2022

Marie-Aude Murail has written nearly a hundred books for children and adults and is acclaimed in France and abroad for her novels with their memorable characters. She was born 1954 in Le Havre into a family of artists: her father is a poet, her mother a journalist, her brother is a composer, another brother and her sister are writers for children. She studied literature at the Sorbonne University, where her doctoral thesis was about the adaptation of classic novels for young readers. She started writing romances for women’s magazines and in 1985 she published her first novel for adults. She began writing tales, stories and novels published in the magazines of the Bayard Group, including Astrapi, J'aime Lire and Je Bouquine. In 1987, her first children’s novel, Mystère (Mystery), was published and from then on, she devoted herself to writing for children and young people. Marie-Aude Murail has a gift for creating characters that have a special bond with the reader. Her novels explore various themes of politics, history, love, adventure and fantasy and have been translated into more than 27 languages. She has been awarded most French prizes in the field of children’s books, including for Oh, Boy! (2015) and she was selected for the 2010 IBBY Honour List for the story Miss Charity (2008). In 2004, she was made Chevailier de la Légion d’honneur and in 2017 was promoted to Officier de la Legion d’honneur in recognition for her work in the field of children’s literature. In parallel with her writing, she is an activist for literacy and children’s reading skills as well as the rights of refugee and migrant children. Marie-Aude Murail has been nominated several times for the Hans Christian Andersen Award: she was a Finalist in 2018 and 2020, and her book, Simple (2004) has been included in the list of books highlighted by the Andersen Jury as an outstanding work.

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The wordless picture books of Suzy Lee have been recognised as unique literary and aesthetic innovations. Born in Seoul in 1974 in a home full of art and books, she studied painting at the College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University and upon graduation began illustrating children’s novels.  During studies at Camberwell College of Arts in the UK she took a draft of her Master's project, Alice in Wonderland, to the Bologna Children's Book Fair and it was published by Edizioni Corraini in 2002. Her next book Mirror was published in 2003 and became the first of the Border Trilogy: Mirror (2003), Wave (2008) and Shadow (2010). All three wordless stories share the physical centre of the book, the binding, that acts as a border between fantasy and reality in the actual story. On one side of the page, we see a little girl, in a mirror, at the seaside, in a storage room and on the other side of the page we see her fantasy and imagination. Wave has received several distinctions in the USA, including the New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book 2008 and was selected for the IBBY Silent Books Honour List in 2013. Shadow was also selected as the New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book in 2010 as well as the Premio FNLIJ, Brazil and Premio Albumilustrado, Gremio de Libros de Madrid, Spain. Her book Lines (2017) captures her love (and sometimes frustration) of line drawing and minimal colours in the story of a young skater. Her story of a rescued dog Kang-yi (River, 2018) was selected for the 2020 IBBY Honour List and won the Korea Book Award. Recently, she founded the independent publishing company Hintoki Press to publish her own experimental works inspired by old Korean folk motifs. Her involvement with the Vacance Project, a collective of other Korean picture book artists, led to the haunting book, Sim Cheong (2019). Suzy Lee was a Finalist for the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award. 

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Junko Yokota has been a researcher, teacher, speaker and writer in the field of children’s literature for over thirty years. Her work has emphasized both literary text analysis and visual narrative in illustration, as well as topics related to culture and digital formats of children’s literature. She received a PhD in Reading Education and Library Science from the University of North Texas in 1988 and held research fellowships at the University of Wrocław, Poland, at the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, Germany and at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany. She is currently Professor Emeritus at the National College of Education, National Louis University and was the Founding Director of the Center for Teaching through Children’s Books as well as the co-author of the children’s literature textbook, Children’s Books in Children’s Hands. Junko has served on numerous juries including the 2013 Bologna Illustration jury, the Nami Island International Illustration Concours jury, from its inception in 2013 to 2019, and was the 2015 Caldecott Committee chair. She has been a Board member of USA IBBY and Bookbird Inc. and has served three terms on the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury in 2006, 2008 and 2018. Junko was elected at the IBBY General Assembly in Athens to be the Hans Christian Andersen Jury President for the 2020 Awards and re-elected at the Virtual IBBY General Assembly in September 2020 as Jury President for the 2022 Awards. 

