52.

2 (2014)

Special Issue:
2014 Hans Christian Andersen
Award Nominees
The Journal of IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People
Copyright © 2014 by Bookbird, Inc. Reproduction of articles in Bookbird requires permission in writing from the
editor.

Editor: Roxanne Harde, University of Alberta—Augustana Faculty (Canada)

Address for submissions and other editorial correspondence: rharde@ualberta.ca

Bookbird’s editorial office is supported by the Augustana Faculty at the University of Alberta, Camrose, Alberta,
Canada.

Editorial Review Board: Peter E. Cumming, York University (Canada); Debra Dudek, University of Wollongong
(Australia); Libby Gruner, University of Richmond (USA); Helene Høyrup, Royal School of Library & Information
Science (Denmark); Judith Inggs, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa); Ingrid Johnston, University of
Albert, Faculty of Education (Canada); Shelley King, Queen’s University (Canada); Helen Luu, Royal Military
College (Canada); Michelle Martin, University of South Carolina (USA); Beatriz Alcubierre Moya, Universidad
Autónoma del Estado de Morelos (Mexico); Lissa Paul, Brock University (Canada); Laura Robinson, Royal
Military College (Canada); Bjorn Sundmark, Malmö University (Sweden); Margaret Zeegers, University of Ballarat
(Australia);

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IBBY Executive Committee 2012-2014: Ahmad Redza Ahmad Khairuddin (Malaysia), President; Linda Pavonetti
Vice President (USA); Hasmig Chahinian (France), Vice President; Marilar Aleixandre (Spain); Gülçin Alpöge
(Turkey); Nadia El Kholy (Egypt); Kiyoko Matsuoka (Japan), Azucena Galindo (Mexico); Angela Lebedeva (Russia);
Akoss Ofori-mensah (Ghana); Timotea Vrablova (Slovakia), Voting Members; María Jesús Gil (Spain), Andersen
Jury President; Elizabeth Page (Switzerland), Executive Director; Ellis Vance (USA), Treasurer; Roxanne Harde
(Canada), Bookbird Editor.

IBBY may be contacted at Nonnenweg 12 Postfach, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland, tel: +4161 272 29 17
fax: +4161 272 27 57 email: ibby@ibby.org <www.ibby.org>.

Bookbird is indexed in Library Literature, Library and Information Abstracts (LISA), Children’s Book Review Index, and
the MLA International Bibliography.
 The Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2014
A Bookbird Special Issue
Hans Christian Andersen Award Nominees 2014
The Hans Christian Andersen Awards are presented every two years by IBBY (International Board on Books for Young
People) to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important and lasting contribution to
children’s literature. IBBY National Sections from 33 countries submitted the following 28 authors and 30 illustrators
as candidates for the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Awards:

Author Nominees Illustrator Nominees

Argentina: María Cristina Ramos Argentina: Isol
Australia: Nadia Wheatley Australia: Ron Brooks
Austria: Renate Welsh Austria: Linda Wolfsgruber
Azerbaijan: Sevinj Nurugizi Belgium: Carll Cneut
Belgium: Frank Andriat Brazil: Roger Mello
Brazil: Joel Rufino dos Santos Canada: Philippe Béha
Canada: Kenneth Oppel China: Liang Xiong
China: Hongying Yang Croatia: Svjetlan Junaković
Denmark: Lene Kaaberbøl Denmark: Charlotte Pardi
Estonia: Aino Pervik Finland: Pekka Vuori
Finland: Kirsi Kunnas France: François Place
France: Jean-Claude Mourlevat Germany: Rotraut Susanne Berner
Germany: Mirjam Pressler Greece: Daniela Stamatiadi
Greece: Sophia Madouvalou Ireland: PJ Lynch
Iran: Houshang Moradi Kermani Italy: Fabian Negrin
Ireland: Eoin Colfer Japan: Ken Katayama
Italy: Bianca Pitzorno Korea Republic of: Byoung-Ho Han
Japan: Nahoko Uehashi Latvia: Reinis Pētersons
Korea Republic of: Jin-Kyung Kim Netherlands: Marit Törnqvist
Netherlands: Ted van Lieshout Norway: Øyvind Torseter
Norway: Bjørn Sortland Portugal: Teresa Lima
Portugal: António Torrado Russia: Igor Oleinikov
Russia: Vladislav Krapivin Slovakia: Peter Uchnár
Slovakia: Daniel Hevier Slovenia: Alenka Sottler
Slovenia: Polonca Kovač Spain: Javier Zabala
Turkey: Serpil Ural Sweden: Eva Lindström
UK: Jacqueline Wilson Switzerland: Albertine
USA: Jacqueline Woodson Turkey: Saadet Ceylan
UK: John Burningham
USA: Bryan Collier
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | i
 The Hans Christian Andersen Awards
The Hans Christian Andersen Awards are the highest international awards given for children’s literature. The
International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) presents the awards biennially in recognition of a
"lasting contribution to children's literature.”

The awards are given in two categories: authors (presented since 1956), and illustrators (presented since 1966)
and the nominees are judged using the following criteria as a guide:
• The aesthetic and literary qualities of writing and illustrating
• The ability to see things from a child’s point of view
• The ability to stretch the child’s curiosity as well as the child’s literary and creative imagination
• Cultural differences in literary aesthetics are taken into account and appreciated
• Freshness and innovation are a great advantage
• The complete works of the author or illustrator, to date, are taken into consideration

The National Sections of IBBY have the privilege of nominating one candidate for each award. The nominat-
ing section is responsible for presenting an informative dossier that reveals the breadth of the candidate's work
and shows the impact of her/his contributions. In addition to a selection of representative books, the following
documentation is used to appraise each candidate:
• Biographical information on the candidate
• A statement on the candidate's contribution to literature for young people
• Selected appreciative essays, interviews or articles
• A list of awards and other distinctions
• Complete bibliography of the books for children by the candidate
• List of translated editions, and their languages
• Five of the most important titles by the candidate (even if out of print)
• (Published) reviews of the books submitted to the Jury

The Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury selects the award recipients and comprises ten members who are
nominated by the National Sections of IBBY and selected by the IBBY Executive Committee. The members
of IBBY elect a Jury President at its biennial General Assembly: María Jesús Gil was elected the President
of the 2012 and the 2014 Jury. She is currently the coordinator of Reading Programmes for Spain and Latin
America at Foundation SM. She was an elected member of the IBBY Executive Committee (1996-2000) and
Chair of the 32nd IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela in 2010. As Jury President she presides over the
following members of the 2014 international Jury:

Anastasia Arkhipova—Illustrator, chair of the board of the Association of Moscow Book Illustrators and
Designers, Moscow, Russia.
Fanuel Hanan Díaz—Editor, author and researcher, Caracas, Venezuela.
Sabine Fuchs—University lecturer in children’s literature, Graz, Austria.
Sang-Wook Kim—Professor in children’s literature at the Chuncheon National University of Education,
Seoul, Korea.
Enrique Pérez Díaz—Author and publisher, Havana, Cuba.
Deborah Soria—Book-seller and promoter of children’s literature, Rome, Italy.
Susan M. Stan—Professor of children’s literature at the Central Michigan University, USA.
Sahar Tarhandeh—Independent researcher in children’s literature, freelance graphic designer and art director,
Tehran, Iran.
Erik Titusson—Publisher and former Director of the ALMA, Stockholm, Sweden.
Ayfer Gürdal Ünal—Writer, critic, and lecturer at the Bhosphorous University, Istanbul, Turkey.

The Jury President will guide the judging process and preside at the jury meeting 15-16 March 2014. The
shortlist will be disseminated immediately following the Jury meeting and the winners will be announced at
the IBBY Press Conference at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair on Monday, 24 March 2014.

ii | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Editorial
“Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the
beat keep time with short steps.”
Hans Christian Andersen
Bookbird Editor
Dear Bookbird Readers,

T
his issue of Bookbird brings to its readers some of the very
best authors and illustrators of children’s literature from
around the world. Thirty-three national sections of IBBY
have nominated their best authors and/or illustrators of books for
children for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. This award is
given to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have
made a lasting contribution to children’s literature. Once the nomi-
nations have been made, a distinguished, multilingual, interna-
tional jury of children’s literature specialists reads a selection of
books by each nominee and decides on the winners. Up until 2008,
the Andersen Awards were supported by Nissan Motor Co. and
since 2009, Nami Island Inc. has generously extended a long-term
sponsorship of the awards.
The Andersen Awards are some of the oldest awards for children’s
literature. The Author’s Award has been issued since 1956 and the
Illustrator’s Award was added 1966. Even today, most awards for
children’s literature are limited to a single country, language, year of
publication and/or book. Truly international awards for children’s
Roxanne Harde is an Associate Professor
of English and a McCalla University
Professor at the University of Alberta,
Augustana Faculty. She studies and
teaches American literature and culture.
She has recently published Walking
the Line: Country Music Lyricists and
American Culture (Lexington 2013), and
her essays have appeared in several
journals, including International Research
in Children’s Literature, The Lion and
the Unicorn, Christianity and Literature,
Legacy, Jeunesse, Critique, Feminist
Theology, and Mosaic, and several edited
collections, including Enterprising Youth
and To See the Wizard.

© 2014 by Bookbird, Inc.

editorial

authors and illustrators are still rare. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial
Award, founded in 2002, has been a welcome addition to the interna-
tional recognition of the importance of authors and illustrators of chil-
dren’s literature.
The Andersen Awards offer a prestigious acknowledgement of an
individual’s life work. Simply being nominated for the award is a huge
merit, and also a way for the national IBBY sections to thank their
authors and illustrators for the many hours of hard work they have spent
producing these remarkable books (and often working with children
and novice authors and/or illustrators). As editor of this issue, my task
was to provide short introductions to each of the nominees and their
work, which I have done with the help of colleagues and
talented graduate students who are training in the
field of children’s literature. Since June 2013,
copies of the very best books by each of the
nominees have been arriving for us to
read and enjoy. Unlike the jurors, we do
not have to make the agonizing deci-
sion as to which nominees are most
worthy of the prizes. Like the chil-
dren for whom they are intended,
we can enjoy the books without
any sense that they compete with
one another.
All the authors and illustra-
tors nominated for the prize are
already winners. And by this I
don’t just mean that they have won
prizes in their respective countries,
although most of them have. Like
Hans Christian Andersen, these authors
and illustrators have produced books that
have touched the lives and hearts of children
and adults alike. Andersen’s continuing, pervasive,
and international influence was never clearer to me than
when a high school exchange student from northern China needed to
explain the extreme sensitivity of her skin. Casting about for an appro-
priate metaphor or cultural referent, she finally hit upon something we
would understand as she declared, “I’m like the princess and the pea,
only with soap instead of mattresses!” I feel certain that children from
around the world, when searching for ways to understand and express
their experiences and themselves, rely on these authors and illustrators
who follow Andersen, who make their beat, in words and pictures, keep
time with short steps.
Publication of this issue was made possible in part through a gift
from Nami Island Inc. in the Republic of Korea. IBBY gratefully
acknowledges their support of the Hans Christian Andersen Awards.

iv | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 author nominee: Argentina

María Cristina Ramos

Argentina ★ Author
“Contact with children always moves me toward writing. It is good to see
the relationship that children have with books, a personal link. I talk about
books that they like and they tell me about what resonates with them. This
interaction makes me aware of the responsibility of the writer and the
respect children deserve, always.”
María Cristina Ramos

Born in San Rafael, Mendoza Province, in 1952 Award for Children’s Fantasy, sponsored by
María Cristina Ramos moved to Neuquén, UNICEF, in 1997 for Un bosque en cada esquina
Patagonia upon completing her education. She [A Forest at Each Corner]. Her books have made
published her first book for children, a book of several honor lists, and have been translated
poetry titled Un sol para tu sombrero [A Sun for into Chinese, Korean, English, and Portuguese,
Your Hat] in 1988. As a Professor of Education and her work is studied at several universities in
who has trained teachers for more than twenty Argentina, at the undergraduate and graduate
years in the classroom and work- levels. Ramos continues to offer
shops, Ramos also writes peda- Spanish-speaking children a
gogical texts; her most recent is wide variety of books, including
La casa del aire, literatura en la narrative and poetry aimed at
escuela [The House of the Air, many age groups.
Literature at the School]. Ramos
has presided several times on the Roxanne Harde
jury of the Patagonian Contest
for Literature, Fine Arts and
Photography, organized by the
Foundation of Neuquén Provin-
cial Bank, and she served for
nearly a decade at the Provin-
cial Department of Culture in
Patagonia. In 2002, she founded
the publishing house Editorial
Ruedamares, and continues to
direct its operations.
With over fifty titles to date, Ramos’s books
have been nominated for many awards, and she
has won several of them, including the Antonior-
robles Latin American Competition, organized
by IBBY Mexico/A Leer for Coronas y galeras
[Crowns and Top Hats], and the First National

Selected Bibliography
• Azul la cordillera [Blue, the Mountain Chain]. Buenos Aires: Norma, 1995. Print.
• La luna lleva un silencio [The Moon Carried a Silence]. Madrid: Anaya, 2005; Buenos Aires: Aique, 2009. Print.
• Mientras duermen las piedras [Meanwhile the Stones Are Sleeping]. Buenos Aires: Edelvives, 2009. Print.
• Ruedamares, Pirata de la mar bravía [Wheel-seas, Pirate of the Brave Sea]. Buenos Aires: Siete Vacas, 1997. Print.
• El trasluz [Against the Light]. Buenos Aires: SM, 2013. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 1
Illustrator nominee: Argentina

Isol
Argentina ★ Illustrator
“But the golden rule for me is not to let the book close by directing your eyes
towards a single conclusion, never closing the metaphor in a symbol so as
not to kill the life of the book, having respect for the reader as an equal in a
conversation in which I’m simply putting forward my impressions, not as
someone I’m teaching.”
Isol

Winner of the 2013 Astrid Lindgren Memorial the White Ravens list in 2004; and Tic Tac won
Award, Isol (Marisol Misenta) has had a short the Golden Apple Award in Slovakia. Isol’s art
career that has been both prolific and notable. has been exhibited in Chile, Argentina, Spain,
Born in 1972 in Buenos Aires, Isol studied at Germany, Italy, Sweden, Japan, and Slovakia.
the Escuela Nacional “Rogelio Yrurtia” and the From the strong strokes and woodblock tech-
University of Buenos Aires. While she planned niques of her first books to the finer lines and
to become an art teacher, she quickly began to subtler coloring of her current projects, Isol offers
work full-time illustrating and writing books for a spare and unique vision of the world to chil-
children, and her first book, dren. Her signature condensed
Vida de perros [A Dog’s Life] color palette and color that
was published in 1997. Since breaks out of the lines signal
then, Isol devotes her time and the unexpected aspects of her
talent to writing, illustrating, stories told in art and words.
and designing books for chil- Isol also plays with perspec-
dren, and to illustrating texts tive, building asymmetric rela-
written by others, including tionships between children
Paul Auster, Graciela Montes, and adults or children and the
and Jorge Luján. Her work natural world. Her art encour-
has been published in Mexico, ages children to look harder, to
the United States, France, ask more questions, and to have
Korea, Switzerland, Spain, fun with their books.
and Argentina. In addition,
she publishes illustrations in Roxanne Harde
newspapers, writes and illustrates graphic novels
and comics, leads workshops for illustrators, and
sings professionally as a performer and recording
artist. As well as winning the ALMA, Isol’s
work has won numerous awards: Nocturno won
awards in Venezuela, Argentina, and Mexico; El
cuento de navidad de Auggie Wren [Auggie Wren’s
Christmas Story] with text by Paul Auster made

