Goodreads description: A beautifully illustrated anthology of twelve of Hans Christian Andersen's imaginative fairy tales includes favorite stories, as well as other, less-well-known pieces.

I'm very excited to dive into it!

Yes, Thanks. I've already added one of the past winners to my to-read list and I had to add the illustrator who won to the Goodreads database.

Thanks for this great info, Chandra and Abigail!

Here's a link to the Kate Greenaway Medal site, including a full list of winners:

http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/gree...

ETA: I see, by the way, that Chris Riddell was won twice in the last ten years... I'm not familiar with those specific titles, but I do love his work with Paul Stewart, on The Edge Chronicles.

Chandra: great discussion idea! I am familiar with the Kate Greenaway Medal, which is a British illustrator's award, similar to the Caldecott Medal. Truthfully, I haven't done much research, but I do know that Krystyna Turska won the Medal in 1972 for The Woodcutter's Duck:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35060...


Although I enjoyed this picture-book retelling of an old Polish folk tale, I actually think Turska's The Magician of Cracow has better illustrations:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49533...

I'll have to dig around, and see if I'm familiar with any other Greenaway Medal winners...

I'd only vaguely heard of the Kate Greenaway Medal, but didn't pay much attention until recently. Through a roundabout way I rediscovered Kate Greenaway. I didn't realize that she was the illustrator of many of my beloved children's classic stories. As a result I've always been attracted to her particular style of illustration - which is the roundabout way that I became reacquainted with her work.

I've been looking through the award winners and only a few are familiar to me. I imagine much of this is due to the fact that one of the main criteria is that the book must first be published in the UK. I was happy to discover that one of my favorite recent finds was the winner in 2001 - Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver' illustrated by Chris Riddell. I highly recommend it!

I've got the 2008 winner on my list, but haven't had much luck locating it at my library or bookstores.

I am curious if any of you are familiar with any of the other winners and what your thoughts are about them.