International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature

A similar situation arose over K.M.Peyton’s Flambards quartet. This was the winner of
the Guardian award and one of the books, The Edge of the Cloud, was a Carnegie Medal
winner (both in 1969). One critic, Dominic Hibberd, objected to the awarding of prizes to
these books:

It is my contention that the Flambards trilogy, though a lively and enjoyable story,

is, if judged like any other group of novels, very definitely not of the first rank; and

I shall suggest that, even if there are special standards to be invoked, the Carnegie

judges do not seem to have used them in this case.

Hibberd 1972:5

Hibberd criticises the characterisation of the books’ heroine, Christina, and the male
characters, the avoidance of mediation about social issues raised by the plot and the
author’s style:

If you’re a critic of the Carnegie kind you don’t notice the bad style here. You don’t

wonder how pain can be shot through with stabs and seamed with chasms, how

stabs can flick and shoot (or is it shot silk that we are supposed to think of), or how

the whole weird concoction can be said to dog somebody. No, you seize upon those

dear old chestnuts ‘frustration and loneliness’ and praise the author for ‘raising

issues’. Mrs Peyton’s insight into Christina’s relationship with Will ‘raises issues of

fundamental significance to adolescent self-awareness’, according to the chairman

of the Carnegie Medal committee. This dusty mouthful of cliches is supposed to be

a compliment; but any book can raise an issue and far too many do.

Hibberd 1972:6

He accuses Colin Ray, chairman of the selection committee, of ‘using standards which in
kind are the same as adult ones, but which in degree are lower and less demanding. If
they were as high and as demanding he could not, for example, have praised Mrs Peyton’s
skill in characterisation or her evocation of atmosphere with such marked enthusiasm’
(15). Colin Ray counters this:

What the committee seeks, in my experience, is a book, not necessarily breaking

entirely new ground, but of the highest quality in its genre. And in considering

quality, literary quality is only one aspect: its potential impact on the young reader,

its ideas, its chances of being read, its individual aspects which make it stand out

from the rest, are relevant.

Ray 1972:6

To the critic, to whom ‘literary quality’ is the overriding aspect of giving awards to
children’s books, this is an unacceptable attitude and can explain why so many award
winning books have not received the approbation of the purists. Lance Salway has
observed that

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