Selected Publications
• La Bella Griselda [Beautiful Griselda]. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010. Print.
• El Globo [The Balloon]. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2004. Print.
• Nocturno [Nocturne]. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2011. Print.
• Tener un patito es útil [It’s Useful to Have a Duck]. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007. Print.
• Vida de perros [Dog’s Life]. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1998. Print

2 | bookbird IBBY.ORG

Nadia Wheatley
Australia ★ Author
Nadia Wheatley, born in 1949, grew up in Sydney,
Australia, where she began her writing career. She
began an English degree at Sydney University
in 1988, but switched to a major in History and
graduated in 1976. She went on to earn an MA
Honours degree from Macquarie University. Her
first children’s book, Five Times Dizzy, published in
1982, was loosely based on her experiences living
in Greece and later Newtown, and its success
launched her career in children’s books. Since then,
she has collaborated with many
illustrators, creating profound
works of fiction and non-fiction
for young readers. She collabo-
rates, often through workshops,
with Indigenous, multicultural,
and disabled communities in
order to produce literature that is
accessible to individuals from all
walks of life. For over thirty years,
Wheatley has dedicated herself to literature for
young people, and her passion for history, culture,
and inclusivity permeates her literary oeuvre.
Wheatley’s work has earned various awards
in a number of categories, ranging from personal
achievement awards to international children’s
book awards. In 1988, My Place won the Children’s
Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for
Young Readers award, along with the Inaugural
Eve Pownall Award for Non-Fiction. Wheatley
also won the NSW Premier’s History Award for
Selected Bibliography
• Australians All: A History of Growing Up from the Ice Age to the Apology. Illus. Ken Searle. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2013. Print.
• The House that Was Eureka. New York: Viking, 1985. Print.
• Luke’s Way of Looking. 1999. Illus. Matt Ottley. Sydney: Walker, 2012. Print.
• My Place. 1987. Illus. Donna Rawlins. Sydney: Walker, 2008. Print.
• Papunya School Book of Country and History. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2001. Print.
IBBY.ORG
author nominee: Australia
Papunya School Book of Country and History in
2002, and the 2008 Speech Pathology Book of the
Year Award for Going Bush. Her books have also
been translated into French, German, and Korean,
allowing her works to transcend geographical
boundaries just as they do cultural ones.
Wheatley’s texts often focus on the marginal-
ized and silenced voices of history, and she works
to retell historical narratives from the perspec-
tive of poor or dispossessed children. History
and social conscience fuels her
work, and she is deeply devoted
to representing multicultural
voices in her storybooks. Books
such as The Papunya School Book
of Country and History and Play-
ground engage with Indigenous
experience in Australia, and, as
Margaret Dunkle notes in her
review in Viewpoint 9.3, func-
tion as “a blueprint for […] a culturally sensitive,
racially reconciled Australia” (32). Wheatley’s work
takes on difficult and oftentimes emotional subject
matter, but the grace, sensitivity, and inventive-
ness of her writing allows her to deal with these
issues in a manner relatable to children. Her works
are tremendously important, and her passion for
historical, inclusive, and genuinely exciting litera-
ture continues to inspire and educate her readers.
Samantha Christensen
52.2 – 2014 | 3
Illustrator nominee: Australia

Ron Brooks
Australia ★ Illustrator
“I began to think of the picture-book form as almost some kind of theatre, a
theatre in which the reader sits, quietly absorbed, while there before them …
a whole world opens up.”
Ron Brooks

Ron Brooks has been creating resonant illustrative
works for the past forty years, and he has asserted
himself as one of the most influential Australian
illustrators. Born in Pambula, NSW, Australia
in 1948, Brooks has always been in touch with
his artistic side, spending his childhood drawing
the nature in which he was immersed. Practicing
techniques in book illustration, painting, print-
making, and sculpture, he currently lives in the
Huon Valley in Tasmania, and he
is open about his difficult path to
artistic success. Brooks majored
in Illustration at the Swinburne
Institute of Technology and
Royal Melbourne Institute from
1964 to 1969, and soon after
began freelancing in publishing
and advertising. He published his
first children’s picturebook, The
Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek (text by Jenny Wagner)
in 1973, which launched his career in illustration,
winning a number of awards and having been
translated into several languages.
Brooks has a knack for delving deep into chil-
dren’s narratives and bringing to life unwritten
stories embedded in the texts. He is masterful in
his ability to distinguish the themes and tones
of the stories he illustrates, and brings these
emotional responses to life through captivating
and expressive imagery. Brooks’s work seems to
leap from the page, and his firm grasp of color
and its interconnectedness with textual mood
allow him to express the deepest emotional
responses to the narratives he illustrates. His art
deals with a wide variety of themes, ranging from
betrayal, grief, and regret to friendship, freedom,
and identity, and while he often expresses serious
and difficult aspects of human life, he does so
with artistic grace and absorbing images. Brooks
has a signature style—colorful, textured back-
grounds with thick brushstrokes
and prominent line work—but
his passion for expressing the
deep emotional undertones of
the text makes each of his works
unique.
Brooks’s first literary award
was the Children’s Book Council
of Australia’s Picture Book of
the Year Award for The Bunyip of
Berkeley’s Creek in 1974, and many more followed.
He was on the Honors List of the Guardian
Award for Children’s Literature in 1978 for John
Brown and Rose and the Midnight Cat, and won
the IBBY Brazilian Section Best Translation for
Children Award in 2006 for Fox. His picture-
books have been translated into many languages,
including Chinese, Serbian, Mongolian, Hebrew,
and German, and his works continue to influence
young readers in Australia and beyond.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• The Coat. Text Julie Hunt. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2012. Print.
• The Dream. Text Margaret Wild. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2011. Print.
• Fox. 2000. Text Margaret Wild. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2010. Print.
• Old Pig. 1995. Text Margaret Wild. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2009. Print.
• On the Day You Were Born. Text Margaret Wild. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2013. Print.

4 | bookbird IBBY.ORG

Renate Welsh
Austria ★ Author
© Hladej Klein
Renate Welsh often describes her childhood
as being an unhappy one—the early deaths
of her mother and grandfather, along with
living through WWII, left her struggling with
emotional damage. Early on, she began working
through her traumatic experiences by writing,
and by the time she entered high school she was
well on her way to a successful
career as an author. Welsh began a
post-secondary degree in English in
1955, but left her studies after her
marriage in 1956 and began working
for the British Council in Vienna.
She wrote her first book, Der Enkel
des Löwenjägers [The Lion Hunter’s
Grandson], during a hospital stay
in 1968, and after its success Welsh
began working full-time as a writer.
Over the past 42 years, she has
published over fifty books, and has
managed to do so while also contrib-
uting to many literary projects and collectives.
Through her writing, Welsh works to offer
voices to those who cannot be heard on their
own—her stories often take on drug addiction,
immigrants, and marginalized groups. Her ability
to transform realistic experiences into literary
narrative is masterful, and she relates to her young
readers through real-life conflict and emotional
strife. Books such as Johana and In die Waagschale
geworfen. Österreicher im Widerstand [Thrown into
Selected Bibliography
• Besuch aus der Vergangenheit [Visit from the Past]. Wien: Obelisk, 1999. Print.
• Dieda oder das fremde Kind [That Girl or the Strange Child]. Wien: Obelisk, 2002. Print.
• Dr. Chickensoup. St. Pölten: Residenz, 2011. Print.
• Johanna. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 2002. Print.
• Sonst bist du dran [Or Else It’ll Be You]. Würzburg: Arena, 2011. Print.
IBBY.ORG
author nominee: Austria
the Scales: Austrians in the Resistance Move-
ment] are drawn from true experiences of survi-
vors and their families, and Welsh narrates their
stories with sincerity and attention to detail. Given
her difficult childhood, Welsh is able to express
emotional struggle in situations of conflict and
crisis, and her narratives often feature child char-
acters searching for identity in the
midst of traumatic experience. Her
young readers are able to connect
with the characters in her novels
and in turn can learn suitable coping
strategies. For Welsh, childhood
takes on the form of a “hurdle race”
toward the future, and, in turn, her
characters often take on the greatest
hurdle of them all—that of truly
finding themselves.
Welsh’s stories not only influence
Austrian children’s search for iden-
tity, but also those of children around
the world. Over the years her books have been
translated into a number of languages, including
Spanish, Danish, French, and Afrikaans, and have
accumulated several awards. Welsh’s contributions
to young people are not limited to her literature, as
she runs workshops for disabled young people, and
she continues to impact her young readers through
realistic yet sensitive representations of marginal-
ized individuals and groups.
Samantha Christensen
52.2 – 2014 | 5
Illustrator nominee: Austria

Linda Wolfsgruber
Austria ★ Illustrator
“I have a particular desire to put something new into each book.”

Linda Wolfsgruber

Linda Wolfsgruber was born in the town of
Bruneck, Italy in 1961. After completing her
formal education in art, typesetting, and graphic
design (both in Italy and Germany), she began
work as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer.
Her focus on international work and school proj-
ects is important both to her art and to fostering
a love of art in others. She encour-
ages children to participate in her
own creative process at the schools
and cultural institutions she visits
as a way to encourage their own
creativity. Wolfsgruber also spent
an extended time in Tehran, where
she worked with female artists,
students, and children. She also
worked on a project where she
illustrated African stories with the
aid of Austrian children, and the
results were presented at exhibits
in Austria and Switzerland.
Wolfsgruber uses mixed media
methods, which allow her work to transcend
boundaries and realize the limitless possibili-
ties of illustration. She uses methods of drawing,
painting, spraying paint on paper, physically
cutting out and gluing images on paper, crafting
miniatures, and connecting the methods of
painting and drawing together. For example, Wie
war das am Anfang [How Was It in the Begin-
ning] queries visual spaces, as illustrations are
assembled on several levels of transparent paper.
Her illustrations in Der Elefant und Schmetter-
ling [The Elephant and the Butterfly] likewise
highlight multi-level illustrations that draw from
many modes of presentation. As well, Zwei x
Zwirn [Two Times Thread] traces the journey
of a spool of thread throughout the pages of
the illustrated book, the path
of which Wolfsgruber controls
through both narration and illus-
tration. Over the course of her
career, she has made the transition
from a picaresque style to illustra-
tions infused with ambiguity and
movement.
Wolfsgruber’s books have been
translated into 17 languages. She
has been awarded many honors,
including seven Austrian Chil-
dren’s and Juvenile Book Awards,
three Children’s and Juvenile Book
Awards of the City of Vienna for
Illustration, and the Josef Binder Award for Illus-
tration. She has also participated in international
exhibits. She currently lives in Vienna, where
she designs covers for books and CDs, provides
illustrations for newspapers and magazines, and
continues her career as an illustrator of children’s
books.
Taylor Kraayenbrink

Selected Publications
• Daisy ist ein Gänseblüchen [Daisy Is a Flower]. Vienna: Jungbrunnen, 2009. Print.
• Der Elefant und her Schmetterling [The Elephant and the Butterfly]. Text E.E. Cummings. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg
Verlag, 2013. Print.
• Das Meer ist riesengrob [The Ocean Is as Big as the Sea]. Text Inge Fasan. Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz, 2007. Print.
• Das Nacht-ABC [The Night ABC]. Düsseldorf: Sauerländer, 2006. Print.
• Zwei x Zwirn [Two Times Thread]. Linda Wolfsgruber. Düsseldorf: Sauerländer, 2005. Print.
6 | bookbird IBBY.ORG

Sevinj Nurugizi
Azerbaijan ★ Author
Born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1964, Sevinj Nuruguzi
has earned her identity as one of the most promi-
nent children’s authors in Azerbaijan. Her writing
career began relatively late in her adulthood, her
first book, Çərpələng [Kite], being published in
2002, and since then she has published close to
fifty children’s texts in Azerbaijani. A member
of both the Azerbaijani Journalists’ Union and
the Azerbaijani Writer’s Union, Nuruguzi takes
her writing career seriously, and she
works to ground her young readers
in Azerbaijani experience through
the magic realism of her stories.
She garners trust in her readers by
paying close attention to detail and
reflecting their interests and everyday
lives respectfully and accurately.
Nuruguzi is dedicated to the role
of literature in childhood develop-
ment, and her work provides relatable
yet whimsical stories approachable to
readers at various stages of develop-
ment. She is masterful in her ability
to create relatable protagonists, and her young
readers can easily relate to the heroes in her stories.
Often implementing themes of friendship, loyalty,
and the magic of childhood, Nuruguzi develops
deep and meaningful relationships with her child
readers and manages to spread positive messages
without an air of didacticism. Not only does she
relate to children through her literature, but she
Selected Bibliography
• Aghja and Juppulu. Trans. Tomiris Babanly. Baku: Təhsil, 2009. Print.
• Aysu and the Moon. Baku: Təhsil, 2009. Print.
• Bapbalaca əlifba [Tiny Alphabet]. Baku: Aspoliqraf, 2010. Print.
• Ciya ilə iki gün [Two Days with Jiya]. Baku: Oskar, 2007. Print.
• Xortumlu dağ [The Mountain with a Trunk]. Baku: Aspoliqraf, 2010. Print.
IBBY.ORG
author nominee: Azerbaijan
also makes connections with young readers in
her everyday life, spending time discussing books
in children’s libraries and actively participating
in children’s book festivals. Children’s libraries
all over the country feature Nuruguzi’s poetry,
picturebooks, and children’s novels, and two of
her plays, Revenge and Dolls, have been staged by
the State Drama Theatre of Agdam and the State
Puppet Theater of Salyan. She also tells stories on
her radio program, “Chokhibilmish,”
which is a well-loved program among
Azerbaijani children. Nuruguzi is
passionate about developing posi-
tive worldviews in her child readers,
and she does so by creating magical
narratives embedded in the everyday
experiences of Azerbaijani children.
Over the course of her prolific twelve-
year career, Nuruguzi has earned
several awards and distinctions. In
2002, the year she began publishing
children’s literature, she won the
Laureate of Tofig Mahmudov Prize
for the Azerbaijani Writers’ Union Best Work For
Children, and she has recently won the Associa-
tion of New Writers and Artists’ National Prize
on Culture for Bapbalaca əlifba [Tiny Alphabet].
Her works have also been translated into Russian
and English.
Samantha Christensen
52.2 – 2014 | 7
author nominee: Belgium
Frank Andriat
Belgium ★ Author
Throughout the course of his near thirty-year career,
Frank Andriat has written over twenty young adult
novels that have made their way into the hearts of
young people across Belgium and France. Born
in Ixelles, a district in Brussels, in 1958, Andriat
studied philology at the Free University of Brus-
sels and began writing in his early adulthood. He
founded a magazine, Cyclope, with his peers in
1973. Since 1978, Andriat has dedicated himself
to writing novels, short stories, and
essays for adults and teens, and,
as a secondary school teacher at
Athénée communal Fernand Blum
in Schaerbeek, he is particularly
invested in the lives of young people.
Since publishing his first teen novel,
Le Journal de Jamilla [ Jamilla’s
Diary] in 1986, Andriat has been
beloved among young Belgian and
French readers, and he continues to
delve into the issues faced by young
people all over the world.
Andriat works to give voice
to marginalized groups and individuals, and his
texts connect to young readers by dealing with the
deepest and most difficult issues they face on a
daily basis. His novels make connections between
individuals of differing backgrounds, lifestyles,
cultures, and social positions. Through open-
minded narration and literary events that mirror
the everyday lives of adolescents, Andriat finds a
Selected Bibliography
• Je voudrais que tu… [I Would Like It if You…]. Paris: Grasset-Jeunesse, 2011. Print.
• Journal de Jamila [Jamila’s Diary]. 1986. Namur: Mijade, 2008. Print.
• Rose afghane [Afghan Rose]. Namur: Mijade, 2012. Print.
• Tabou [Taboo]. 2003. Namur: Mijade, 2008. Print
• Depuis ta mort [Since Your Death]. Paris: Grasset-Jeunesse, 2004. Print.
8 | bookbird
way to speak to all of his readers, and teens are
able to identify themselves in his characters. He is
able to chip away at stereotypes attributed to his
characters, leaving behind only bare human nature,
and he tackles issues of homophobia and racism
with insight and sensitivity. Andriat does not
censor his characters; his primary purpose for his
novels is to mirror real life, and that means incor-
porating the language of various social classes and
groups. Choosing not to remove
the reader from realistic situations,
he has earned trust from young
people across the social spectrum
in Belgium, and he is appreciated
for his ability to give voice to young
people who are typically silenced.
Andriat’s work has been nomi-
nated and awarded with various
French and Belgian literary awards,
nominations for the Prix Farniente
(Belgium) and the Prix des incor-
ruptibles (France) in 2004. His
novel Aurore Barbare [Barbarian
Darwin] is showcased in the White Ravens Collec-
tion at the International Youth Library in Munich,
and won the Paul Hurtmans Prize in 2012. His
books have sold tens of thousands of copies, and he
continues to help struggling youth in France and
Belgium find their voices through sympathetic and
accessible literary characters.
Samantha Christensen
IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Belgium

