The Shepherd’s Crown, the last book he published before his death in 2015, would be his second victory in the UK’s oldest children’s book prize

The late Terry Pratchett’s last novel The Shepherd’s Crown is in the running for the oldest children’s book award in the UK, the Carnegie medal, organisers have announced.

The CILIP Carnegie, which dates back to 1936 and has been won by names from Arthur Ransome to Noel Streatfeild, was Pratchett’s first major book prize when he won it in 2002. The author, who died last year after being diagnosed in 2007 with a rare form of Alzheimer’s, won the Carnegie in 2002 with his first novel for children, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.

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Winning the prize 14 years ago, Pratchett gave a barnstorming acceptance speech in which he laid out the difference in the way he was viewed as a writer in the US and in the UK. “Over there, where I’ve only recently made much of an impression, the reviews tended to be quite serious and detailed, with – as Maurice himself would have put it, ‘long words, like corrugated iron’. Over here, while being very nice, they tended towards the ‘another wacky, zany book by comic author Terry Pratchett’. In fact, Maurice has no wack and very little zane. It’s quite a serious book. Only the scenery is funny,” said Pratchett at the time.

“The problem is that we think the opposite of funny is serious. It is not. In fact, as GK Chesterton pointed out, the opposite of funny is not funny, and the opposite of serious is not serious. Benny Hill was funny and not serious; Rory Bremner is funny and serious; most politicians are serious but, unfortunately, not funny. Humour has its uses. Laughter can get through the keyhole while seriousness is still hammering on the door. New ideas can ride in on the back of a joke, old ideas can be given an added edge.”

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This year, The Shepherd’s Crown, which continues the adventures of Pratchett’s teenage witch Tiffany Aching, is up against a host of former winners. The 20-strong longlist also features Frances Hardinge’s The Lie Tree, which won the Costa book of the year, as well as novels from previous Carnegie medallists Sally Gardner, Patrick Ness and David Almond.

CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) also announced the longlist for the Kate Greenaway medal for illustration, with former children’s laureate Anthony Browne making the cut for Willy’s Stories, featuring his well-known chimpanzee. Current laureate Chris Riddell is nominated twice for the Kate Greenaway, for his own Goth Girl and the Fete Worse Than Death, and for Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle. Oliver Jeffers is up for his picture book Once Upon an Alphabet, which he also wrote himself, and for his illustrations in The Day the Crayons Came Home, written by Drew Daywalt.

The medals are judged by panels of expert librarians. This year’s chair, Sioned Jacques, called the longlists “outstanding”, adding that they “perfectly reflect the vibrancy of children’s books in the UK today”.

“This is a real golden age of writing and illustrating for children and the range of skills and storytelling on display in the longlists is proof of the incredibly high standards of this ever-growing area of publishing – every book is a potential winner. These are all fantastic books and every one of them deserves a wide audience,” said Jacques.

“The images and stories in both longlists leap off the page and the whole gamut of human life and experience is reflected, with books that cover family and friendship, love and loyalty and secrets and lies,” said CILIP president Dawn Finch. “There are books that explore war, slavery, civil rights and equality, others that re-imagine ancient myths, stories of coming-of-age and tales that span time and space, firing imaginations with every page that is read.”

The shortlists will be announced on 15 March, and the winners will be announced on 20 June. Each medallist will receive £500 of books to donate to their local library, a gold medal, and £5,000 from the Colin Mears award.