"Reading in the original language" Seminar, 15th edition : Argentina

Every year, IBBY France organizes a seminar dedicated to the children's literature of the Paris book fair's guest of honour. This year, the guest country was Argentina.

The history of children's literature in Argentina is closely linked to the social and political developments in the country and the succession of different regimes, from its independence in 1810 to the establishment of democracy. This very complex political context has incited writers to get highly involved in reading promotion, as reading was considered a space of freedom.

The seminar was an opportunity to discover children's literature in Argentina, its evolution, its authors and reading promotors (see the programme). It was held at the French National Library and organized with the help of the Secretariat of Culture in Argentina, in partnership with the Paris Book Fair and the National Book Centre.

François Place finalist for the Hans Christian Andersen Award

In November 2013, the Tower of Babel Honour Diploma was awarded. The Diploma is given by IBBY Estonia to a foreign author for an outstanding children’s book published in a foreign language and translated into Estonian. The award went to Norwegian author Maria Parr for her book Vilgukivioru Tonje (Tonje Glimmerdal), translator Riina Hanso and the publishing house Eesti Raamat. The aim of the award is to encourage the translation of outstanding foreign children’s books into Estonian.

While IBBY Estonia selects the best translated books for children, The Cultural Endowment of Estonia selects the best children’s books by Estonian authors. The Cultural Endowment Annual Award 2013 went to Anti Saar for his novel Kuidas meil asjad käivad, illustrated by Alvar Jaakson (Tänapäev, 2013).  Children’s choice award Nukits 2013 went to author Ilmar Tomusk for his series of detective stories, including Kriminaalne koolipapa and Kriminaalsed viineripirukad (Tammerraamat 2012-2013) and to illustrator Heiki Ernits for his illustrations for Janno Põldma’s Lotte ja kuukivi saladus (Eesti Joonisfilm, 2013).

Tower of Babel Honour Diploma. Translator Riina Hanso (right) and the publisher Rein Põder. © IBBY Estonia

In 2012, IBBY Estonia and the Estonian Children's Literature Center started a the Joy of Books program. Our aim was to provide Tallinn Children's Hospital with good children's literature. Once a week our volunteers would visit the hospital and read with children.

Today, two years later, the program has grown into much bigger project than we had dared to hope.  Children Charity Foundation Aitan Lapsi has funded the program and working with several sponsors funded 33 carousels of books for children’s hospitals all over Estonia. The carousels on wheels are specially designed and built to fit the hospital environment. Each of them contains about fifty books and several educational board games.
The hospitals team up with the local libraries and the librarians help to take care of the books and organize volunteers to read with children.

IBBY Estonia Library in the Park will open again in May, and children will have the opportunity to read good books – IBBY Honor List titles and the books awarded with the Tower of Babel Honour Diploma – while visiting Kadrioru Park in Tallinn during summer months.

Happy Spring from IBBY Estonia!

On 13 March the nominees for the 2014 German Children’s Literature Award (Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis) were announced at the Leipzig Book Fair.

The award is Germany's only state-sponsored prize for works of fiction. It is administered by the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur/IBBY Germany and has been awarded annually since 1956 by a jury of literature specialists and critics in four categories: picture book, children's book, young adult book and non-fiction. In addition, since 2003 an independent young adult jury gives its own award. Furthermore, a special annual award for lifetime achievement is given alternately to a German author, German illustrator or German translator. The prize winners will be announced on 10 October 2014 at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The full list of nominations for 2014 can be found at www.djlp.jugendliteratur.org

2014 Kranichstein Youth Literature Grants (Kranichsteiner Jugendliteratur-Stipendien)

Austrian writer Sarah Michaela Orlovský and German author Stefanie de Velasco have been awarded the Kranichstein Youth Literature Grants (Kranichsteiner Jugendliteratur-Stipendien) at the Leipzig Book Fair in March 2014. The awards are given annually by the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur/IBBY Germany and the German Literature Fund (Deutscher Literaturfonds). Both authors receive a grant over six months with total benefits of 12.000 Euro. An independent jury chose the winners on the basis of the books in German submitted for the German Children’s Literature Award.

For more information see www.jugendliteratur.org

Announcement: Workshop for translators of German children’s literature in August 2014

This summer the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur/IBBY Germany with support from the Robert Bosch Stiftung is organizing for the fifth time a one-week, all-expenses-paid workshop (+ travel allowance) focusing on translation of literature for young readers and the role of the translator. The workshop under the title Kein Kinderspiel! or No Child’s Play! will take place from 17 August to 22 August 2014 in Hamburg/Germany. The event will focus exclusively on German Children’s Literature. The workshop language will be German. Professional translators who translate German children’s books into their respective native languages can apply for participation in the workshop. Translators of „small“ languages as well as from Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, from North Africa and Turkey will be considered. The deadline for applications is 2 May 2014.