Carll Cneut
Belgium ★ Illustrator
“I can’t help fiddling with my pictures, day in, day out, almost like a man
possessed.”
Carll Cneut

Born in 1969 and the eldest of three children, boundaries of children’s book illustrations. Often
Carll Cneut grew up in a small village on the incorporating cut-out images from other print
Belgian-French border. From an early age, it media in his illustrations, Cneut says that he likes
was clear that his life would be dedicated to art, to “show that those characters have a life before
and Cneut studied graphic design at the Saint- the book.” He is also passionate about color, and
Lucas Arts School in Gent. After a successful before beginning his illustrations he chooses
academic career at Saint-Lucas, he went on to a palette that complements and enhances the
work as an art director at a public agency, and the mood and theme of the story. While he adapts
publication of his first illus- color to suit the story he is
trative success, Varkentjes illustrating, he manages to
van Marsepein [Piglets of project consistent elements
Marzipan] (1996), marked of mystery and darkness
the beginning of his career in through his images, and
children’s book illustrations. draws readers into the
Collaborating with Flemish depths of visual literary
author Geert De Kockere, experience.
Cneut went on to illustrate Over the course of his
six more picturebooks, and career, Cneut has earned
by 2000 he was illustrating an impressive number of
full time. Currently, he awards, including a Gouden
teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Uil, the Woutertje Pieterse Prize, two Boeken-
and he contributes frequently to many children’s pauw awards, three Boekenpluims, and a Zilveren
and adult magazines. He was also a member of Penseel. His picturebooks have also been trans-
the International Jury for Illustrators Exhibition lated into thirty languages, thereby influencing
at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2011. children from all over the world.
Rather than focusing on publishing a large
amount of books in short periods of time, Cneut Samantha Christensen
focuses primarily on the quality of his work, often
taking painstaking measures in order to ensure
absolute perfection. His artistic style pushes the

Selected Bibliography
• De blauwe vogel [The Blue Bird]. Ed. Maurice Maeterlinck and Do van Ranst. Wielsbeke: De Eenhoorn, 2011. Print.
• Jack and the Seven Deadly Giants. Text Sam Swope. New York: Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 2004. Print.
• Het geheim van de keel van de nachtegaal [The Secret of the Nightingale’s Throat]. Text Edward van Vendel. Wielsbeke:
De Eenhoorn, 2008. Print.
• Ten Moonstruck Piglets. Text Lindsay Lee Johnson. New York: Clarion, 2011. Print.
• Varkentjes van Marsepein [Piglets of Marzipan]. Text Geert De Kockere. Wielsbeke: De Eenhoorn, 1996. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 9
author nominee: Brazil

Joel Rufino dos Santos

Brazil ★ Author

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1941, Joel Rufino dos
Santos boasts an exciting and eventful career. As
a young man, he was inspired by the Bible, comic
books, and his grandmother, who was a popular
storyteller. Reading was an immensely important
activity in his household, and given the fact that
he was born during World War II
to an outspoken socialist father,
political literature was a topic
of much discussion. His father’s
political leanings, along with
his family’s connection to litera-
ture, impacted his later interest in
history and sociology, and during
the political upheaval in Brazil in
the early sixties, he took courses in
History at the Faculdade Nacional
de Filosofia. During his time as
a student, Rufino co-authored a
volume of Brazilian historiography,
and was exiled to Bolivia and Chile until 1965 for
his political views. Upon returning he earned his
PhD in Communication and Culture.
A professor and researcher of history, Rufino
often immerses his readers in rich historical narra-
tive, incorporating Brazilian folklore and cultural
narratives, especially those originating in Africa.
He adapts these stories to suit the child reader
with grace and attention to detail, and uses humor
to evoke meaning. Rufino is passionate about
informing his child readers of the political, social,
and historical backgrounds of Brazilian culture,
and does so in a way that is both approachable
and exciting. He does not target one particular age
group—Rufino masterfully writes texts for each
stage of youth, and is able to make
connections with young people
from differing cultural and histor-
ical backgrounds. He takes on deli-
cate issues such as racism, arranged
marriage, political strife, and labor
exploitation with sensitivity and
expertise.
As both an essayist and a chil-
dren’s writer, Rufino has earned
many awards and distinctions.
Most recently, he won the Jabuti
Best Book of the Year Award for O
barbeiro e o judeu da prestação contra o
sargento da motocicleta [The Barber and the Peddler
Jewish Man Against the Sergeant on the Motor-
cycle]. He also won the Orígenes Lessa’s Best
Book for Young People Award in 2000, and was
on the IBBY Honor List in 1981. He writes novels,
short stories, and magazine articles for children,
which have been translated into various languages,
including English, French, Japanese, and Arabic.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• O caçador de lobisomem [The Werewolf ’s Hunter]. 1976. Illus. Rogéro Borges. São Paulo: Global, 2009. Print.
• Uma estranha aventura em Talalai [A Strange Adventure on Talalai]. 1977. Illus. Jonatas Tobias. São Paulo: Global,
2012. Print. O grande pecadode Lampião e sua terrível peleja par entrar no Céu [The Great Sin of Lampião and His Terrible
Fight to Get into Heaven]. Illus. Jô Oliviera. Belo Horizonte: Dimensão, 2005. Print.
• El sabor de África: Historias de aquí y de allà [A Taste of Africa: Tales]. 1998. Illus. Cláudia Scatamacchia. São Paulo:
Global, 2013. Print
• Quando eu voltei, tive uma surpresa [When I Came Back I Had a Surprise]. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2000. Print.
10 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Brazil

Roger Mello
Brazil ★ Illustrator
“Illustration is the possibility of investigating narrative elements that pass
through the graphic experience.”
Roger Mello

Born in Brasília in 1965, Roger Mello has built
an influential career as an illustrator, writer, and
playwright. Over the course of his two-decade
career, he has illustrated over a hundred titles—
twenty-two of which he also wrote—and his
unique style and adroit sense of color continues
to push the boundaries of children’s book illus-
tration. He pursued an education in
design, and earned a degree in ESDI/
UERJ Industrial Design and Digital
Programming from the Higher
School for Industrial Design at Rio
de Janeiro State University. Growing
up with a passion for drawing and
literature, Mello dedicated his life to
exploring the history and culture of
Brazil through children’s illustrated
stories, and rather than relying on
written narrative to tell the story, he invites his
young readers to fill the gaps with imagination.
Mello’s striking use of color and intricate design
captivates his viewers and leaves them thinking
about his images long after viewing them. It is
impossible to glance briefly at Mello’s art; each
viewing of his intricate and colorful works brings
to the surface different viewing experiences, and
he has a knack for drawing his readers/viewers
into his images. The textures, vibrant colors, and
depth of his illustrations provide a stimulating
and engaging experience, and Mello is able to
draw connections between his narratives and the
nature surrounding them through his images. He
is passionate about storytelling, and he does not
underestimate the developing understandings of
children. He avoids heavy didactic or moralizing
overtones, and instead encourages his readers to
draw their own conclusion based on the images
and narrative at hand.
Mello has won a number of
national and international awards
for both his writing and illustrations,
including three Brazilian section of
IBBY’s Luís Jardim Awards, nine
Concours Best Illustration Awards,
and the Best Children’s Book 2002
International Award for Meninos do
mangue. He has also been a part of
numerous international children’s
book fairs, and from November
2011 to February 2012 his work was exhibited
in the Internationala Jugendbibliothek at the
Blutenburg castle in Munich, Germany. This
same collection is currently on display as part
of the Internationala Jugendbibliothek Itinerant
Exhibitions project until December 2014. Mello’s
illustrations continue to inspire his young readers,
providing them with familiar and approachable
images while encouraging imagination to fill in
the narrative gaps, and he works to capture the
mysteries of childhood through rich, vibrant
imagery.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Carvoeirinhos. São Paulo: Companhia das Letrinhas, 2009. Print.
• Jardins [Gardens]. Text Roseana Murray. Rio de Janeiro: Manati, 2001. Print.
• João por um fio [John by a Thread]. São Paulo: Companhia das Letrinhas, 2005. Print.
• Meninos do mangue [Boys’ Mangrove]. São Paulo: Companhia das Letrinhas, 2011. Print.
• Zubair e os labarintos [Zubair and the Mazes]. São Paulo: Companhia das Letrinhas, 2007. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 11
author nominee: Canada
Kenneth Oppel
Canada ★ Author
“A good book should first and foremost entertain and give pleasure, but a
great book also makes its reader consider (or reconsider) difficult issues.”
The beginning of Kenneth Oppel’s career as an au-
thor of children’s literature was auspicious indeed.
At the age of fourteen, he finished his first com-
plete story, and a family friend who was acquainted
with Roald Dahl sent him the manuscript. Dahl
liked what he read so much that he helped get the
manuscript published through his own agent. The
result was Colin’s Fantastic Video
Adventure, which was published
when Opel was only seventeen
years old. Opel’s career has never
faltered since this first success.
Oppel’s success is no accident.
His writings for children and
young adults fall in the realm of
fantasy literature, especially ste-
ampunk. All of his novels are care-
fully researched and methodically
outlined before they are written.
Although Oppel values his orga-
nized approach, he acknowledges
that much of his most engaging
writing ends up being a calculated
deviation from these outlines: “[I]nevitably, as you
write, you take all sorts of detours, and those are
often the most inspired and original parts of the
book.”
Oppel’s oeuvre has developed with every pub-
lication since his first in 1985, his breakout as an
acclaimed author came in 1997 with Silverwing.
Since then critics and readers in general have
Selected Bibliography
• Colin’s Fantastic Video Adventure. Harmondsworth: Puffin, 1985. Print.
• Half Brother. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2010. Print.
• Silverwing. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1997. Print.
• Such Wicked Intent. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2012. Print.
• This Dark Endeavour: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2011. Print.
12 | bookbird
Kenneth Oppel
followed him closely. In Canada, Oppel has won
the Governor General’s Award, the Canadian Li-
brary Association’s Award, and the Vicky Metcalfe
Award for Children’s Literature. Oppel pleases his
many fans by releasing quality novels at a steady
rate. In 28 years of writing he has published 27
books, and his 28th is on its way to the presses.
As a busy family man with
three children and a prolific writ-
ing career, Oppel has been a very
focused author, whose criteria in
self-assessment is that the result
of his labor is a good story that
people enjoy. He has publicly
balked at the notion of writing
an ideologically charged work for
children. Oppel works in writing
to support his family, and to that
extent he works to write litera-
ture that is both thoughtful and
enjoyable. Many of his novels
demonstrate an engagement with
issues of ethical human relation to
technological developments in the world. Recent
novels in the Frankenstein series have been wildly
successful examples of Oppel’s visceral and incisive
engagement with contemporary issues.
Taylor Kraayenbrink
IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Canada

Philippe Béha
Canada ★ Illustrator

Philippe Béha is a dedicated advocate for the
benefits of Canadian bilingualism. Born in 1950
in Casablanca, Morocco, Béha immigrated with
his parents to France when he was three. Béha
attended university in France: the prestigious
école des Beaux-arts de Strasbourg (Strasbourg
Fine Arts School). Philippe has lived in Canada
since 1976, when he came to work as a graphic
artist for Radio-Quebec.
Béha has published over 170
children’s books, flourishing as
an English and French language
author and illustrator. He often
publishes books as both the
author and illustrator, and his
stories are beloved internation-
ally. However, Béha has been
especially noted for his distinc-
tive illustration talent. The
Montreal Gazette has described
his work this way: “Whether
you’re looking at one of the cartoonish, round-
nosed characters in his preschool picture books
or the more detailed, mixed-media, sophisticated
art gracing his posters, magazine work or books
for older readers, there’s no mistaking a Béha
illustration.” Béha deftly succeeds in maintaining
variety in his style; however, there is certainly a
notable Béha touch to all of his work. Although
Béha has mastered the art of soft edges and warm,
appealing colors, his most notable illustrations
are oddly and invitingly cubist.
Béha’s success as a Canadian illustrator/author
is widely and publicly noted. His work was the
centerpiece of the Toronto Dominion Bank’s
book giveaway program in 2012, when every first
grade child in Canada received his book I’ve Lost
My Cat. Béha’s work is also beloved in Mexico,
Korea, and the USA.
As a children’s illustrator and
author, Béha strongly believes
in the power of literature as an
interactive and exciting tool in
the holistic development of chil-
dren. Commenting on his nomi-
nation as a 2012 TD Canadian
Children’s Literature Award
finalist, Béha noted the impor-
tance of meaningful reading and
writing in a child’s life: “these
are two activities that contribute
to children’s feelings of happi-
ness and freedom.” Béha certainly does his part
in using his talent to the best of his ability, and
he also shares his talent with other aspiring
artists whenever possible, teaching illustration
as an adjunct professor at UQAM (Université du
Québec a Montréal) since 1991. Béha has been
recognized for his achievements in community as
a member of the Royal Academy of Canada.
Taylor Kraayenbrink

