[hclark]

Here's the story:

Pratchett Wins Carnegie

Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld novels, has won the Carnegie Medal, the United Kingdom's most prestigious award in children's literature, BBC News Online reported. One in every 100 books published in the U.K. bears his name, and worldwide he has sold 27 million copies of his books, the news service reported.

Pratchett has authored 28 Discworld books, each of which can be read independently, yet together they create a rich world of ideas, characters and stories, the BBC reported. DreamWorks is also in pre-production on a film version of Pratchett's Bromeliad trilogy, set in a world of wizards, trolls, heroes and villains.

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I'm not familiar with the Carnegie, so what I'm wondering is, is this award given for a particular book? If so, which one? Are his Discworld books considered children's books? I certainly wouldn't say so. They have a lot of things in them that I wouldn't expect children to get. If I understand correctly the Bromelaid trilogy is a children's series, and he has that new one, Maurice and his amazing rodent, or somesuch.

[Kingslayer]

The Carnegie is for best children/young adult book in the UK.Pratchett won it for The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents(Think that's the title anyway), which isn't part the Discworld series and is considered more of a childrens' book.The Discworld books aren't shortlisted for the award, because as you said they are more adult.I think Pullman and/or Rowling have won it in the past.Hope that helps :)

[Loque]

um, i might have misunderstood you, but Amazing Maurice is a discworld book, as in it's set on the discworld, it's not much different to the others really, except shorter, no bad language and, IMO, much better that the last few 'proper' discworld books he's written.

[Kingslayer]

Yeah it's set in the Discworld but it isn't considered part of the Discworld Series, if you know what I mean.Different target audience and doesn't have the usual Discworld cover-art.So it is a Discworld book but not part of the Discworld Series.That does sound strange :confused:

[Kirby]

Hooray :)
A bit of silly fact re. Mr Pratchett, from my country, where a fossilisd turtle was named after him...

: Psephophorus terrypratchetti - Köhler, 1995 (Eocene fossil turtle) Terry Pratchett wrote a series of fantasy books set on a world carried on the back of a giant turtle. [J. Royal Soc. N.Z. 25:371]

( :) - off topic a bit, but from the same page as the above information was taken from, look here for a bunch of other scientifically named oddities! Some a pretty neat :))http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/taxonomy.html )

[manticore]

nice link, tblue

Does anyone have any idea why Maurice isnt a part of the Discworld series? I think its a ploy to attract new young readers to Discworld.

[Benthic]

Actually it's not that strange. Pratchett writes a lot of Discworld material that isn't part of the central novel sequence. For instance, books like The Science of Discworld I & II, Discworld yearbooks, maps, short stories, even a cookbook. The Amazing Maurice is certainly a Discworld book, no-one claims that it isn't. It just isn't meant to be and has not been presented as 'The Next Discworld Novel'.

[eoghann]

I think what makes this so significant is the fact that that award is a "serious" award and Pratchett for all his sales success has never been given the time of day by the literary establishment in the UK. Critics always looked down their nose at his stuff.

He certainly deserves some proper recognition.