The Blue Book of Nebo WINNER OF THE YOTO CARNEGIE 2023 MEDAL FOR WRITING

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A beautiful story, elegantly told’ … Images from Saving Sorya: Chan and the Sun Bear by Jeet Zdung. Photograph: PR She got this book from a house we broke into in Nebo. It was in one of the small drawers of a little desk in the corner of someone’s living room. Usually, we only steal the really important stuff like matches or rat poison or books. But she held this notebook in her hands and turned it over a few times before putting it in her bag. The Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration, established in 1955, is awarded annually to a children’s book illustrator whose artwork creates an outstanding reading experience.

First News is the UK’s number one children’s newspaper, with a readership of over 2.6 million, including 7,500 subscribing schools. First written and published in Welsh, Llyfr Glas Nebo won the Prose Medal at the 2018 Eisteddfod and the triple crown of prizes at the 2019 Wales Book of the Year Award: the Aberystwyth University Fiction Award, the People’s Choice Award and the Welsh-language Overall Winner. It has since been translated into a number of languages including French, Arabic, Catalan, Spanish, Polish and English, where it has also been published in the US.

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We find our main protagonists isolated, alone and learning to survive in this unsettling new era. Set in the very near future, we find a small family in the hilltop house, including Dylan, a 14-year-old boy, his mother Rowenna and his infant sister Mona, who are the only survivors for miles around. Although only a small family, they have adapted and are surviving. They have learnt new skills and are learning to live and hunt from the land. I skinned the rabbit and took it home, and said, “Happy Birthday Mam.” I’d been to fetch the birthday card this morning, and had put it on the mantelpiece. There’s a photo of a racing car on it, and “HAPPY BIRTHDAY—SIX TODAY” written on it, but never mind. That’s the only card we had left. I had thirteen birthday cards, but we decided to burn the rest after The End, because we didn’t know anything then, not even to store kindling in a dry place for winter. Despite their close understanding, the relationship between mother and son changes subtly as Dylan must take on adult responsibilities. And they each have their own secrets, which emerge as, in turn, they jot down their thoughts and memories in a found notebook - the Blue Book of Nebo.

Read our Get to Know the Author flyer for further information about Manon Steffan Ros and The Blue Book of Nebo. See also our Authors of the Month writing in Welsh. The Blue Book of Nebo is at once heart-warming and gut-wrenching. Taking the form of alternating diary entries by fourteen-year-old Dylan and his mam, Rowenna, it follows the story of a small family trying to survive in North West Wales post-apocalypse. The changing perspective between mother and son allows the reader to see this strange world through interchangeably curious and jaded eyes, the contrast regularly presenting moments of revelatory poignancy. Ros skilfully crafts these opposing viewpoints, their unique perspectives allowing her to weave in each character’s life experience. While an optimistic Dylan makes the most of the apocalyptic life he’s lived since childhood, he can’t help imagining the folkloric world which existed before “The End” with unsubstantiated nostalgia. Rowenna, on the other hand, is less sentimental about the old world. Hers was miserable, filled with absent fathers, tedium and money worries – in her new life she can, at least, solely focus on survival and her children. Dylan’s unwavering optimism in the face of relentless challenges is delicately handled and compelling to read. His perseverance hardly ever wavers, and it is only in moments of solitude that he allows his sadness to creep in, (one poignant example being the crush he develops on the photograph of a teenage girl, long-since gone, found in a deserted house). Ros also examines the isolation of motherhood through Rowenna’s melancholic narration, yet also represents her strength – her voice never veering towards a hyperbolic hopelessness. In fact, Dylan and Rowenna’s sincere love for each other provides the root of joy which runs throughout this novel.The winners of The Farshore Reading for Pleasure Teacher Awards 2023, highlighting the work schools are doing to encourage a love of reading, have... Prolific Welsh writer Manon Steffan Ros lives in Tywyn, North Wales. She has written over 23 books for adults and children and is four-times winner of the Tir na n’Og Wales Children’s Book Awards. The Blue Book of Nebo is Ros’ first YA novel to be published in English, and is published by British Book Awards Wales Small Press of the Year, Firefly Press. The judges admired the “appreciation of language, reading and literature” and described it as “heartbreaking”, “poignant” and “rich with Welsh heritage.” Following the success of The Blue Book of Nebo, Firefly have since acquired two middle-grade titles by Ros, Feather( Pluen), and Me and Aaron Ramsey( Fi ac Aaron Ramsey), to be published in English in 2024.

She was awarded a CBE for Services to Literature in 2020; and was the 10 th Waterstones’ Children’s Laureate from 2017-2019. This short, searing tale has arrived in English at an eerily relevant time." — Mary Wahlmeier Bracciano, Assistant Inventory Manager, The Raven Book Store, Lawrence, Kansas Winner of three categories at the 2019 Wales Book of the Year Awards: the Aberystwyth University Fiction Award, the Golwg360 Barn y Bobl (People’s Choice Award), and the Welsh-language Overall WinnerIn 2022, Katya Balen won both the Yoto Carnegie Medal and the Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice for October, October. The Yoto Kate Greenaway Medal – now named the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration – was won by Danica Novgorodoff for Long Way Down and Mariachiara Di Giorgio was awarded the Greenaway Shadowers’ Choice for The Midnight Fair.