Children's Book Festivals

The last days of March and the beginning of April are associated in Russia with children's books, and since 1943 a special event called “The Children's Book Week” takes place during these days.  Now another event has become more and more popular – International Children's Book Day. The fact that they take place one after the other gives a unique opportunity to present children literature from all over the world and at the same time to present Russian books for children as part of a global literary event.

From 2006, the inauguration of both of these events is celebrated together in St Petersburg and region in all the libraries for children's literature. This move creates a special festival that is dedicated to books and reading. With the support of the Cultural Committee of St Petersburg, posters, bookmarks and leaflets with texts by different writers are published. All events taking place are published on a ‘showbill’ – there are more than 100 events including theatre productions, workshops, and meetings with authors and illustrators.  This year more than 30 writers and artists met with children during the festival.

The International Children's Book Day attracted the attention of the mass media – a press conference was held and afterwards there were many interviews, reports of the events, radio broadcasts and newspaper articles. The festival became the focus for discussing literature for children and the promotion of reading. On the opening day the annual meeting of the St Petersburg Branch of Russian IBBY section was held.

The most important event during this meeting was the presentation of the anthology Four Centuries of Russian Poetry for Children by Eugenia Putilova, doctor of philology and linguist. This publication is the result of 25 years of intense work of research, collecting and analyzing poetry created for children (1634 – 2000). Among those who took part in the discussion were poets, publicists, researchers in literature, librarians and teachers.

New IBBY UK website

Our new website is up and running at www.ibby.org.uk and much of our news is now there. The site is still in development, particularly our members’ area.

IBBY Lebanon Appeal

IBBY UK raised £543 for the IBBY Lebanon project working with Syrian refugee families. This was mainly through raffles and donations, including the donation of a limited edition print by illustrator Jackie Morris and a complete set of the folio edition of the Susan Cooper fantasy sequence donated by IBBY member Ellen Ainsworth. 

IBBY UK/NCRCL Conference November 2013

The theme of last year’s conference was “Feast or Famine: Food and Children's Literature". Speakers included Nicki Humble, Jean Webb, Guo Yue, David Lucas, Fiona Dunbar and Ann Harvey. Special guest was author Judith Kerr. There are photos on the IBBY UK website and short versions of the papers are published in issue 39 of our e-journal IBBYLink (February 2014).

The Mexico Congress

For the first time, IBBY UK has been able to offer bursaries for members to attend an IBBY International Congress. Three bursaries were granted to IBBY members Osman Coban, Sophie Hallam and Beth Cox. Pam Dix and Ferelith Hordon from the IBBY UK Committee will also be attending.

Ferelith Hordon nominated for IBBY Executive Committee

IBBY UK has nominated Ferelith Hordon for the IBBY Executive Committee. Ferelith is a retired children’s librarian, a former Chair of the U.K. Youth Libraries Group and is the present editor of the online children’s books magazine, Books for Keeps, and the IBBY UK e-journal, IBBYLink.

IBBYLink

The next issue of our e-journal IBBYLink 40 will focus on non-fiction books under the title Fact Rather Than Fiction and is due out in July. This will be followed in September with IBBYLink 41 and will focus on Books as Bridges looking at books that are enabling e.g. disability, displacement, children surviving difficult situations etc. We are keen to have contributions from outside the UK, so if you are interested in contributing an article in English to Issue 41, please contact our editor, Ferelith Hordon.

IBBY UK/NCRCL Conference 2014

The theme of this year’s conference will be "Belonging is… An exploration of the right to be included and the barriers that must be overcome" and will be held at Roehampton University, London on Saturday 8th November. Delegates and contributors from outside the UK are welcome. Further details will be available soon; contact Ann Lazim. 

IBBY UK Christmas Card

This year’s Christmas card is being designed by Axel Scheffler, one of the most popular illustrators in the UK and known for his own books as well as his illustrations for Julia Donaldson’s Gruffalo books. Further details will be available soon. Contact John Dunne. 

From the New Board of IBBY-Ukraine

Greetings! The Ukrainian section of IBBY is very pleased to announce the new director and board members, who will continue to promote, share, and support the development of an international understanding through children’s books within and outside Ukraine. Please, welcome Alla Gordienko, Tetyana Kyzilova, Olga Dubova, Myroslava Voloschak, and Nastasia Shygaieva! The IBBY headquarters are now located in Kiev at the National Library of Ukraine for Children, which is the main children's library in Ukraine. We would like to thank the previous director, Tatiana Shchukina, and the board members for their dedication, and we are happy to learn from our colleagues around the world, since working for IBBY-Ukraine is quite a new experience for us. We will be honored to work together with the IBBY group and follow all the necessary steps to gain experience as we go forward.

