Children's Laureate Chris Riddell up for book prize

Chris Riddell's work accompanies Michael Rosen's poems about early childhood

Children's Laureate Chris Riddell has a chance to win the Kate Greenaway illustration medal for a fourth time.

Riddell is shortlisted this year for his drawings in A Great Big Cuddle, a book of children's poetry by Michael Rosen - a former laureate himself.

The poems are all about what it's like to be a small child in a world of toys and games and many changing emotions.

Meanwhile, the nominees for the Carnegie children's writing prize include Philip Reeve for Railhead.

Reeve is best known for his Mortal Engines quartet of books and has won many children's writing awards, including the Carnegie for Here Lies Arthur.

Railhead is an intergalactic fantasy thriller about a petty thief in which hi-tech trains transport people between planets and galaxies.

It's up against seven other books, which seem mainly to have stories based on the issues of identity, survival, love and friendship.

Philip Reeve's novel is up for the Carnegie prize along with seven other books

Lauren Wolk's Wolf Hollow tells of a young girl trying to find her sense of identity while coping with bullying in a small US town in the 1940s.

Mal Peet, meanwhile, is posthumously shortlisted for his last book Beck, a "coming of age epic" about a mixed-race boy in 1900s America.

Peet died before finishing the story, so Meg Rosoff - who was brought on board as co-author from the start - is also nominated for completing it.

See the full list of nominees

Other names on the Kate Greenaway list include Jim Kay for his work on JK Rowling's illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The winners for both the Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal will be announced on 19 June.

The winners will receiving a gold medal, £5,000 and £500 of books to donate to their local library.

The Carnegie Medal was established in 1936 in memory of the Scottish-born philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

The Kate Greenaway Medal, named after the popular 19th Century artist, followed 19 years later.