Selected Bibliography
• Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook. Text Jane Yolen and Heidi E. Y. Stemple. Vancouver: Tradewind, 2006. Print.
• J’ai perdu mon chat [I Lost My Cat]. Montreal: Imagine, 2008. Print.
• The King Has Goat Ears. Text Katarina Jovanovic. Vancouver: Tradewind, 2008. Print.
• Mon ami Henri [My Friend Henry]. Toronto: Scholastic, 2012. Print.
• Le Monde de Théo [The World of Theo]. Text Louis Émond. Montreal: Hurtubise, 2011. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 13
author nominee: China

Hongying Yang
China ★ Author
“I didn’t have the slightest desire to become famous. Therefore, when I was
writing, all I was concerned with was nothing but the kids.”
Hongying Yang

As one of the most popular and beloved children’s
authors in China, Hongying Yang has impacted
millions of children not only in China, but also all
over the world. Yang was born in Chengdu, the
capital of Sichuan Province in 1962, and she has
followed a complex and interesting career path. She
began her adult life as an elementary school teacher,
then moved on to become a children’s book editor,
until finally following her passion for children’s book
writing. She published her first
book, Seeds in a Lifejacket, a scien-
tific fairytale, when she was nine-
teen years old, and in the six years
she was teaching primary school
she wrote over a hundred fairytales
for her students. The stories for her
students were later published in a
collection called Hongying Yang’s
Science Fairy Tales Series, and her
quest to create approachable litera-
ture for children and young teens
continued throughout her own
daughter’s childhood.
As her daughter transitioned from childhood into
adolescence, Yang decided to relate to her through
literature, and wrote Girl’s Diary, a novel that went
on to be considered the “growth guidebook for
adolescent girls today” in China. Taking the time
to relate to not only her daughter, but all the young
people in her life, Yang writes with an adept sense
of understanding in her YA novels, and flawlessly
writes from the perspective of a struggling teen.
She is passionate about fostering a love for reading
in children: with every book she writes she simulta-
neously encourages children to choose reading over
television, computer games, and the Internet. Her
Mo’s Mischief series has helped millions of children
on their path through childhood, and the character
of Mo has become one of the most recognizable
children’s characters in twenty-first-century China.
Her ability to tap into the purity
and innocence of childhood allows
her to relate to her readers on a
personal level.
Yang has earned numerous
awards for her work, including the
2011 Publication Project Award
for The Green Dog’s Village, the 2010
Second Government Award for
The Black Afternoon, and the 2007
Best Children’s Literature Award
for Mo’s Mischief. Her stories have
also been translated into French,
German, English, and Korean,
and therefore have influenced children interna-
tionally as well as domestically. As she states in an
interview with Dr. Li Hong, “Writing is the only
source of love and happiness to me. Even if I hadn’t
achieved fame, I would keep writing for children.
Otherwise, my life would become meaningless.”
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• The Diaries of Smiling Cat: The Blue Rabbit-Ear Grass. Jinan: Tomorrow, 2006. Print.
• Girl’s Diary. Beijing: Writers’ Press, 2000. Print.
• Mo’s Mischief: Four Troublemakers. 2003. London: Harper Collins, 2008. Print.
• Picnic Surprise. Bath: Parragon, 2012. Print.
• Why I Love Zai-Zai the Poodle: A Collection of Essays. Wuhan: Hubei Juvenile, 2012. Print.
14 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: China

Liang Xiong
China ★ Illustrator
“The eyes of children need exposure to beauty in the world, but this does not
mean they cannot accept the concept of darkness.”
Liang Xiong

Liang Xiong was born in Jiaxing, Zheijiang in history, he also believes that children should not
1975, and developed an artistic passion at the age be sheltered from darkness and death. Opening a
of ten. With no formal training, Xiong taught child’s mind to these difficult issues, he suggests,
himself Chinese ink painting and practiced in provides deeper experiences with kindness, truth,
his own studio throughout his childhood. After and love, and provides the child reader with a
finishing high school, he worked as a laborer, better sense of his or her own future. While his
designer, and foreign trade businessperson, but illustrations do project an eerie, dark impression,
he continued with his art throughout his early his subtle use of color and creative imagination
career. Xiong began his first captivates his child readers and
serious illustration project, illus- draws them into the depths of
trations for The Complete Collec- the stories.
tion of Lu Xun, in 1992, and the Since 2005, Xiong has won a
project is still underway. In 2000, number of literary awards for his
he began contributing regularly children’s book illustrations. He
to various literary magazines, won the China Times Best Chil-
and by 2001 he began seriously dren’s Book of the Year Award
drawing again. for The Little Stone Lion in 2005,
While Xiong’s drawings typi- China’s Most Beautiful Book of
cally emphasize darkness and the Year Award for Lotus Back in
lines, he also has a deep under- 2008, and he recently made the
standing of color and blending. list for the 10 Best Books by the
His picturebooks are overflowing Beijing News Weekly Magazine
with stunning detail and rich, engaging imagery. for The Monster of Monsoon. He was also invited
Just as he focuses detailed attention on his char- to illustrate a bicentennial edition of Hans Chris-
acters, he also illustrates setting in vivid, pains- tian Andersen’s fairytales by the Hans Christian
taking detail. Xiong is an innovative thinker—he Andersen Fund in Denmark in 2005.
resists traditional, overly-infantile children’s book
themes, and trusts his young readers to draw their Samantha Christensen
own conclusions from his illustrations. While he
acknowledges that traditional, moralistic chil-
dren’s texts have benefited children throughout

Selected Bibliography
• The Little Stone Lion. Alhambra, CA: Heryin, 2005. Print.
• The Monster of Monsoon. Beijing: SDX, 2010. Print.
• Story of the Year. Beijing: Tomorrow Publishing, 2007. Print.
• The Tea Time on the Moon. Beijing: SDX, 2012. Print.
• The Toy Rabbit Story. Alhambra, CA: Heryin, 2007. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 15
Illustrator nominee: Croatia
Svjetlan Junaković
Croatia ★ Illustrator
Svjetlan Junaković was born in Zagreb, Croatia in
1961. Although drawing came first for Junaković—
he made his own cartoon films with a 8mm camera
and drew strip cartoons as a child—his artistic
interests were mainly based in sculpture, which
he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera
in Milan. It was not until he studied in the Cite
Internationale des Arts in Paris that he reignited
his interest in illustration, and he immediately
became much more serious about
this artistic mode. In addition to
having published over 300 illus-
trated books, Junaković mentors
young artists through his teaching
in Austria, Italy, and Spain.
Junaković is a truly multi-
skilled artist, delving into the art
of painting, sculpture, and illus-
trating. However, it is his experi-
ence with drawing that is at the
core of his artistic work, where
he breathes life, humor, and wit into the stories he
tells through text and image. His distinctive artistic
style imbues other authors’ plots and characters
with pictorial life, while enhancing the narration
and story for young readers. Junaković does not
impose limitations on his illustrations, nor does he
subscribe to trends or mainstream patterns of chil-
dren’s books. Instead, his distinct style and narrative
voice characterize a forward momentum of writing
Selected Bibliography
• Das Grosse Buch der klassichen Tierporträts [Big Book of Portraits]. München: Verlag Antje Kunstmann GmbH, 2011. Print.
• Ljubav spašava živote [Love Saves Lives]. Zagreb: Algoritam, 2007. Print.
• Moh put [My Way]. Zagreb: Algoritam, 2007. Print.
• Nikola Tesla, Snovi koji sun am donijeli stuju [Nicola Tesla, Dreams that Brought Us Electricity]. Zagreb: Kigen d.o.o., 2006.
Print.
• Pequeño gran mundo [Little Big World]. Mexico City: Direccion General de Publicaciones, Conaculta, 2011. Print.
16 | bookbird
and illustration.
Junaković’s emphasis on play is evident in those
books that fold over, open up, and come to life.
As well, he has received much popular and crit-
ical success. Animagicals (2001) was listed on the
Amazon.com Top 10 (editor’s choice) after publica-
tion. His picture book My Way was adapted into an
animated film that was nominated for and awarded
many prizes. The Great Book of Animal Portraits
(2006) reinterprets famous Renais-
sance, Baroque, and Neoclassical
works of art, exchanging animal
subjects for the people that made
them famous. These books and
others have been translated into
many languages.
His works are so sophisticated
that both children and adults enjoy
them. He engages with a wide
range of formats, as he navigates
easily between book form, scenog-
raphy and puppet design, international exhibitions,
magazines, and sculptures. He has won awards as
diverse as multiple Grigor Vitez Prizes, the Fran
Levstik Award, the Prix Chronos de Litterature,
and the Milan Čečuk Award. He has two daughters
and continues his artistic life focused on crafting
stories for children and young people.
Amy Bright
IBBY.ORG
 author nominee: Denmark

Lene Kaaberbøl
Denmark ★ Author
“When writing for children and young people, the story is the heart of the
matter. … Above all, the narrative, the story, has to be just right, and if it
isn’t then all those fine themes will be of no account.”
Lene Kaaberbøl

Lene Kaaberbøl was born in 1960 in Copenhagen,
Denmark. She began writing as soon as she was
able to hold a pencil. Her parents encouraged her,
and Kaaberbøl wrote many poems and stories,
which were printed in children’s magazines. She
won her first monetary prize when she was just
seven years old. By fifteen, she had published her
first two children’s novels, Den
første bog om Tina og hestene [The
First Book about Tina and the
Horses] and Den anden bog om
Tina og hestene [The Second Book
about Tina and the Horses]. As
she grew older, she was inspired
by J.R.R. Tolkien and switched to
fantasy writing.
Kaaberbøl engaged in a variety
of occupations to support her
writing. After completing a degree
in English and Drama from
Aarhus University in 1985, she
worked as a high school teacher,
copy writer, publishing editor, and
eventually became the owner of Phabel & Plott
Publishing. In 2002, she decided to become a full-
time writer.
What makes Kaaberbøl’s storytelling so
successful is her ability to speak to the moment we
live in without underestimating her young readers.
In The Shamer Chronicles, children have to engage
in war and decide on the ethics of killing. Her
books demonstrate how difficult it is to survive
when leaders use propaganda and brute force to
control people. While some of her characters have
magical powers, others do not. Nevertheless, all of
them experience the struggles of growing up and
finding their identities. As they encounter threats,
they learn the importance of being brave and using
their strengths responsibly. One of
the most crucial messages young
readers can take away is that
good and evil are not absolutes,
and this is articulated by Clara in
Kaaberbøl’s Wildwich series who
says, “Evil is not one big thing.
It’s a hundred small ones. It is not
either-or. It’s both-and.”
Kaaberbøl’s books have
been translated into over thirty
languages, and she has won many
literary honors, including the
Disney Novel of the Year Award,
The Nordic Association of School
Librarianship Children’s Book
Prize, and she made the UK’s IBBY Honour
List on two occasions. A feature film based on
The Shamer Chronicles is presently under develop-
ment. Currently, she lives in Sark, UK, where she
continues to write for young adults between the
ages of ten and fourteen.
Ayantika Mukherjee

Selected Publications
• Salamanderens hjerte [The Salamander’s Heart]. W.I.T.C.H Adventure Series. London: Tempo, 2002. Print.
• Skammerens datter [The Shamer’s Daughter]. Shamer Series. London: Hodder, 2002. Print.
• Skyggeporten [Shadowgate]. Denmark: Phabel, 2006. Print.
• Sølvhesten [Silverhorse]. Katriona Series. Denmark: Klematis, 1992. Print.
• Vildheks 1: Ildprøven [Wildwitch 1: The Ordeal]. Wildwitch Series. Denmark: Alvilda, 2010. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 17
Illustrator nominee: Denmark

Charlotte Pardi
Denmark ★ Illustrator

Charlotte Pardi admits that finishing a picture
book leaves her feeling sad, as she becomes incred-
ibly attached to the characters and their stories.
Born in Spentrup in 1971, Pardi grew up with a
passion for drawing—a passion she continues to put
to good use today. Her mother was a kindergarten
teacher, and she encouraged Pardi to express her
creativity through artistic means. Pardi’s primary
interest lies in people—particularly children—
and she fills her artistic literary
universes with expressive, viva-
cious children. She is truly in love
with her career as a children’s book
illustrator, and when faced with the
question of her future, she admits
that she cannot see herself on any
other career path, noting “the kids
would win out in the end.”
Pardi pays close attention to the
emotional responses of the charac-
ters she brings to life, making sure
to express their feelings and reac-
tions in every situation. She works to evoke a deep
connection between the characters and her child
readers, and does so by relating to them on the level
of everyday life. She draws and paints her char-
acters realistically—while the lines are intention-
ally wild and contorted, the color remains within
them, as she works to portray the world through
a child’s eyes. Her characters are not meant to be
romantically beautiful, and instead Pardi’s boys
and girls have freckles, big noses, and messy hair.
She connects to her readers by offering them a
realistic representation of everyday life, while
still playing with shapes and colors. Primarily
using watercolors and pencil, Pardi’s unique style
strikes a balance between the bold and the tradi-
tional, creating calm spaces and relatable settings.
While she does have a unique and recognizable
style—thick lines and meticulous
color—she does experiment with
other artistic techniques, such as
her collage pieces in Farsdreng
[Daddy’s Boy]. Her style relates to
children at each level of develop-
ment, and grounds her readers in
everyday Danish experience.
Pardi’s illustrations have won
a number of awards and places in
exhibits. Her work was on display
at the Bologna Book Fair in 2003
and the Itabashi Art Museum in
Tokyo in 2010. In both 2000 and 2002 she placed
on the Honour List for the Danish Ministry of
Culture award, and in 2002 she won the Carlsens
Fortællefantorden Award. Her books have also
been translated into Russian, Japanese, German,
and Swedish.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Farmanden [Daddy’s Boy]. Text Tina Schmidt. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2004. Print.
• Frøken Ignora [Miss Ignorance]. Text Katrine Marie Guldager. Copenhagen: Carlsen, 2010. Print.
• Græd blot hjerte [Cry Heart Cry]. Text Glen Ringtved. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2001. Print.
• Hvad siger sneugleungen Ulla? [What Does Tula the Baby Snowy Owl Say?]. Text Mette Moestrup. Copenhagen: Gyldendal,
2009. Print.
• Ridder Oskar og Kong Vinter [Sir Oscar and King Winter]. Text Ida-Marie Rendtorff. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2009. Print.
18 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 author nominee: Estonia

