City of Gold and other stories from the Old Testament retold by Peter Dickinson

Peter Dickinson

Peter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson OBE is an English author and poet who has written a wide variety of books, notably children's books and detective stories, over a long and distinguished career.-Life and work:...

 is a collection of stories for children based on Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

 narratives. The illustrations, both in colour and black-and-white, are by Michael Foreman

Michael Foreman (author / illustrator)

Michael Foreman is an award-winning British author and illustrator, mainly for children. He lives in London. He is one of the best-known and most prolific writer-illustrators of children's books. He was born and grew up in the seaside village of Pakefield, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, where his mother...

. Published in 1980, City of Gold was the winner of the Carnegie Medal

Carnegie Medal

The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...

for that year.

Reception

On the Carnegie website, the book is described as offering "a radical and fascinating approach to thirty-three Old Testament Bible stories". There was some criticism of the choice in the pages of the Literary Association Record by librarians who wondered why the Carnegie committee so often chose books that no "ordinary" child would read; committee member Vivian Griffiths responded that popularity with children was not a criterion: the emphasis was on literary merit.