The 2025 longlists for the Carnegies’ medals show a promising trend in books themed on issues in youthful masculinity.

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

35 Longlisted Titles: Nine on Masculinity

The Carnegie Medals program has joined the week’s deluge of awards announcements from the United Kingdom. Today (February 13), we look at the program’s two medals, one for writing and the other for illustrations.

Together the two categories arrive with 35 longlisted titles from 19 publishers.

No longer carrying the name “Yoto” for their previous sponsorship, the 2025 Carnegie Awards are supported by Scholastic, the program’s official book supplier; the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS); and Sora, a reading app.

Timely Takes on Youth and Masculinity

The Carniegie Awards’ organizers point out a welcome trend this year: a strong presence for books in its longlists themed on masculinity.

At a time when in so many world markets many boys and young men are struggling in social, educational, and vocational development, this is heartening news, helping to point up the potential of publishing to provide supportive and impactful literature, as the business has often done so well for girls and young women.

For anyone interested in learning the breadth of new research, the depth of the crisis in so many world publishing markets, and responses to this crisis, we can recommend the work of the American Institute for Boys and Men, founded by the British-American Brookings Institute fellow and author Richard V. Reeves.

Here is a quick look at some of the Carnegies’ longlisted titles on issues of being male and young.

• The question of what it is to be a young man is explored by Danielle Jawando in If My Words Had Wings (Simon & Schuster), the story of a teenage boy who finds his voice through the spoken word after being released from a young offenders’ prison.
• There’s also the debut publication by Margaret McDonald: Glasgow Boys (Faber & Faber) is a story about the precarious friendship between two boys growing up in foster care.
• Play (the independent Firefly Press) by Luke Palmer (the author of Grow, also from Firefly) is a story of disaffected youth as four boys navigate society’s expectations of what it means to be a man,.
• Nathanael Lessore’s King of Nothing (Bonnier Books UK) is a comedic take, in which a self-proclaimed “bad boy” forges a friendship that makes him reassess his priorities.
• Here’s a verse novel exploring disordered eating from the perspective of teenage boys. Louder Than Hunger (Walker Books) is by children’s librarian John Schu.
• And here’s another verse novel, Trigger (Little Island Press), by the Irish author CG Moore, a story about a teenaged boy who is sexually assaulted in an attack he can’t remember.
• The perspectives of younger boys finding their places in the world are found in the fantastical/futuristic story I Am Wolf  (from Kate Wilson’s frequently awarded Nosy Crow) by Alastair Chisholm.
• A verse novel with illustration by Joe Todd-Stanton is here: The Final Year, written by Matt Goodfellow (from the wonderfully named Otter-Barry Press).
• Fallout (Bloomsbury) is a novel set in the 1980s by Welsh writer Lesley Parr—the story of a boy seeking a life free from his criminal family.

The book publishing industry’s excellent, supportive work for young female readers continues, too, with examples found in titles longlisted here on societal pressures on teen girls, as explored by Kelly McCaughrain; Holly Bourne; Clare Furniss; Jenny Valentine; and Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick.

Also trending overall are topics including a search for self; grief; and recovery in these lists which show independent publishers dominant.

At 23 longlisted books, from independent houses, those represent 13 presses, including small ones such as Lantana, Firefly, Otter-Barry, Little Island, and UCLan Publishing. Walker Books has the most longlisted titles for both medals, six in illustration and two in writing. Simon & Schuster has five titles, four in writing and one in illustration.

2025 Carnegie Medal for Writing Longlist

• On Silver Tides by Sylvia Bishop (Andersen Press)
• You Could Be So Pretty by Holly Bourne (Usborne)
• I Am Wolf by Alastair Chisholm (Nosy Crow)
• Treacle Town by Brian Conaghan (Andersen Press)
• Sisters of the Moon by Marie–Louise Fitzpatrick (Faber & Faber)
• The Things We Leave Behind by Clare Furniss (Simon & Schuster)
• The Final Year by Matt Goodfellow, illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton (Otter-Barry Books)
• Island of Whispers by Frances Hardinge, illustrated by Emily Gravett (Macmillan Children’s)
• If My Words Had Wings by Danielle Jawando (Simon & Schuster)
• King of Nothing by Nathanael Lessore (Bonnier Books UK)
• Little Bang by Kelly McCaughrain (Walker)
• Glasgow Boys by Margaret McDonald (Faber & Faber)
• Trigger by C.G. Moore (Little Island Books)
• All That It Ever Meant by Blessing Musariri (Head of Zeus)
• Play by Luke Palmer (Firefly Press)
• Fallout by Lesley Parr (Bloomsbury Publishing)
• The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival (Simon & Schuster)
• Louder Than Hunger by John Schu (Walker)
• Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine (Simon & Schuster)

2025 Carnegie Medal for Illustration Longlist

• The Last Zookeeper by Aaron Becker (Walker)
• The Invisible Story by Wen Hsu Chen, written by Jaime Gamboa, translated by Daniel Hahn (Lantana)
• Grey by Lauren Child, written by Laura Dockrill (Walker)
• Flower Block by Hoang Giang, written by Lanisha Butterfield (Puffin)
• I Love Books by Mariajo Ilustrajo (Quarto)
• The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston (Walker)
• Clever Crow by Olivia Lomenech Gill, written by Chris Butterworth (Walker)
• Dive, Dive into the Night Sea by Thea Lu (Walker)
• Letters in Charcoal by Juan Palomino, written by Irene Vasco, translated by Lawrence Schimel (Lantana)
• Homebody by Theo Parish (Macmillan Children’s Books)
• The Bridges by Tom Percival (Simon & Schuster)
• Wolf and Bear by Kate Rolfe (Macmillan Children’s Books)
• Flying High by Yu Rong, written by Cao Wenxuan, translated by Simone Monnelly (UCLan Publishing)
• Do You Remember? by Sydney Smith (Walker)
• Grandad’s Star by Rhian Stone, written by Frances Tosdevin (Harper Collins Publishers)
• The Wild by Yuval Zommer (Oxford University Press)

The shortlists for the 2025 Carnegies will be announced at a panel event at London Book Fair beginning at 3.15 p.m. on March 11.

The winners’ ceremony is to be hosted live and streamed from the Cambridge Theatre June 19.

The winners will each receive a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize (US$6,240).

The winners of the Shadowers’ Choice Medals—voted for by children and young people—will also be presented at the ceremony. They will also receive a golden medal and £500 worth of books to donate to a library of their choice (US$624).

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More from Publishing Perspectives on children’s books is here, more on the Carnegie Greenaway honors—now called the Yoto Carnegies—is here, more from us on publishing and book awards programs is here, and more on the UK market is here.