Bologna Ragazzi Award 2014

The picturebook The Stars and Poppy Seeds (2014) created by Art Studio Agrafka (Andriy Lesiv and Romana Romanyshyn) and published by the Old Lion Publishing House was awarded the Bologna Ragazzi Award 2014 in the section of Opera Prima. This book is about Dora, a daughter of well-known mathematicians, who loves to count more than anything else. While admiring the Milky Way, she wants to count every particle of stardust. Dora soon learns that to achieve any dream, one needs to handle complicated tasks by accomplishing small steps. The book was translated into English by Oksana Lushchevska and Michael M. Naydan. The English translation was officially presented at Bologna Children’s Book Fair and is available via the Old Lion Publishing House.

Referring to the meaning of the Bologna Ragazzi Award 2014 for Ukraine, Marjana Savka, the editor of The Old Lion Publishing House, says: “This is the first time we nominated our books for the Bologna Ragazzi Award, and we are extremely happy that the authoritative and professional award committee has recognized a Ukrainian book so highly. Ukraine is currently in the spotlight of the whole world, and it is very important for us that this book becomes an indicator that we speak a common language with the rest of the world – the language of human values and creativity.”

In addition, Andriy Lesiv and Romana Romanyshyn commented: “The Bologna Ragazzi Award is an immensely high achievement. This award is very important not only for us as authors, but for the whole field of children’s literature and Ukraine in general. It automatically places the Ukrainian publishing business on the global level, inserts Ukrainian children’s literature in a topical world context, and opens multiple opportunities for the development of professional relationships, growth and collaboration.”

The BBC Ukrainian Children’s Book of the Year 2013

Who’ll Make the Snow by Marjana Prohasko and Taras Prohasko won the BBC’s Ukrainian Children’s Book of the Year 2013 award. Written in the classic tradition of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, Marjana Prohasko and Taras Prohasko’s novel will delight readers with its fast paced simplicity and its timelessness. Following a family of moles from Beechtree Forest, readers will learn about their treasured day-to-day life, the birth of two children and the adoption of a young rabbit, which turns out to be a new experience for them all. How will they manage fourteen children, the father’s work at a newspaper, and French language lessons? How will the young moles tackle their fears and learn to live together? And, what happens when the first snow falls? These are questions raised by the authors.

The book explores the complexities of growing up, wishing to understand the world and outgrowing fears. The hallmark of the book lies in its philosophical dimension that invites readers to actively and critically approach the world surrounding them. In Who’ll Make the Snow, the authors cope with challenging topics by accurately leading readers through the emotions and feelings of its young protagonists.

A Ukrainian Picturebook on IBBY’s Honor List 2014

Illustrated by Maryna Puzyrenko, E. T. A. Hoffmann’s classic novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King is included on IBBY’s Honor List  and will be presented at the IBBY Congress in Mexico, 10-13 September 2014.  The book was published in 2011 by Ranok Publishing House.

For children ages 2 to 102: A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA Publishing House Art Exhibition

An exhibition of illustrations from the best books of The A-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha Publishing House was held at the Ukrainian Institute of America, New York (December – January). The exhibition displayed the original hand-drawn illustrations of outstanding Ukrainian children’s book illustrators such as Vladyslav Yerko, Kost' Lavro, Sofia Uss, Kateryna Shtank, Victor Garkusha, Zhenia Gapchinska, and many others. You can read more about the exhibition at The A-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha Publishing House website.

Celebration of Taras Shevchenko's 200th Birthday

This year, Ukraine celebrates Taras Shevchenko's 200th Birthday. Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), who was the greatest poet, writer, and artist as well as a political and social activist, has a very special place in the hearts and the minds of Ukrainians. He is often regarded as the founder of modern Ukrainian literature written in the Ukrainian language. His first collection of poems entitled Kobzar (The Bard) (1840) was republished a number of times as a whole collection, and many of these poems were selected and published in Kobzar for Children. In 2013, The Old Lion Publishing House published Kobzar for Children edited by Zirka Menzatjuk and illustrated by Kateryna Myhajloshyna. While the book was widely acclaimed in its first year of publication, in 2014 the book became an essential tool for a number of reading events across Ukraine and within Ukrainian Diasporas in many countries of the world. This year The Old Lion Publishing House organized a number of events for children, among which was the release of an audio CD and videos of Shevchenko’s poems that will be used for a variety of celebrations.

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