Antoine Al Chartouni is a professor at the Lebanese University and a psychotherapist for adults and children, including children with special needs. After completing Bachelor and Master’s degrees at the Lebanese University, he studied in Paris and received a PhD in Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology as well as a PhD in Statistics and in Philosophy, specializing in Arabic Philosophy. He has published more than 240 stories for children that have appeared as books and in magazines and has presented his children’s stories on radio and television. Two of his works have been included in the IBBY Honour List: Chijar al achjar (A fight between trees, 2017) in the 2018 Honour List and Aaila jadida (A new family, 2019) in the 2020 Honour List. He currently writes stories that help him understand the world through the eyes of children that are facing problems at home, which he then uses, together with music, as a form of therapy.

Marilar Aleixandre, the pen name of Maria Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre, is a Galician poet, translator and fiction writer – both for young people and adults. Her work has earned her many awards and honours: two of her books were selected for the White Ravens Catalogue, and her translation of The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll was included in the 1998 IBBY Honour List. Her poetry and short stories have been included in anthologies in English, and her young adult novel, A Cabeza da Medusa (2008), about the social abuse following a physical rape, was published in English as Head of Medusa in 2019. Marilar studied biology and then researched science education and critical thinking at the University of Santiago de Compostela, where she is ad honorem Professor. She contributes regularly to literary journals and magazines, has served on several literary juries and has been an invited speaker at book fairs and conferences including Guadalajara, Bologna, Budapest, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. She is active in the Galician section of IBBY Spain and was a member of the IBBY 2010 Congress organizing committee in Santiago de Compostela. She was a member of the IBBY Executive Committee from 2010 to 2014. 

Evelyn Arizpe grew up in Mexico in a bilingual family reading children’s books mainly in English, as at that time there were few books for children in Spanish. Her first degree was in Latin American Literature at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Her interest in children’s literature led to an internship at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany and then to a PhD in Education at the University of Cambridge in the UK. She is currently Professor of Children’s Literature at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and in 2019 was elected President of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature. Her focus in children’s literature has been on picture books and the potential they have for opening dialogue and sharing different points of view. Through her research and teaching programmes as well as courses, conferences and publications she has sought to make connections between the Spanish- and English-speaking worlds of children’s books and reading. She has served as a juror for other children’s literature awards including the VIII Premio Iberoamericano SM de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil in 2012 and the Amnesty/CILIP Honour for Kate Greenaway Medal Shortlists in 2018. She has longstanding links to IBBY in Mexico and the UK, attending all the international Congresses since 2010, as well as hosting IBBY exhibitions at the University of Glasgow.

