Belgium

Flemish Branch – IBBY Flanders

The Flemish Branch of  IBBY-Belgium is affiliated with Iedereen Leest (Everybody Reads), and is located in Antwerp.  

The projects we do

To get Flanders reading, Iedereen Leest organises a Children’s Book Week (Jeugdboekenweek) in March which precedes Reading Aloud Week (Voorleesweek) in November. We join young reading enthusiasts in the Children’s Jury (Kinder- en Jeugdjury Vlaanderen) and developed the Challenge (De Weddenschap) for young people in secondary schools. And in cooperation with the Flemish healthcare services we develop Book Babies (Boekbaby’s) for babies and toddlers.

One of our newest programs is O Mundo: a little world library, in which we introduce picturebooks from all over the world in Flanders’ multicultural classrooms. www.omundo.be 

The library

Iedereen Leest  has a subject library on children’s literature and reading promotion ranging from reference works and monographs, periodicals, congress reports, exhibition catalogues to cuttings collections, and a large collection of children’s books by Flemish authors, illustrators and translators.

The website www.jeugdliteratuur.org publishes news from the world of children’s books and provides hundreds of author profiles. The Library organises training for (aspiring) teachers, librarians and other children’s books aficionados, often in collaboration with the University of Antwerp, and hosts the Book Quest site for children: www.boekenzoeker.org

The people we work with

Our dedication exceeds the possibilities of Iedereen Leest so we have joined hands with people in schools, libraries, day-care centres, the book profession, and the media. With them, we develop ideas and projects. To widen our scope and to keep track of trends we exchange ideas and expertise with our international partners and occasionally adapt some of their successful projects to the Flemish context. Together with specialists and researchers we organise conferences and workshops.

IBBY Belgium - French Branch

The French Branch of IBBY Belgium promotes the French language literature that is published in Belgium for young people.  We do this by publishing the quarterly review journal Libbylit that is dedicated to youth literature. Once a year we also publish a special issue that celebrates and author or an illustrator from the French-speaking region of Belgium.

Awards and events

We organize and administer the Libbylit awards to promote our writers and illustrators.

To promote life-long reading habits we offer courses and exhibitions, including events for children and/or their parents. We do this with our partner the Centre for Youth Literature in Brussels.  The members of the French Branch of IBBY Belgium can access the large information data banks at the Centre.

We also take part in different awards, fairs and conferences in Belgium

We coordinate with the Flemish Branch of IBBY Belgium to nominate for the IBBY Honour List and the Andersen Awards.