2016

Patricia Aldana was born and raised in Guatemala. She moved to Canada in 1971 after attending school in the United States. Patricia founded the publishing house Groundwood Books in 1978 and remained its publisher until 2012. Groundwood is a respected publisher of Canadian and international children's books for all ages. Patricia is a champion of school libraries and an advocate for the freedom to read. She is the co-founder of Canada’s National Reading Campaign and is its current Chair. She received the Order of Canada in 2010 for her contribution to children’s literature. Since 2013 she has worked with China’s largest publisher of children’s books, CCPPG, to acquire the rights of books to be published in China.

Patricia joined the IBBY Executive Committee in 1996 and served until 2002. She was re-elected in 2004 and served as Vice-President until 2006, when she was elected President of IBBY for two terms from 2006 to 2010. Patricia is currently in her second term as President of the IBBY Foundation and was elected by the membership at the 2014 IBBY General Assembly to be the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Jury President.

Kirsten Bystrup graduated from the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen and worked as a children’s librarian and then as editor of the children’s literature department of the Danish publishing house, Gyldendal. She returned to working for public libraries as editor of book annotations. In 1998 she joined the Danish Centre for Children’s Literature, where she worked as a librarian for twelve years. At the Centre Kirsten worked with both Danish and foreign children’s books and she was regularly involved with the Biennale of Illustrations in Bratislava, and later served as a member of the International Jury in 2007.  During her time at the Centre she was able to complete a joint Masters Degree in Children’s Literature and Education.

Kirsten has been a member of IBBY Denmark since the 1970s and was Vice President from 2011 to 2013. Kirsten has been selected by the IBBY Executive Committee to serve on the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Reina Duarte studied Hispanic Languages and Literature at the Central University in Barcelona and has been working in the publishing industry for more than twenty-five years. She is responsible for fiction and non-fiction for children and young adults for Edebé, an international publishing house specialised in books for children and young adults, including textbooks, in Spanish. Reina has also worked as a professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, teaching a course on children’s books, and has supported a fortnightly radio programme on children’s literature.

Reina is currently President of the Catalán Branch of Spanish IBBY (ClijCAT). She was member of the IBBY Executive Committee between 2006 and 2010 and served as Vice President between 2008 and 2010.  Reina has been selected by the IBBY Executive Committee to serve on the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Andrej Ilc: During his studies in journalism and comparative literature and culture at the University of Ljubljana, Andrej wrote regularly about music and literature for Slovenian newspapers and magazines, including reviews and features of classic and contemporary children’s books and their authors. Since 1996 he has been an editor at Mladinska knijiga, the largest Slovenian publishing house. Until 2012 he was the children’s book editor, including editing many award winning books, including those by the award-winning Slovenian illustrator Lila Prap, which have been translated into many languages.

Andrej has been a member of Executive Committee of IBBY’s Slovenian section since 2001. He has been selected by the IBBY Executive Committee to serve on the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Yasmine Motawy has studied literature and specifically children’s literature extensively. She is currently Senior Instructor at the Department of Rhetoric and Composition and teaches courses in rhetoric, creativity and writing for children. She developed a ‘writing for children’ course as a community-based course where the writers (students) also work on a service project to bring their works to their community. A translator, reviewer and editor for children’s literature, Yasmine is Associate Editor of the forthcoming Routledge Companion to International Children’s Literature.

Yasmine has been involved in the promotion of reading in the Arab world and the revival of the Egyptian section of IBBY in 2011. Yasmine has been selected by the IBBY Executive Committee to serve on the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

María Beatriz Medina: Following studies in literature at the Central University of Venezuela and the University of Zürich, María Beatriz has worked in the field of children’s publishing as a member of the management team for several Venezuelan publications. Since 1979 she has done extensive research on the theory of reading and children’s literature at the Banco del Libro in Caracas. She established the “Best Books for Children and Youth” in 1980, an event that gives recognition to quality children’s literature. 

María Beatriz is currently the Executive Director of Banco del Libro. She is also a professor for the Master of Children’s Literature programme at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.  and has written several books, including co-authoring the Dictionary of Children’s Literature.

