CKG: Shadowing the Greenaway – Kings Monkton School, Cardiff

March 15th 2022

Alison King is Librarian at Kings Monkton School in Cardiff, and was Carnegie and Kate Greenaway judge in 2020/21. She is passionate about the Shadowing Reading Schemes for school, and has now launched a project along with fellow judge Cassie Kemp which looks at using the shadowing model for Kate Greenaway with looked after children in Cardiff and Leicester.

2021 was a stellar shadowing year at Kings Monkton School but in the planning stages, it seemed destined to be an unmitigated disaster. Bolstered by my CKG judging experience, I was full of enthusiasm for the Greenaway Shadowing scheme – a marked departure from the trepidation with which I had approached it in earlier years.

Covid-19 created a number of obstacles. For a time, it seemed that the Greenaway scheme wouldn’t run at all but after much deliberation, I found myself working with a small but enthusiastic group of readers in Year 7. Each of our meetings began with a reading of the featured book but beyond that, each session unfolded differently, influenced by the mood of the group and the collective response to each title. We worked with two titles within the book packs for schools per session, introducing a compare and contrast element to our discussions that I hadn’t previously used. It was fascinating to listen to shadowers identifying thematic similarities that I had completely overlooked. We also made consistent use of the mindfulness activities featured in the shadowing pack and they bonded us as a group, creating a bank of shared experiences attached to the books we now held in common.

Timing was our biggest challenge. We struggled to fit everything into a thirty-minute period and it was difficult to accomplish all that we wanted. This time around, I’ll be working with a Year Seven English class in hour-long sessions, reflecting on the books through drama, art, writing, music, and virtual content. I will be embarking on an additional project this year, alongside my fellow 2020-2021 judge, Cassie Kemp. This new venture owes much of its shape and structure to the shadowing scheme. In conjunction with the CILIP Youth Libraries Group and the Siobhan Dowd Trust, Cassie, and I will be exploring a selection of Greenaway winners with looked after children in our respective areas of Leicester and Cardiff.

It’s clear that there’s real value in encouraging young people to experience the world through the medium of illustrated books. They offer up different perspectives, allowing fresh, diverse ways of looking at things whilst also reflecting the reader back at themselves, helping them navigate their identity, their emotions, and their place in the world. I’m grateful that I’m able to draw on my experiences as a shadowing lead for this vast but vital challenge and it is my fervent hope that this project will put books into the hands of readers who need them most, and provide a foundation for empathy, imagination, communication, and connection for every child we encounter.

If you are thinking about shadowing the Greenaway medal this year, my advice is this: don’t limit yourself, and prepare to be surprised. One of the most astonishing elements of this process for me is the deep and profound impact of those shortlisted titles. In this beautiful, baffling and often brutal world, it’s easy to underestimate the fierce and inevitable power of the right book in the right hands at the right time.

Alison King, Qualified Librarian at Kings Monkton School in Cardiff and former CKG judge

Follow Alison on Twitter @avk1986