Aino Pervik
Estonia ★ Author
“Children’s literature on its highest level is undoubtedly art.”
Aino Pervik

Throughout the course of her career, Aino Pervik
has delighted child readers over three generations,
and has become the most appreciated children’s
author in Estonia. Born in Rakvere, Estonia in
1932, Pervik attended high school in Tallinn and
earned a degree in Finno-Urgric Philology from
Tartu State University in 1955. From there she
moved to Tallinn, where she spent some time
editing children’s books at the
Estonian State Publishing House,
and she later worked as an editor
of children’s programming at the
Estonian Television studio. She
has been writing full-time since
1967, after publishing her first
children’s book, Kersti sõber Miina
[Kersti’s Friend Miina], in 1961.
Pervik is considered the bravest
children’s writer in contemporary
Estonia, as she takes on difficult
themes of immigration, cultural
conflict, corruption, and the loss
of cultural identity. Her young readers are exposed
to cultural issues throughout Estonia’s history, yet
Pervik’s sensitivity to and understanding of chil-
dren’s literary expectations mean that each of her
stories offer comfort and solace toward the end.
While her stories do present a definite ethical
dimension, she resists forthright didacticism
and encourages her young readers to read criti-
cally and understand the moral issues implicit in
the text. Keeping Estonian culture and everyday
experience in mind, Pervik also takes on folklore
and mythical motifs, putting a modern spin on
the traditional stories and incorporating them
into relatable children’s tales. Nature is an impor-
tant theme in Pervik’s work, and books such as
Kunksmoor [Old Mother Kunks] (1973) discuss
the importance of nature throughout Estonian
cultural history. Her ability to
strike a balance between tragedy
and comedy, and history and
modernity allow her to capti-
vate her readers, as she has over
the course of her near fifty-year
career.
Since beginning her career,
Pervik has earned many awards
and literary distinctions, along
with having her books translated
into English, German, Russian,
Japanese, Finnish, and a number
of other languages. While much
of her artistic expression is embedded in Estonian
language, Pervik has been able to influence chil-
dren from various backgrounds all over the world.
In 2004, she won the Nukits Young Readers’
Choice Award for her Paula series, and Paula õpib
emakeelt [Paula Learns Her Mother Tongue] was
nominated for the IBBY Honour List.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Arabella, The Pirate’s Daughter. 1982. Illus. Edgar Valter. Trans. Külli Jacobson. Tallinn: Tänapäev, 2011. Print.
• Kersti sõber Miina [Kersti’s Friend Miina]. Tallinn: Kirjastus Tirtiamm, 1961. Print.
• Kunksmoor [Old Mother Kunks]. 1973. Illus. Edgar Valter. Tallinn: Tammerraamat, 2012. Print.
• Paula aabits [Paula’s Book of ABCs]. Illus. Piret Raud. Tallinn: Kirjastus Tiritamm, 2007. Print.
• Paula õpib emakeelt [Paula Learns Her Mother Tongue]. Illus. Piret Raud. Tallinn: Kirjastus Tiritamm, 2009. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 19
author nominee: Finland

Kirsi Kunnas
Finland ★ Author

© WSOY Archive

Kirsi Kunnas is a figure who looms large on the
scene of Finnish children’s literature. Kunnas has
been a major agent in the development of this field
for nearly sixty years. Finnish people recognize her
work as comprising “poems and stories that unite
generations.” In fact, Finnish commentators refer to
Kunnas as “the mother of modern Finnish children’s
lyric poetry.”
Kunnas first emerged as a lead-
ing children’s author in 1954 with
the publication of her translation of
The Tall Book of Mother Goose after
writing several poetry collections for
adults. She published her own collec-
tion of children’s poetry in 1956 with
The Tumpkin’s Wonder Tree. Kunnas’s
poetry in this collection was multi-
layered, addressed to a double audi-
ence of children and adults. In fact,
since her earliest publications, Kun-
nas has distinguished herself as an
author able to address both children and adults in the
same text, and she has, as a rule, provided incisive
and deliberate social commentary in all her work.
Her publications could in many cases be classified as
reform literature.
Finnish children’s literature critics recognize Kun-
nas’s vast corpus of poetry as liberating the national
tradition from “boring didacticism,” instead gestur-
ing towards rich polysemity, allusive intertextuality,
and the gleefully carnivalesque. However, the reader
must not forget that Kunnas’s work is often still sub-
tly inclined towards public responsibility, and always
maintains an ethical allegiance to social and political
reform. Kunnas can provide a poem that comments
on the universal sense of human loneliness, and in
the next poem she might obliquely criticize the ex-
cesses of commercialism on television.
No matter what the topic of a
Kunnas poem may be, both poem
and topic are likely to be easily recog-
nized in Finnish culture. Her work is
central to the nation’s national litera-
ture, and, like many Hans Christian
Andersen Award Nominees, Kirsi
Kunnas is no stranger to official pub-
lic recognition of her contributions
to children’s literature. Kunnas first
received recognition for her work in
the early stages of her career. She has
been honored with the Finnish State
Award for Literature four times. She was a recipient
of the Tirlittan Prize in 1993 for her life’s work in
literature, and she received the Finnish State Award
for contribution to Children’s Culture in 1996.
Taylor Kraayenbrink

Selected Bibliography
• Aikamme lukukirja: 2–5 [Reading Book]. Helsinki: WSOY, 1969-72. Print.
• Kis kis kissanpennut [Kis Kis Kittens]. Helsinki: Weilin + Göös, 1968. Print.
• Lintuystävämme—Tietoa linnuista. 1–6. [Our Friend the Bird: Information About Birds] Illus. Kyllikki Röman. Hel-
sinki: WSOY, 1969. Print.
• Tapahtui Tiitiäisen maassa [It Happened in Tumpkin Land]. Helsinki: WSOY, 2004. Print.
• Tiitiäisen satupuu [The Tumpkin’s Wonder Tree]. Helsinki: WSOY, 1956. Print.

20 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Finland

Pekka Vuori
Finland ★ Illustrator

© Irmali Jung

Over the course of his career, Pekka Vuori has
enamored his young readers with illustrations
of both his own writing and those of collabora-
tive literary projects. Born in 1935, Vuori was
accepted into Helsinki’s Institute of Applied
Arts when he was seventeen-years old, and soon
began publishing illustrations in magazines,
newspapers, and numerous books for both chil-
dren and adults. His art has often
been used as a means of introducing
Finnish culture to foreigners, as
he is able to capture the beauty of
Finland’s geography and customs
while maintaining a playful, whim-
sical style. Vuori pushes the bound-
aries of illustration in his work,
and is passionate about surprising
his young readers and encouraging
them to see situations from many
perspectives.
With a knack for capturing in
detail the beauty of nature, espe-
cially that of winter, Vuori’s humor
and lightheartedness shine through in his work.
Along with collaborating with various authors,
Vuori also illustrates his own texts, and his illus-
trations bring to life figures from Finnish folk-
tales and myths. His art, much like that in Into,
parrakas vauva [Into, the Bearded Baby], plays
with distinctions between old and young, large
and small, and Vuori consistently obscures the
conventional boundaries between reality and
fantasy. Vuori uses various techniques in his illus-
trations, including watercolor, screen print, and
gouache, and his images, with heavy line work
and layers of rich, vibrant colors, draw his young
readers deep into the stories. He encourages his
readers to engage critically with his illustrations,
relying not only on the words to tell
a story, but creating a relationship
between the visual and the literary.
As one of the most important
illustrators in Finnish children’s
literature over the course of four
generations of readers, Vuori has
earned a number of awards, and
his art has been on display in many
exhibits in Finland and Japan. His
first award was the 1969 Church
of Finland Film Award, and since
then he has been awarded various
distinctions, his latest being
the 2012 Order of the Lion of
Finland—Pro Finlandia Medal. He currently
resides in an old area of Helsinki, where the roar
of the lion at the nearby Korkeassari Zoo often
awakes him.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Into, parrakas vauva [Into, the Bearded Baby]. Text Kaarina Helakisa. Helsinki: Otava, 1985. Print.
• Jättiläiset [The Giant]. Ed. Marja Härkönen. Helsinki: SKS, 1981. Print.
• Kadonneet alushameet [The Lost Underskirts]. Helsinki: Otava, 1987. Print.
• Käpälämäki: Suomen kansan satuja [The Pawn Hill: Finnish Folk Tales]. Helsinki: Kirjasieppo, 1977. Print.
• Korvatunturi. Tarinoita joulupukin valtakunnasta [Korvatunturi: Tales from the Land of Santa Claus]. Helsinki: Otava,
1999. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 21
author nominee: France

Jean-Claude Mourlevat
France ★ Author
“I have the impression that, in fiction, I am getting as close as possible to
the truth in people.”
Jean-Claude Mourlevat

Jean-Claude Mourlevat was born in 1952 in
Ambert, France, and was raised in a large family
in the country. He was educated in Strasbourg,
Toulouse, and Paris in France, and studied in
Germany at Stuttgart. After his education he
taught German for some time, and then became a
theatre actor. Mourlevat eventually directed plays
by famous playwrights such as Brecht and Shake-
speare. Critics have recognized the
influence of Mourlevat’s time as an
actor and director in his writing,
as he has a special gift for creating
richly layered and engaging
dialogue.
Mourlevat did not enter the field
of children’s literature until later in
his life, publishing his first novel,
La Balafre, in 1998. This book was
quite successful, and it prompted
Mourlevat to devote himself full
time to writing for children. Since
then, his writing success has taken
him all over the world in support of
his publications.
Mourlevat is a distinctive author on the
French scene of children’s literature. He has an
affinity for telling adventure stories, into which he
blends magic, science fiction, fantasy, and fable.
Explaining his genre-bending practice, Mourlevat
attributes it to “the desire to go further, to change
genre, to explore worlds that were unknown to
me. To play, because I hate to bore my readers and
myself.” Some of his works carry a light-hearted,
often humourous tone, but beneath even his most
light-hearted work, Mourlevat is a serious author
whose work addresses weighty themes of aban-
donment, solitude and violence. However, he does
not seek to leave his characters in unhappy places
in his novels, and critics note the humanist drive
behind all of Mourlevat’s novels.
Mourlevat crafts his humanist
stories by drawing on an extensive
knowledge of myths and folktales,
reinterpreting them as he weaves
them into his own narratives.
Mourlevat’s prose also reveals a
musical ear, and his books are
full of rhythmic language. His
works can be classified largely as
young adult fiction, but he rejects
the contemporary attraction in
this field to explicit depictions of
violence and sexuality. However,
this refusal to consistently engage
with contemporary trends is not
at all due to prudish morality. Instead, Mourlevat
attributes it to his “literary references,” tradition-
ally classic works of literature.
Taylor Kraayenbrink

Selected Bibliography
• La Balafre [The Scar]. Paris: Pocket Jeunesse, 1998. Print.
• Le Chagrin du roi mort [The Dead King’s Chagrin]. Paris: Gallimard Jeunesse, 2009. Print.
• La Combat d’Hiver. [Winter Song]. Illus. Christian Heinrich. Paris: Gallimard Jeunesse, 2006. Print.
• L’Enfant Ocean [The Pull of the Ocean]. Paris: Pocket Junior, 1999. Print.
• Terrienne [Terrestrial Girl]. Paris: Gallimard Jeunesse, 2011. Print.

22 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: France

François Place
France ★ Illustrator
“What great fun it is to take the reader into a fictive world and then take
him so far into this world that it seems real.”
François Place

François Place, born in Ezanville France in 1957,
began his career as an illustrator for advertising
companies after studying at École Entienne, a
school of art and design. After a dubious begin-
ning, Place began illustrating children’s books,
including the novels of La Comtesse de Segur in
1983. Place’s real talent, however, became apparent
after he took the leap from illustrating non-fiction
books for other authors in 1986 to writing and
illustrating his own orig-
inal stories, falling some-
where between fiction and
non-fiction, in 1992.
Place’s stories are as
unusual as his ascent into
illustrative success. His
first triumph, Les derniers
géants, relates the fictional
story of an English explor-
er’s journey and experi-
ence with a peaceful clan of giants, though the
text hovers closely over non-fiction as it chronicles
the impact of Western society on other cultures.
His next success, L’Atlas des géographes d’Orbae,
published between 1996 and 2000, is a three-
volume masterpiece that mimics books of Atlases
in describing 26 imaginary countries based on the
letters in the alphabet.
Place has been named the “bedroom traveller”
and “the architect of the imagination” because most
of his stories include mysterious travel to far-away
fantasy lands. His imagination is also a large part
of his success, because in actuality, he has not trav-
elled widely. Since he was a child, Place has been
a prolific reader, engaging in books, maps, atlases,
and engravings from all periods. His genre lies
somewhere between fiction and documentary, a
cross between historical/geographical realities
and imaginary worlds, through which he hopes
to inspire readers of all ages. Place constructs
characters who rise from
obscurity to become the
unsung hero, though not
before they are helped by a
wise teacher of some kind,
and in doing so, writes of
human complexity along
with the fragility and
originality of different
worlds. These imaginative
landscapes are presented
to the reader through various artistic forms, from
pencil to brush, wash drawing and tinted ink to
watercolor. His technique is varied as well, as
Place tends to draw artistic insight from context of
the story, which can range from meticulous detail
to sprawling illustration. In whichever way Place
represents a narrative, he is always successful. He
is the holder of a number of awards, and made the
IBBY Honor List of France as an author in 1994.
Tia Lalani