She is currently the President of IBBY Venezuela and has been selected by the IBBY Executive Committee as a member of the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Dolores Prades has an academic background in Social Science, a Masters in Politics and a PhD in Economic History. Since 2000 she has researched and taught extensively in the field of children’s and young adult literature.  She is currently Visiting Professor for Children’s and Young Adult Literature at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She also coordinates the Caribbean and Latin American Chair of Reading and Writing in Brazil. 

Dolores has been a publisher and editor for several publishing houses in Brazil for over fifteen years and since 2012 has been the founding member and publisher of the magazine Emilia. She has been a curator and coordinator for the Conversas ao Página Notebooks since its first edition in 2011.

She as been a member of IBBY Brazil for many years and was selected by the IBBY Executive Committee to be a member of the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Wu Qing’s interest in children’s literature has been lifelong: her mother, Bing Xin, was one China’s best known children’s authors and she has been involved with the Bing Xin Children’s Literature Award for children’s books since 1990. Wu Qing studied English at the Beijing Foreign Studies University and then taught in the English Department of the University from 1960 to 2000. Together with her husband, she translated Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit books into Chinese. 

Wu Qing developed an interest in the constitution, women’s and human rights in China from the mid-1980s and was elected as People’s Representative of Haidan District for seven terms from 1984 to 2011. Her work as champion of women’s rights and the rule of law in China has been widely recognized. In 2001 she received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, an award that is regarded as the Nobel Prize of Asia. 

Wu Qing was selected as member of the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury for 2016. She is the first Chinese jury member for the Award.

Lola Rubio was born in Córdoba and her early studies were in fine art at the National School of Fine Arts and then in publishing, with an emphasis on editing at the Buenos Aires University. In 2006 she completed training in the area of reading promotion run by the Banco del Libro in Venezuela. She trained further as a literature specialist for children and young adults.  Lola has worked as a librarian and has given talks and workshops for librarians, principals and teachers about picture books and poetry.

Lola has been a regular contributor of papers on to the International Symposiums of Mercosur on topics such as poetry for children, picture books and realism vs abstraction in children’s illustration.

Lola is currently the Secretary of IBBY Argentina (ALIJA) and was selected by the IBBY Executive Committee as a member of the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Susan Stan is Professor Emerita of Central Michigan University, where she taught courses in international and multicultural literature for children and young adults from 1998 to 2014. Her experience in the field of children’s books includes a decade working for the Lerner Publishing Group in both the marketing and editorial departments and eleven years as editor of The Five Owls, a now-defunct journal about children’s books. 

Since 1986, when she attended her first IBBY World Congress in Japan, Susan has been an active member the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) including serving as USBBY’s president. A longtime member of the American Library Association, Susan has served on selection committees for the Caldecott and Batchelder awards as well as the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury in 2014.  Susan was selected to serve for a second term by the IBBY Executive Committee.

Shohreh Yousefi completed a BA in Psychology in Iran and then a MA in Preschool Education in the USA in 1980. She has been involved in a variety of roles in the field of children and young adult literature: as a writer, translator, counsellor, educator and teacher trainer. Shohreh currently works as education manager, with a focus on reading promotion, at preschool centres in Tehran and is a member of the editorial group for the Daftar Fani Publishing House in Tehran. 

Shohreh has been a member of the Children’s Book Council of Iran (IBBY Iran) for over thirty years and has been selected by the IBBY Executive Committee to be a member of the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Elda Nogueira holds a BA degree from the Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro with her Major in Portuguese and English Languages and Literatures – 1975. She later specialized in English as a Foreign Language at the University of Rochester, USA, as well as in translation and interpretation.  She worked as high school teacher in Rio de Janeiro and after moving to Marseilles she has taught Portuguese as a Foreign Language as well as working as a translator and interpreter from 2004 to 2013. She collaborated with Fundação Nacional do Livro Infantil e Juvenil, the Brazilian section of IBBY, from 1987 to 2010 promoting reading and children's literature in Brazil and also served on juries for reading promotion projects in Brazil.

Elda served as a member of the IBBY Executive Committee from 2004-2008, acting as Vice President from 2006 to 2008.  She has represented the IBBY President on the IBBY Hans Christian Andersen Jury since 2008 as an ex-officio member.