Carnegie winners: a list apart | Books

Seventy glorious years: which is your favourite Carnegie winner? Photograph: Getty Images

It may be the first poll of children's fiction favourites in recent years to feature neither hobbits nor boy wizards called Harry. To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Carnegie Medal, the public are being asked to choose their favourite Carnegie author - and the list of past winners is surprisingly idiosyncratic. No JRR Tolkien, no JK Rowling, no Michael Morpurgo nor Jacqueline Wilson.

The Carnegie medal, which is awarded by a panel of children's librarians, has always gone its own way and this is never more evident than when faced with a complete list of the books honoured throughout its long and distinguished history.

Of course, some classics of children's literature can be found - there's CS Lewis (with The Last Battle), Arthur Ransome (Pigeon Post) and Mary Norton (The Borrowers) - as well as some of the more recent names that currently twinkle in the firmament of kid's fiction: Alan Garner, Phillip Pullman, Anne Fine, Geraldine McCaughrean.

But there are also surprises. Who would have predicted that children's librarians would have judged the endlessly controversial Melvin Burgess to be worthy of the medal? He won in 1996 for his tale of a heroin addict teenager, Junk. Or Terry Pratchett, in 2001, with The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents? And what happened to Mary Treadgold and her We Couldn't Leave Dinah (1941) or Dr IW Cornwall and his The Making of Man (1960)?

But, by not running with the crowd, those doughty members of the the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals who choose the winners have succeeded in picking books, over the years, that have both longevity and substance. Of the first 10 winners, beginning in 1936, over half are still in print. (Of those that aren't, Noel Streatfeild's The Circus is Coming was certainly still being printed not all that long ago as I have fond memories of reading about the adventures of Peter and Santa as a Streatfeild-mad child myself).

Now Carnegie is asking the public for their help in choosing the winner of winners. In a three-stage process, members of the public will first be asked to nominate their favourite from the roll call of winners, along with the reasons for their choice. An expert panel of judges will then whittle the list down to 10. The shortlist will then go back to the public for a final vote on the ultimate winner.

Voting is via the website, where you can read the list of winners in full, and voters are encouraged to say, in 50 words or fewer, why the book is your favourite. I'm tempted to go for The Circus is Coming for reasons of pure nostalgia (even though I'd argue it's not Streatfeild's best) but I think it has to be Philip Pullman's ever so slightly more sophisticated Northern Lights.

So, go on, vote ... but come back and tell us who and why, please?