Mariella Bertelli grew up in Egypt, Italy and Canada and went on to study French and Italian Language and Literature at the Universities  of Florence and of Toronto, followed by an MA in Library Science from University of Toronto. She worked as a children’s librarian at the Toronto Public Library, curating major exhibits, leading workshops in storytelling and puppetry and introducing the traditional Japanese art of Kamishibai storytelling to the library staff and public. She has had a long and diverse career as a storyteller, in English and Italian, that has taken her to festivals and workshops in Canada, USA, Europe and Africa. She has developed and delivered training programs on reading with newcomers and refugees in Rome with IBBY Italia and has been involved in the Reading with Refugees Program with IBBY Canada in Toronto. She has been involved in the IBBY Italia Lampedusa library project since its inception, returning to the island many times. On one such occasion, she initiated another project with the local high school students, translating into Italian the Canadian book, Stormy Seas, Stories of Young Boat Refugees. She has been closely involved with the Silent Books project, bringing the Silent Books Exhibit to Canada where it toured across the country. She has been a jury member for the Elizabeth Mzarik-Cleaver Picture Book Award, the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and the Silent Books Selection. Mariella served on the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Tina Bilban studied at the University of Ljubljana, completing a BSc in Philosophy and Comparative Literature in 2006 and a PhD in Literature Studies in 2009. She has worked as a freelance literature critic, editor, author and translator and at science institutions in Austria in the fields of physics and quantum physics. In the field of literature for children and young adults, her work has focused on the crossroads between contemporary literature, philosophy and science.  Since 2007 she has been a member of the Board that awards the Golden Pear to the best children’s and youth books in Slovenia. As a scholar she has studied, in cooperation with Newcastle University, UK, how complex and difficult topics such as ageing, death and science have been presented in children’s literature. This research led to funding through UNESCO for a project Opening a Dialog on Ageing with Books. She has been a member of IBBY Slovenia since 2010 and has been a Board member since 2016, becoming its President in 2020. Tina served on the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Viviane Ezratty studied history and English at Sorbonne Université and then completed a diploma as librarian, later specialising in children and young adult’s literature. She was the director of the children’s and youth library l’Heure Joyeuse in Paris from 1986 to 2013. Since 2011 she has been the director of the new Parisian public library Françoise Sagan, which now includes the l’Heure Joyeuse historical children’s book section with French and foreign books from the 16th century onwards. She has regularly written book reviews for the Revue des livres pour enfants and several publications abroad and has been a member of the jury for several children’s book prizes in France. Viviane worked with Libraries without Borders in 2011 working with children’s books for Haiti and in 2015 and 2016 on the project “ideas boxes”. She has been a member of IBBY France for thirty years and served on the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Jiwone Lee is an art historian, editor and translator of children’s literature, and curator of exhibitions of children’s books. She began her studies in Korea as a student of Slavic language and literature and went on to study art history in Poland, obtaining an MA and a PhD, to become an art historian specializing in the history of children’s book illustrations. She currently works as a lecturer in the Polish department of the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and at the University of Seoul in the Illustration department of the Graduate School of Design. She has translated 69 books into Korean, mainly children’s literature and picture books from Polish and as an editor has collaborated with several Korean and Polish illustrators. She has organised and curated many events related to children’s picture books, including Korean collective stands at Bologna, art fairs in Seoul and Frankfurt and as art director and curator of the Albus Gallery, which is the only gallery specialising in illustration in Seoul.

Robin Morrow has devoted her working life to children’s literature: as a bookseller, teacher, reviewer and member of judging panels. After studies in English and French at the University of Sydney, she founded The Children’s Bookshop in 1971, which was the first specialist children’s bookshop in New South Wales. She was a prolific reviewer of children and youth books for several Australian newspapers and publications. She returned to university to obtain a postgraduate diploma in Children’s Literature and later a MA and PhD in the field of Literacy and Children’s Literature and went on to teach at several Australian universities and in the USA. Her special interest has been picture books from around the world, research that led her to an internship at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany. She has been a member of award committees for several important Australian children’s book awards including the Children’s Book Council of Australia national awards. Robin was Honorary President of IBBY Australia from 2009 to 2018. She served on the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Jaana Pesonen is a lecturer at the Faculty of Education at the University of Helsinki. Her teaching and research emphasis has been on language and literature, gender sensitivity, critical literacies, intercultural education and anti-racism, and most recently on refugee stories. Her focus has been on picture books and illustration as well as the benefits of reading in early childhood. She has taken part in multiple international seminars and conferences in this field as well as research projects in Finland and abroad and published articles in Finnish and international journals. An active member of IBBY Finland, she has led the reviews committee for IBBY collections and awards and other nominations such as for the ALMA.

Cecilia Ana Repetti was born in Buenos Aires and initially studied literature at the Catholic University of Argentina, followed by studies in editing and publishing at the Buenos Aires University. She worked as an editor at Aique Grupo from 1994 to 2012, specialising in children’s books and was a freelance copywriter and editor for Editorial Albatros from 1998 to 2012. Since 2012 she has been the Children’s and Young Adults Literature Director at SM Argentina, responsible for coordinating several book collections, including El Barco de Vapor and Gran Angular. She is also a member of the El Barco de Vapor and Gran Angular award juries. She has been a committee member of the book fair, Fundación El Libro and has given numerous talks, workshops and presentations on children’s literature and publishing. Cecilia was a member of ALIJA-IBBY Argentina from 2011 to 2015 and she served on the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.