Selected Bibliography
• L’Atlas des géographes d’Orbae [Atlas of Geographers Orbae]. Belgium: Casterman, 1996. Print.
• Les derniers géants [The Last Giants]. Belgium: Casterman, 2012. Print.
• La fille des batailles [Daughter Battles]. Belgium: Casterman, 2007. Print.
• Le roi des trois orients [King of the Three Orients]. France: Rue du Monde, 2006. Print.
• Le secret d’orbae [The Secret Orbae]. Belgium: Casterman, 2012. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 23
author nominee: Germany
Mirjam Pressler
Germany ★ Author
© Karen Seggelke/Beltz & Gelberg
Mirjam Pressler was born in Darmstadt, Germa-
ny in 1940. Pressler is of Jewish descent, and was
raised by foster parents who were old enough to be
her grandparents; this and her experiences in an
orphanage influenced her childhood. She attended
the Frankfurt Academy and Fine Arts in Munich
before living in a kibbutz in Israel. She worked a se-
ries of various jobs to support her family before ex-
periencing the success of her first published novel,
Bitterschokolade [Bitter Chocolate],
written at the age of forty.
Pressler’s books for children and
adolescents have been translated into
numerous languages, such as Italian,
Chinese, Japanese, French, English,
and Spanish, making them avail-
able to readers internationally. Her
books tell a wide range of stories that
are important to young people, and
span both historical and contempo-
rary contexts. For example, Pressler’s
first published work, Bitterschokolade,
describes Eva, an overweight teenager navigating
the difficult experiences that come with construct-
ing a stable sense of identity. Ein Buch für Hanna [A
Book for Hanna] is set during the summer of 1939,
while Golem, stiller Bruder [Golem, Silent Brother]
is set in 1600.
Still, Pressler’s fiction is only one facet of her
writing life. Her translations of books from He-
brew, Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans, and English give
Selected Publications
• Ein Buch für Hanna [A Book for Hanna]. Weinheim: Beltz & Gelberg, 2011. Print.
• Golem stiller Bruder [Golem, Silent Brother]. Weinheim: Beltz & Gelberg, 2007. Print.
• Ich sehne mich so…Die Lebensgeschichte der Anne Frank [I Long So…The Life History of Anne Frank]. Weinheim: Beltz
& Gelberg, 1992. Print.
• Malka Mai. Weinheim: Beltz & Gelberg, 2001. Print.
• Novemberkatzen [November Cats]. Weinheim: Beltz & Gelberg, 1982. Print.
24 | bookbird
books new life as they become available to interna-
tional audiences. Pressler translated a revised edi-
tion of Anne Frank’s diary, which led to her writ-
ing Ich sehne mich so…Die Lebensgeschichte der Anne
Frank, a biography of Anne Frank. Her focus on
the Holocaust and Jewish childhoods continued
when she edited a collection of letters circulated
among members of the Frank family and friends,
making the lives of these individuals accessible to
readers. An ambassador of children’s
literature, Pressler’s work as a trans-
lator brings international attention to
books for young people.
Pressler is the recipient of numer-
ous awards including the Friedrich-
Bödecker Prize (1998), the German
Book Award (2004), the Bavarian
Order of Merit (2006), the German
Children’s Literature Special Award
(2010), and the Buber Rosenzweig
Medal (2013). Her books are anti-
authoritarian and place emphasis on
children and young people overcoming the prob-
lems central to their lives. Many already hold a clas-
sic status, and as such, will continue to be read by
children over the world well into the future. Pressler
has three daughters and continues to work as a free-
lance writer and translator just outside of Munich.
Amy Bright
IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Germany

Rotraut Susanne Berner

Germany ★ Illustrator

Rotraut Susanne Berner was born in Stuttgart,
Germany in 1948, and studied graphic design at
the Munich University of Applied Sciences in her
young adulthood. Since beginning her career as a
freelance graphic designer and illustrator in 1977,
Berner has become one of the most celebrated and
respected children’s illustrators in Germany. She
has illustrated over eighty children’s books, some
of which she has written herself, and
has designed close to eight hundred
book covers. Her main interest
lies in wordless picture books,
and she accommodates her very
young readers by telling captivating
and intricate stories through rich,
detailed illustrations.
Berner’s style has become a
benchmark among German illustra-
tors, making her a common name in
art and illustration circles, and she
has set new standards for illustra-
tion and design. Her use of various
shapes and color allows her to strike a balance
between realism and fantasy, solemnity and light-
heartedness. Berner has a flair for incorporating
multiple perspectives into her work, and creates a
visual realm where fish fly, houses float, and size
does not matter. Her technique varies between
many artistic forms—pen and ink, heavy brush-
strokes, thick line work in contrast with rich colour,
flast screen printing—and while she does assert
herself as somewhat of an artistic chameleon, she
maintains a recognizable style that shines through
in her work. Her passion for wordless picture books
means that she pays close attention to detail, incor-
porating as much narrative features in her crafted
images as possible. Her art primarily tells a story,
and grounds her young readers in a world of wonder
that is not too removed from their
own everyday lives.
Since the beginning of her career,
Berner’s artwork has gained much
interest in the way of awards and
distinctions. She earned her first
award, the Celestino-Piatti Prize
for book graphic design, in 1983,
and since then has been nominated
for many awards. She is active in the
children’s illustration community,
and co-founded the Illustratoren
Treffpunkt [Illustrator’s Meeting] at
the Frankfurt Bookfair in the 1990s.
She remains dedicated to children’s book illustra-
tion, and continues to inspire her young readers
with her meticulous and enchanting picture books.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Als der Tod zu uns kam [When Death Came to Us]. Text Jürg Schubiger. Wuppertal: Peter Hammer, 2011. Print.
• Dunkel war´s, der Mond schien helle [It was Dark Outside, the Moon was Bright]. Ed. Edmund Jacoby. Hildesheim: Ger-
stenberg, 1999. Print.
• Frühlings-Wimmelbuch [Spring Wimmel Book]. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 2004. Print.
• Karlchen-Geschichten [Stories of Little Charly]. Munich: Hanser, 2003. Print.
• Die Prinzessin kommt um vier [The Princess Arrives at Four]. Text Wolfdietrich Schnurre. Berlin: Aufbau, 2000. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 25
author nominee: Greece

Sophia Madouvalou
Greece ★ Author

Early on, Sophia Madouvalou learned that the young readers to approach the issues that come up
two most important things in life are humor and in her books with critical thought and reasoning,
imagination, and keeping these important quali- and intends for them to take away lessons that
ties in mind has helped shape her prolific career they can put to good use in their everyday lives.
in children’s literature. Born in Athens in 1949, Rather than blindly accepting conventional
Madouvalou dedicated herself to developmental understandings of morality, Madouvalou encour-
psychology and education, all the while recog- ages her young readers to develop their own moral
nizing the significance of creative expression in compasses. She is passionate about Greek culture,
early childhood development. Over the course often weaving traditional folklore and mythology
of her three-decade career, she has into her texts, and her interest in the
published over seventy children’s surreal harmonizes perfectly with
titles and has become influential in the traditional language of folktales.
children’s prose, poetry, and educa- Madouvalou is not only beloved
tional programming in Greece. She among child readers, but she is also
is passionate about bringing chil- immensely popular in academic
dren closer to literature, and often circles, as her works have been
runs workshops and presentations studied in children’s literature disci-
in schools all across Greece and the plines at both undergraduate and
Hellenic European countries. graduate levels. She has earned a
Madouvalou’s literature is targeted number of awards and distinctions
at children in pre-school and early primary educa- for her books. In 2005, she received the Greek
tion levels, but some of her poetry is popular Children’s Book Circle Commendation for The
among adolescents and young adults. Her books Hare’s Egg, and was shortlisted for the 2013 Anag-
tackle pertinent issues such as ecology, racism, and nostes Prize for The Prince Who Turned into a Castle.
identity, and sensitively approach everyday child- Extracts of her work have also been featured in
hood struggles. Her work teaches lessons of self- the Hellenic Ministry of Education’s anthology
respect, love, and friendship, but her approachable for primary school, and she has influenced chil-
and humorous style allows her to spread awareness dren from all over the world through her many
about these issues without relying on heavy didac- translations.
ticism and moral critique. Madouvalou trusts her Samantha Christensen
Selected Bibliography
• Alla ta matia maimous ki alla tis koukouvagias [Monkeys and Owls Don’t See Things Alike]. Illus. Eleni Tsampra. Athens:
Patakis, 2008. Print.
• Fafagos, o Fafoutis mirmigofagos [Mumbly the Toothless Anteater, or The Elusive Fairy Tale]. Illus. Despina Karapanou.
Athens: Patakis, 2007. Print.
• I foresies tou feggariou. [The Moon’s New Dresses]. Illus. Andreas Karabelas. Athens: Kedros, 2005. Print.
• O Riko Kokoriko [Riko Kokoriko]. Illus. Teti Solou. Athens: Militos, 2003. Print.
• To archontopoulo pou egine pirgos [The Prince Who Turned into a Castle]. Illus. Vasso Psaraki. Athens: Patakis, 2012. Print.
26 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Greece

Daniela Stamatiadi
Greece ★ Illustrator

Daniela Stamatiadi was born in 1972 in Athens,
Greece. She studied her craft at the Athens
School of Fine Art. Stamatiadi has been a chil-
dren’s book illustrator for over a decade, and has
successfully been the illustrator of over seventy
publications. She has published books with all
major presses in Greece, and she teaches illustra-
tion at various private colleges in Greece. Stama-
tiadi has been the recipient
of several prestigious awards,
including the 2010 Greek
IBBY illustration award for
her book Von Kourabies versus
Count Melomakoronis.
Stamatiadi’s illustrations
are fitting for a wide variety of
subjects. She illustrates many
stories; the subject matter
could be children who don’t
like their fish dinners, or it could be a nature
poem. Stamatiadi’s style as an illustrator defies
neat definitions, and this is why she is able to suit
her work to so many books. She is by all accounts
an incredibly versatile artist. Her style ranges
from being almost photographic in some books to
deliberately stripped down, strikingly primitive,
in other books. Her more elaborate and realistic
paintings come through as portraits. In these,
Stamatiadi uses a variety of colours and shadings
to achieve a vibrancy and warmth that is innocent
and inviting to the reader. A wonderful example
of this style in action is The Promise (written by
Anna Conomos). In other illustrations, Stama-
tiadi’s minimalism takes over. She is a master of
minimal colour and powerful but spare detail. In
these illustrations she uses a sketch-like approach;
oftentimes, most of the illustrations look like
mere pencil sketches. This sketch is then set off
by a distinctive and pronounced detail (made
pronounced by its singularity).
For example, a pencilled wolf
might have a red tongue, or
a black and white sketched
child could have a red dimple.
Besides being a very effective
method of illustration in that
it is distinctive, this mini-
malism is also quite refined,
and it sets Stamatiadi apart
as a children’s book illustrator
whose work has great value as art for adults as
well. As the popular Greek children’s author,
Maria Angelidou, has noted, Stamatiadi’s work
has value “for all those who rejoice to hear and
see beauty.”
Taylor Kraayenbrink

Selected Bibliography
• The Little Empty Christmas Book. Text Kyriakos Haritos. Athens: Metaixmio, 2010. Print.
• Milena and the Horrible Fish. Text Soti Triantafyllou. Athens: Patakis, 2011. Print.
• The Most Beautiful Thing in the World. Text Anna Damianidi. Athens: Potamos, 2012. Print.
• The Promise. Text Anna Conomos. Athens: Potamos, 2012. Print.
• Von Courabies Versus Count Melomakaronis. Text Helen Svoronou. Athens: Metaixmio, 2010. Print.

IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 27

author nominee: Iran
Houshang Moradi
Kermani
Iran ★ Author
For the past four decades, Houshang Moradi Ker-
mani has dedicated his life to creating meaningful
and influential literature for children and young
people in Iran. Born in the village of Sirch in 1944,
Kermani was raised by his grandparents after
losing his mother as an infant. With his grand-
mother a traditional doctor and his grandfather
a village elder and storyteller, Kermani was im-
mersed in storytelling and written narrative from
an early age. His uncle, a teacher,
ensured he was surrounded by clas-
sic Iranian literature throughout his
childhood and adolescence, which
functioned for Kermani as an an-
tidote to the oppressive education
system in rural Iran. After second-
ary school, Kermani attended the
Dramatic Arts College in Tehran,
and later received his BA in English
Language, after which he launched
his literary career.
Kermani’s passion for dramatic
arts and literature gained him access
into literary circles, and by the 1970s he had creat-
ed nationally-adored fictional characters and had
begun writing stories about child carpet weavers
in Iran. His first book on the subject, published in
1980, Bachehaye Qalibafkhaneh [The Children of
the Carpet Weaving Factory], caught the atten-
tion of the Children’s Book Council, along with
Selected Bibliography
• Bechehaye Qalibafkhaneh [Carpet-Weaving Factory Children]. 1980. Trans. Chris Lear and Soheila Sahabi. Tehran:
Mo’in, 2000. Print.
• Chakmeh [The Boot]. Tehran: Sahab, 1984-87. Print.
• Na Tar va na Khoshk [Neither Dry nor Wet]. Tehran: Mo’in, 2003. Print.
• Nakhl [The Date Palm]. Tehran: Sahab, 1982. Print.
• Qesseha-ye Majid [The Stories of Majid]. Tehran: Sahab, 1983-87. Print.
28 | bookbird
IBBY. His deeply humanistic style attracts young
readers from many generations—as he has been
publishing children’s texts for over forty years—
and while Iran has faced many political struggles
that have created divisions among generations,
Kermani’s work is able to bridge these gaps and
transcend political and cultural boundaries. His
works shed light on issues of poverty, nature,
cultural traditions, and marginalized groups, as
he embeds his young reader in the
depths of human experience.
Just as Kermani transcends po-
litical and ideological boundar-
ies through his focus on human
nature, so too does he transcend
geographic and cultural boundar-
ies. His books have been trans-
lated into more than twenty lan-
guages, including English, Span-
ish, French, German, Arabic, and
Russian, and these translated works
include his autobiography, Shoma ke
garibeh nistid [All Between Us/Be-
lieve It or Not]. Since 1981, Kermani has earned a
number of literary awards, including many Chil-
dren’s Book Council of Iran’s Best Book of the
Year Awards, Switzerland’s Blue Cobra Award in
1994, and the Ministry and Culture and Guid-
ance’s National Book Prize in 2006.
Samantha Christensen
IBBY.ORG

Eoin Colfer
Ireland ★ Author
Born in 1965 in Wexford on the Southeast coast
of Ireland, Eoin Colfer first began to write while
he was in primary school. His mother was a
drama teacher and his father a primary school
teacher, historian, and artist, so it is perhaps
not surprising that he grew up with a love for
the arts. He was inspired by the Viking history
learned about in his early education, and his early
writing derives from this child-
hood passion. Colfer earned his
Bachelor of Education Degree in
Dublin, and after he graduated
he returned to Wexford to be an
elementary school teacher. From
1992 to 1996, Colfer and his wife
worked in various places across
the globe—Saudi Arabia, Italy,
and Tunisia. It was in Tunisia
where he was inspired to write
his first novel, Benny and Omar,
which was published in 1998 and
won the White Raven Award. A
year later, Colfer wrote a sequel,
Benny and Babe, which was the
first of three of his books that have been short-
listed for the 2000 Bisto Book of the Year Award.
These accomplishments launched Colfer’s career
as a critically acclaimed author.
Publishing dozens of books in many languages
and countries all over the world, Colfer has won
Selected Bibliography
• Airman. London: Puffin, 2008. Print.
• Artemis Fowl. London: Puffin, 2001. Print.
• Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel. Text Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin. Illus. Givanni Rigano and Paolo Lamanna.
London: Puffin, 2007. Print.
• The Legend of Spud Murphy. London: Puffin, 2004. Print.
• The Wish List. Dublin: O’Brien Press, 2000. Print.
IBBY.ORG
author nominee: Ireland
numerous awards, including the WH Smith
People’s Choice Award, the Irish World Litera-
ture Award, and the British Book Awards Chil-
dren’s Book of the Year.
Artemis Fowl, perhaps Colfer’s most famous
book—and character, for that matter—has played
an enormous role in his launch into literary super-
stardom. It is currently being developed into a film
by Miramax, and the gripping
plot and fast-paced nature of the
novel meshes well with the film
industry. The engaging content
of his novels is delivered through
clever humor and compelling wit,
and Colfer’s approachable writing
style makes his novels enjoyable
in every aspect of reading. He
often deals with difficult topics
like death, morality, poverty, and
cultural differences in a way that
is not overbearing, but accessible.
Eoin Colfer’s ability to captivate
his readers while incorporating
important social and cultural
issues into his texts makes him as one of the
most influential authors in his field, and one of
Ireland’s bestselling children’s authors.
Samantha Christensen
52.2 – 2014 | 29
Illustrator nominee: Ireland

