If anyone needed confirmation of how far the world of children's books has changed lately, it came yesterday with news of this year's winners of the two top prizes in the field.

The Kate Greenaway medal - usually won by an exquisitely drawn bedtime story for toddlers - went to a version of Gulliver's Travels mature enough to be read by teenagers and adults, with a Tony Blair lookalike, drawn by Observer cartoonist Chris Riddell, as its central character.

And the Carnegie medal, previously bestowed on sedate authors such as Arthur Ransome and CS Lewis, was won by a scriptwriter whose early ventures into celluloid include Butterfly Kiss, a road movie featuring a homicidal lesbian.

Ransome, Lewis and, recently, Philip Pullman were obliged to wait years after publishing their first stories before winning prizes. By contrast, Frank Cottrell Boyce has won with his first novel, Millions - and the film of the book has already been in cinemas for a year. Yesterday he was overawed to hear he had beaten Pullman, whom he calls "my complete hero", to the prize.

Cottrell Boyce said: "I still haven't even got over getting published. I feel as if I've gone out for a jog and somehow got caught up in the Olympic 1500 metres final. It's completely amazing - like being 3-0 down to AC Milan in the first half, and then winning."

By which he meant, he added, that "Pullman is the infinitely superior writer. He just didn't win on the day."