P. J. Lynch
Ireland ★ Illustrator

© Steve Langan

Born in Belfast Ireland in 1962, the youngest of
five children, P. J. Lynch has noted that “burying
[himself] in books, and the little worlds they
created on a page, was a good way of escaping
for a while from the horrors that were happening
around [him] in the real world.” Lynch pursued
his own personal form of escape and studied
under Raymond Briggs at Brighton College of
Art. Studying in Brighton lead directly to Lynch’s
first publication, the illustrations
for a collection of tales from
England and Wales titled A Bag
of Moonshine, which won him the
Mother Goose award in 1986,
and he has won several awards
since.
Lynch’s impressive use of
light and contrast creates his
characteristic serious style.
Instead of simply describing the
text at hand, Lynch works hard
to point the reader towards his
or her own observations about atmosphere and
emotion, using warm colors or cool colors where
appropriate. Lynch’s original illustrations only
made use of ink and watercolor, though he has
now includes oils, and uses computer graphics
when he begins a project. The way Lynch goes
about his illustrations proves just as interesting
as the finished product. He takes his time in
researching image and text before he even
attempts a story, and often uses photographs or
real life models on which to base his characters.
Although Lynch does not have a large body of
work, his meticulous attention to detail inspires
the reader to go beyond the surface in each and
every one of his illustrations. The work itself is
also quite varied, as Lynch’s images can quickly
go from endearing to grotesque, and he demon-
strates skill in portraying an epic landscape on
one page while conveying the
intimacy of a domestic scene on
the next.
Lynch has illustrated stories
from some of the greats, including
Edith Nesbit, William Butler
Yeats and Oscar Wilde. He has
also created posters for Opera
Ireland and the Abbey Theatre,
as well as a Christmas stamp
collection for the Irish post, and
in 2006, completed two large-
scale oil murals depicting scenes
from Gulliver’s Travels at the Cavan County
Library. Lynch’s ability to branch out of the
conventional mold of a children’s book illustrator
is a testament to his diverse skill, and although
Lynch professes to draw not only for children but
also for all ages, he has had great success in the
field of children’s literature.
Tia Lalani

Selected Bibliography
• A Christmas Carol. Text Charles Dickens. UK: Walker, 2006. Print.
• The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey. Text Susan Wojciechowski. UK: Walker, 1994. Print.
• Mysterious Traveller. Text Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham. UK: Walker, 2013. Print.
• The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Text Hans Christian Andersen. UK: Andersen, 1993. Print.
• When Jessie Came Across the Sea. Text Amy Hest. UK: Walker, 1996. Print.
30 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 author nominee: Italy

Bianca Pitzorno
Italy ★ Author

Bianca Pitzorno was born in Sassari in 1942, has broken numerous taboos of children’s litera-
but lives and works in Milan. After a degree in ture, such in her masterpiece L’Incredibile Storia
Classical Literature with an MA in Cinema and di Lavinia [The Incredible Story of Lavinia],
Television, in 1970 Pitzorno started a seven-year where the author deals with death and excre-
collaboration with the Italian state-owned broad- ment. The tale that recounts the misfortunes of
caster RAI as head of the production of cultural a hungry, cold little match girl who faces death,
programmes for the young audience. is reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale,
Pitzorno is considered to have created a new but Pizorno parodies the original tale by giving
season of literature for children Lavinia a magic ring that trans-
and young readers in Italy. The forms objects into excrements.
author, a left-wing feminist, is Rather complex allusions to
much beloved by young girls, literary works, history, art, and
especially because her books international classical literary
usually focus on female charac- works are one of her hallmarks.
ters with complex personalities. She responds to criticisms that
Pitzorno has written more the complex allusions to clas-
than 40 books, in which she sical literary works in many
deals with many controversial of texts are only accessible to
and complex issues, ranging middle-class, well-educated
from diversity and childhood, readers by claiming that young
to a multitude of environmental, readers should be challenged to
social and political problems read works they find difficult.
(for instance, pollution, political For instance, one of her latest
corruption, social class, and race). creations, La Bambinaia Fran-
Although her works range over such a wide cese [The French Governess], contains references
variety, her plots have always remained imagina- to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. However, it is
tive, stylish, and amusing. The fact that some of Ascolta il Mio Cuore [Listen to My Heart] that is
her books are illustrated by the great illustrator widely regarded as one of her best creations. It is
Quentin Blake. a moving realistic novel that takes place in Italy
Pitzorno, who strongly believes that children’s after World War II.
authors should not tone down their writings, Melissa Garavini

Selected Bibliography
• Ascolta Il Mio Cuore [Listen to My Heart]. Illus. Quentin Blake. Milan: Mondadori, 1991. Print.
• l grande raduno dei cow boy [The Largest Gathering of Cowboys]. Rome: Edizioni Svizzere della Gioventù, 1970. Print.
• La Bambinaia Francese [The French Governess]. Milan: Mondadori, 2004. Print.
• L’Incredible Storia di Lavinia [Lavinia’s Extraordinary History]. Illus. Quentin Blake. Milan: Mondadori, 2005. Print.
• Polissena del Porcello [Polisenna and her Pig]. Illus. Quentin Blake. Milan: Mondadori, 1993. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 31
Illustrator nominee: Italy
Fabian Negrin
Italy ★ Illustrator
Fabian Negrin was born in Cordoba, Argen-
tina in 1963, and is now an Italian citizen. After
finishing high school, he moved to Mexico city to
study illustration, painting, and graphic design at
Universidad Autonoma Metropolotana, during
which time he began publishing illustrations and
working on graphic design projects in promi-
nent Mexican newspapers. He later completed
a Master’s degree in Engraving
at Academia de Bellas Artes San
Carlos before eventually moving
to Milan. Aside from illustrating
children’s books, Negrin contrib-
utes illustrations to a number of
Italian magazines and newspapers,
and is a successful graphic designer,
creating advertisement campaigns
for various European companies.
Experimenting with various
styles and techniques, Negri is
constantly growing as an artist.
The multiplicity of his illustrative styles means
that his art is always changing, and it is impos-
sible to categorize his works in any particular
genre. His complex and innovative approaches
create an interesting relationship between text and
image, and he works to deconstruct stereotype and
normativity by representing childhood through
otherness. In order to get a sense of Negrin’s
artistic range, one must engage with his entire
Selected Bibliography
• Bestie [Beast]. Rome: Gallucci Editore, 2012. Print.
• In bocca al lupo [In the Wolf ’s Mouth]. Rome: Orecchio Acerbo, 2003. Print.
• Frida et Diego au Pays des Squelettes [Frida and Diego: A Mexican Halloween]. Paris: Seuil Jeunesse, 2011. Print.
• Mille giorni e una notte [A Thousand Days and One Night]. Rome: Orrecchio Acerbo, 2008. Print.
• Principessa Pel di Topo e alter 41 fiabe da scorpire [Princess Mouse Skin and 41 Unknown Fairytales by the Brother’s
Grimm].Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2012.
32 | bookbird
oeuvre, and in so doing get a sense of his broad
and ever-evolving style. His apt sense of color and
insight into the world of children make his books
both beautiful and relatable to his young readers.
His perspective tends to begin at the bottom—he
mimics the perspective of children and works to
present his images as they would be seen through
a child’s eyes.
Employing his education in
graphic design, Negrin often uses
technological advances in art
to create unique and innovative
illustrations. In his self-authored
picturebook On va au parc [Let’s Go
to the Park], Negrin engages a form
of digital printmaking—he uses
stencils and paint to form images,
then scans them and manipulates
the colors with a computer program.
His innovative style has earned him
a number of awards, including the
2010 BolognaRagazzi Award for Non-Fiction and
the John Burroughs Young Reader’s Award for
Children’s Nature Writing for his picturebook The
Riverbank, along with the C:J: Picturebook Award
in Seoul for his illustrations in L’ombra e il bagliore
[The Shadow and the Flash] in 2011. His picture-
books have been translated into many languages,
including French, English, Spanish, and Korean.
Samantha Christensen
IBBY.ORG
 author nominee: Japan

Nahoko Uehashi
Japan ★ Author

Born in Tokyo in 1962, Nahoko Uehashi series has also been translated into French,
attended Rikkyo University where she earned a Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Chinese. Her
doctorate in anthropology; her dissertation was newest fantasy series, beginning with Kemono
on Australian Aborigines. Today, aside from no soja [The Beast Player] is being translated
being a prominent author of juvenile literature, into English, German, Korean, Thai, French,
Uehashi is a professor of ethnology at Kawamura Taiwanese, and Swedish. The same series has
Gakuen Women’s University. also been adapted into a manga
Her first novel, a fantasy titled in 2008 and an anime in 2009.
Seirei no ki [The Sacred Tree], was As a writer of fantasy,
published in 1989. She earned the Uehashi offers her young readers
JAWC New Talent Award for new worlds born of her seem-
her second novel, Tsuki no mori ingly boundless imagination;
ni, kami yo nemure [O God, Sleep these worlds, however, provide
Ye in the Forest of the Moon], in children relevant ways to think
1991. Uehashi is most famous for about their own world as Uehashi
her Guardian series, which has constructs protagonists who fight
sold nearly two million copies in for survival, or explore the dual-
Japan. Beginning in 1996 with isms of their own psyches, or
Seirei no moribito [Guardian of consider all aspects of their inter-
the Sacred Spirit]—which won personal relationships.
the Noma Children’s Literature
Award and the Sankei Children’s Roxanne Harde
Culture and Publishing Award—the series has
been adapted into an anime television series, a
manga, and a radio drama. In 2008, Scholastic
Press published Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit
in English, and it was awarded the Mildred
L. Batchelder Award. Its sequel, Moribito II:
Guardian of the Dark, came out in the summer
of 2009, and the fifth book in the series made
the IBBY Honor List in 2004. The Guardian

Selected Bibliography
• Kemono no soja [The Beast Player]. Tokyo: Kodansha, 2006. Print.
• Koteki no Kanata [Beyond the Werefox Flute]. Tokyo: Rironsha, 2003. Print.
• Moribito: Seirei no moribito [Morbito: Guardian of the Spirit]. Tokyo: Kaisei-Sha, 1996. Print.
• Tonari no aborijini [Our Neighbor Aborigines]. Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 2010. Print.
• Tsuki no mori ni Kami yo nemure [O God, Sleep Ye in the Forest of the Moon]. Tokyo: Kaisei-Sha, 1991. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 33
Illustrator nominee: Japan

Ken Katayama
Japan ★ Illustrator

One of Japan’s leading artists, Ken Katayama has or the scent of grass. His characters, especially
had a long and prolific career as an illustrator of the children, have strong features and dynamic
picture books. Born in Tokyo in 1940, Katayama actions, and his work is popular, in part, because
graduated from the Department of Commer- it speaks to children’s natural “wildness.” Kata-
cial Design at the Musashino Art University yama works in many genres for children: books
and then worked for an advertising company. for infants, younger, and older children; science
He published his first picture books, and poetry. In his fifty
book, Matti no tori [A Match years as a working artist, he has
Bird] in 1966 but could not collaborated with notable poets
work full-time as an artist until and authors of children’s stories,
1979. Since then, Katayama has and he has broadened his artistic
published dozens of titles, and milieu by incorporating new
his books have been translated media and studying new styles
into Korean, Taiwanese, English, in order to enhance the themes
and French. His books have won and subjects of the books he
several awards, including the 24th illustrates.
Kodansha Culture Prize for Chil-
dren’s Picture Books Publication Roxanne Harde
for Tange kun [Tange the Cat]
in 1993, the 45th Shogakukan
Award for Illustrations for Denden daiko Inochi
[A Toy Drum] in 1996, the 3rd Japan Picture
Book Award (Winner’s Prize) for Karada tte iina
[The Human Body Is a Wonder] in 1997, and the
4th Japan Picture Book Award (Grand Prize) for
Kitsune nyoubou [Fox Wife] in 1998.
Reviewers attribute much of Katayama’s
popularity to his use of color and the strength
of his brushstrokes. His paintings are said to
awaken all the senses as they envelope viewers
with scenes that suggest sunshine, wind, rain,

Selected Publications
• Dondon dondon [Onward—Stomp, Stomp, Stomp]. Osaka: Bunken Shuppan, 2003. Print.
• Mori no tegami [Letters to Friends in the Grove]. Text Reiko Katayama. Tokyo: Fukuinkan Shoten, 2006.
• Mukashi mukashi [Once Upon a Time]. Text Shuntaro Tanikawa. Tokyo: East Press, 2010. Print.
• Oyasuminasai Kokko-san [Good Night, Kokko]. Tokyo: Fukuinkan Shoten, 1998. Print.
• Tange-kun [Tange, My Dear Cat]. Tokyo: Fukuinkan Shoten, 1992. Print.

34 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 author nominee: Korea

Jin-Kyung Kim
Korea ★ Author

Jin-Kyung Kim’s career as a writer has been an
incredibly interesting one. Born in 1953 in South
Chungcheong Province, Kim developed a passion
for literature and writing early on, and overcame
many political hurdles in the name of educa-
tion, literature, and authorship. He attended the
College of Education for Korean Language at
Seoul National University, and began teaching
Korean at various schools until 1985. After
founding People’s Education in
1985, a journal criticizing Korea’s
school system and its detriment to
children and adolescents, Kim was
indicted and imprisoned for four-
teen months for violating National
Security Law. Upon being released
from prison in 1986, he formed the
Council for Democratic Education
and Practice for others indicted for
their articles in People’s Education,
while at the same time managing
to consistently publish volumes of
poetry. Turning to children’s liter-
ature later in his career, Kim speaks out against
censorship and corruption to readers whose
visions are still developing—children.
Kim began writing children’s books in 1997,
and was quickly regarded as a pioneer of “Korean
fantasy.” He incorporates into his fantasy texts
a sense of Korean and East Asian cultures,
often drawing upon traditional folktales and
crucial cultural texts. Primarily writing stories
in multiple volumes, Kim keeps his readers in
suspense, and his Hanbul Dokkaebi and Cat
School series are beloved stories in the realm
of Korean children’s literature. He relates to his
readers by mirroring reality, immersing the child
in a fantasy realm while incorporating sharp
critiques of the real world. Kim’s works of fantasy
are innovative and deeply influential in the genre
of Korean children’s literature, and
his popular series have paved the
way for modern writers of chil-
dren’s fantasy in Korea.
Kim’s unique and trailblazing
style has not only earned him a
devoted young readership, but also
a number of awards and distinc-
tions. Aside from his awards for
poetry in 1974 and 2000, Kim was
awarded the 2004 Korean Chil-
dren’s Book Award for War of the
Mirrors, which was adapted for the
Cat School series, and the 2006
Prix des Incorruptibles in France for the Cat
School series. His books have been translated
into Chinese, French, Polish, Japanese, Viet-
namese, and Thai, allowing his works to influ-
ence children from around the world and expose
them to Korean culture and folktales.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Goemul Gildeurigi [Taming Monsters]. Seoul: Biroyongso, 2009. Print.
• Geoul Oseul Ibeun Aideul [The Children in Clothes of Mirror]. Seoul: Munhakdongne, 2010. Print.
• Geurimja Jeonjaeng [Shadow Wars]. Seoul: Munhakdongne, 2011. Print.
• Goyangi Hakgyo [Cat School]. Seoul: Munhakdongne, 2001. Print.
• Urideural Areumdaun Nara [When the Sun Shines at Night]. Seoul: Munhakdongne, 2009. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 35
Illustrator nominee: Korea

Byong-Ho Han
Korea ★ Illustrator

Byong-Ho Han began illustrating children’s books
at a time when the market for children’s illustra-
tion in Korea was booming, and he continues to
lead the way in the field. Born in Seoul in 1962,
Han graduated from the College of Fine Arts at
Chugye University for the Arts in 1988 and began
working as an illustrator at a Korean stationary
company. After completing a course on children’s
book making through the Association of Korean
Publishing Illustrators, Han dedicated his life
to illustrating children’s books,
publishing his first book in
1992. He often uses illustration
to explore Korean culture, and
while he does partake in Korean
traditional artistic styles, he also
incorporates Western techniques,
allowing him to expand his audi-
ence while still connecting with
young Korean readers.
Early on, Han began incorporating various
artistic styles into his illustrations, such as water-
color, gouache, etching, and lithograph. He mixes
both Asian and Western styles, creating a unique
aesthetic experience for Korean children. Having
grown up on the outskirts of Seoul before its
urbanization, Han is able to express the beauty
of nature and the importance of its preservation.
Living both before and after the industrialization
of Korea, he recognizes the rapid depletion of the
natural environment and uses his artistic style to
advocate environmentalism. Not only does Han
offer a contemporary spin on his traditionally
Korean artistic style in his illustrations, he also
connects with readers on a personal level, char-
acterizing the everyday life of a child in unique
ways. His illustrated books offer freedom—escape
from tedious everyday life—and encourage his
readers to search for deeper meaning in their own
lives. Books such as I Want to Be a Bird (2004)
and Salmon (2007) encourage deep connections to
nature, just as they challenge the
reader to transcend the bound-
aries of everyday urban lifestyle.
Han’s works have been trans-
lated into French, Italian, Japa-
nese, Chinese, and Thai, and he
has earned a number of awards
and other distinctions. In 1997,
he won his first award—the
Sixth Children’s Culture Grand
Prize for Illustration for The Dokkaebi Club—and
in 2005 he received the Golden Apple at the Bien-
nial of Illustration Bratislava (BIB) for I Want to
Be a Bird. Most recently, he’s won the 2012 Excel-
lent Children’s Book Award by Junior Hankuk for
The Day Baby Otter Came, and has attended many
international children’s book fairs. Han continues
to inspire his young readers through the magic of
illustration as he progresses in his artistic passion.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Dokkaebiwa Beombeokjansu [Dokkaebi and the Rice Cake Peddler]. Text Lee Sang-gyo. Seoul: Kookminbooks, 2009. Print.
• Saega Doego Sipeo [I Want to Be a Bird]. 2004. Seoul: Sigong Junior, 2009. Print.
• Sane Gaja [An Afternoon with Dad]. Text Sang-Kwon Lee. Seoul: Borim, 2003. Print.
• Sudari Odeon Nal [The Day Baby Otter Came]. Text Kim Yong-ann. Seoul: Sigong Junior, 2012. Print.
• Yeoneo [Salmon]. Text Ahn Do-hyeon. Seoul: Munhak, 2007. Print.
36 | bookbird IBBY.ORG

Reinis Pētersons
Latvia ★ Illustrator
Through his unique illustrative style and the
animated worlds he creates, Reinis Pētersons
has asserted himself as one of the most talented
young illustrators in the field of children’s litera-
ture. Born in 1981, Pētersons boasts an impres-
sive education in the arts: he attended the Janis
Rosentāls Rīga Secondary School of Art, studied
photography at Andrejs Grants’ workshop, and
graduated with a certificate in visual communi-
cations from the Latvian Academy
of Arts. His first children’s illus-
trated book was published in 2007
(A True Story of Chingo Baba, Big
Snail, and the Sorrow of the Ruler of
the Sea), and since then he’s illus-
trated numerous children’s books
and animated stories.
Pētersons is not a typical or
traditional illustrator—his inno-
vative and somewhat eccentric
artistic style pushes the limits of
the genre. He is attentive to char-
acter detail, and captures real-life emotion and
expression through expressive—and frequently
grotesque—representation. While Pētersons
conveys a recognizable and cohesive style among
his illustrative works, he is no stranger to artistic
experimentation. In each project he takes on, he
works to suit his style and color palette to the
text at hand, and thus creates a cohesive and
exciting relationship between text and image.
Selected Bibliography
• Lāča Bruņa medības. Text Juris Zvirgzdiņš. Rīga: Liels un Mazs, 2009. Print.
• Līze Analīze: Un citi slimnīcas skaitāmpanti. Text Inese Zandere. Rīga: Liels un Mazs, 2012. Print.
• Mēnesim Robs. Rīga: Liels un Mazs, 2008. Print.
• Mufa. Text Juris Zvirgzdiņš. Rīga: Liels un Mazs, 2011. Print.
• Ne krietnais Alfrēds. Text Māris Rungulis. Rīga: Liels un Mazs, 2012. Print.
IBBY.ORG
Illustrator nominee: Latvia
Pētersons’s illustrative technique is not limited to
the medium of picturebooks—he is a successful
and innovative animator, creating short animated
videos narrating children’s stories. His attention
to detail and commitment to artistic expression
allow him to immerse his readers/viewers in
Latvian cultural experience, yet his interest in the
mind of the child reader allows him to relate to
children on many levels.
While Pētersons career in
illustration is in some ways still
only beginning, the fact that he
boasts such an impressive list of
awards and distinctions asserts
him as one of the most promi-
nent illustrators to come from
Latvia. In 2009, he won the
Pastariņš Prize for Achievement
in Children’s Book Illustrations,
and in 2012 he won the National
Zelta ābele [Golden Apple Tree]
Book Art Competition Artist of the Year
Award for Mufa. While this is his first Hans
Christian Andersen Award nomination, he
has been nominated for a number of other
prestigious awards, including the Interna-
tional Baltic Sea Redion Jānis Baltvilks Prize
in Children’s Literature and Book Art.
Samantha Christensen
52.2 – 2014 | 37
author nominee: Netherlands
Ted van Lieshout
Netherlands ★ Author
Born in Eindhoven in 1955, Ted van Lieshout
comes from a family of twelve children, and
from a young age he knew he wanted to pursue
a career in writing. After finishing secondary
school, he began studying at the Art Academy
of Amsterdam, and began designing book covers
and submitting illustrations to newspapers
shortly after graduating. He illustrated De Blauw
Geruite Kiel, a Dutch children’s weekly, and it was
while illustrating important Dutch
poetry that he decided to begin
publishing his own poems. Since
in 1984, van Lieshout has regu-
larly published volumes of poetry,
and he has become one of the most
celebrated children’s poets in the
Netherlands.
Van Lieshout’s poems often
deal with conflicting feelings, and
his writing has been heavily influ-
enced by the deaths of his father
and brother. He experiments with
minimalism and word play, and
often treads into the waters of the taboo—his
volume of poetry entitled Zeer kleine liefde [Very
Little Love] includes poetry, letters, and photos
of a fictional twelve-year-old boy involved in a
sexual relationship with an adult man. Not only
is van Lieshout an established children’s poet,
but his prose storybooks for young children are
Selected Bibliography
• Gebr. [Bros]. 1996. Amsterdam: Gottmer, 2011. Print.
• Ik ben een held [I’m a Hero]. 2000. Illus. Sylvia Weve. Amsterdam: Gottmer, 2011. Print.
• Ik en de koningin [The Queen and I]. Amsterdam: Gottmer, 2006. Print.
• Van Ansjovis tot Zwijntje [From Anchovies to Piglets]. Illus. Sieb Posthuma. Amsterdam: Leopold, 2009. Print.
• Wij Zijn Bijzonder: Misschien zijn wij een wonder [We Are Special: Perhaps We Are a Miracle]. Amsterdam: Leopold,
2012. Print.
38 | bookbird
also beloved among Dutch young readers, often
dealing with difficult and realistic issues. His
YA novel, Gebr. [Bros.], relates the tragic death
of a brother, as the protagonist attempts to move
past his death while honoring his memory. As
both a writer and an illustrator, van Lieshout
understands the complex relationship between
text and image in children’s picture books, and
he uses both literary and visual narrative to tell
his stories. While much of van
Lieshout’s poetry and prose deals
with difficult issues, offering his
young readers a means by which
to deal with their own traumatic
experiences, he also shows his
lighthearted side by writing songs
for the Dutch version of Sesame
Street and radio plays for young
children.
Van Lieshout’s unique contri-
bution to Dutch children’s litera-
ture has not gone unnoticed. In
2009, van Lieshout won the Theo
Thijssen Prize, the most prestigious Dutch chil-
dren’s literature award, which is awarded to
authors and illustrators every three years. He was
also the first recipient of the Charlotte Köhler
Stipendium in 1989 for his work as a promising
young author.
Samantha Christensen
IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Netherlands

Marit Törnqvist
Netherlands ★ Illustrator
“Light has undoubtedly been very important to me—I am always looking
for ways to emphasize the atmosphere by using contrasts and colored light.
A realistic image in an unrealistic light results in poetry.”
© Kim Forchhammer Marit Törnqvist

Marit Törnqvist was born in Sweden in 1964
to a Dutch mother and a Swedish father. When
she was five years old, her family moved to the
Netherlands. She studied illustration at the
Gerrit Rietveld Acadamie in Amsterdam. Since
1988, Törnqvist has worked as an illustrator of
children’s literature. In 2006, she received the
Gouden Penseel (Golden Pencil Award) for her
unsettling illustrations accompa-
nying Toon Tellegen’s disquieting
fairy tale Pikkuhenki. Although
this is the most prestigious award
that Tornqvist has won, she is
also well known and appreciated
for illustrations that offer a sense
of familiarity and consolation.
Her style might be described best
as post-impressionistic.
When Törnqvist was twenty-
three, she began a long and
fruitful working relationship
with the prestigious children’s
author Astrid Lindgren. One of
the culminating accomplishments of this rela-
tionship is Junibacken, a theme-house in Stock-
holm based on Lindgren’s writing. Törnqvist’s
dual nationality comes through in her illustra-
tions, expressed by a dichotomous body of work.
Her illustrations for Swedish books are gener-
ally pastoral, and her Dutch work is more urban.
All of her work weaves a sense of nostalgia for
seemingly simpler times with a darker thread of
ambivalence.
Törnqvist is known for her selectivity when
taking on new projects. She has remained delib-
erately aloof from the mainstream illustrating
industry, arguing that taking on too many proj-
ects at once can result in less empathetic art—
illustrative work that is less in
tune with the work of the author.
It can take Törnqvist two to
three years to complete illustra-
tions for one book, as she takes
accepted commissions very seri-
ously. Törnqvist is reserved about
her own work, and often ends
up discarding numerous draw-
ings and sketches before she
completes one that she is satis-
fied with. Besides working on
texts for other authors, Törnqvist
also both writes and illustrates
her own stories on occasion.
Taylor Kraayenbrink

Selected Bibliography
• Bellen blazen in Burundi [Blowing Bubbles in Burundi]. Written and illustrated by Marit Tornqvist. Amsterdam:
Querido, 2007. Print.
• De rode vogel [The Red Bird]. Text Astrid Lindgren. Amsterdam: Hoogland & Van Klaveren, 2012. Print.
• Ik blijf altijd bij je [I Always Stay with You]. Text Sjoerd Kuyper. Amsterdam: Querido, 2008. Print.
• In Schemerland [In Twilight Country]. Text Astrid Lindgren. Amsterdam: Querido, 2007. Print.
• Pikkuhenki. Text Toon Tellegen. Amsterdam: Querido’s Uitgeverij, 2005. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 39
author nominee: Norway

Bjørn Sortland
Norway ★ Author
“The painter Edvard Munch was once asked which of his pictures was his
favorite. He said this was impossible to answer. His pictures were like his
children, and he couldn’t decide which he liked best. This is the same for me
and my books.”
Bjørn Sortland

Born in Bergen on the west coast of Norway in
1968, Bjørn Sortland grew up on the nearby island
of Bømlo. While employed as a trained social
worker, he attended a course for writers at the
Academy in Bergen in the early 1990s and debuted
in 1992 with It is not Nighttime. Since 1998 writing
has been his full time occupation, and he has
published over 40 works for chil-
dren and young adults. The recip-
ient of numerous literary awards in
Norway, Scandinavia, and beyond,
Sortland’s works have been trans-
lated into over a dozen languages,
including Arabic, Korean and
Urdu. Most of Sortland’s books are
written in nynorsk (New Norwe-
gian), but he also publishes works
in bokmål, the other official written
Norwegian norm.
The theme of art is a hallmark of
Sortland’s authorship, and he weaves this thematic
thread in myriad and often humorous ways into
his picture books and novels, educating readers—
younger and older—alike. His breakthrough work,
Anna’s Art Adventure (1993), describes a young
girl’s interactions with artists such as Munch,
Picasso, Van Gogh, and Warhol, as she steps into
their paintings in an art museum. The meeting
between a famous artist and a child receives a
more somber treatment in The Heart Remembers
(2009), a picture book which describes a young
girl’s conversations with the physically frail Frida
Kahlo, exchanges which help the girl process
the gravity of her own sister’s medical condition.
While visual art is generally the focus of Sort-
land’s works, he has also incorporated literary and
film history into narratives. Sort-
land’s Art Detective novels comprise
one of the most popular series in
Norway, introducing young readers
to art in many parts of the world.
In addition to his passion for
art, Sortland is known for his
experimentation with genres. In
2009 he published The Girl with
the Completely Even, Soft Eye Brows
(2009), a tactile picture book for the
blind set in the Balkans and illus-
trated by award winning Inger Lise
Belsvik. Sortland has worked with an impressive
array of illustrators through the years, including
Øyvind Torseter, exposing his readers to a wide
variety of visual art in this way as well. Bjørn Sort-
land frequently holds talks and workshops on art
and writing for all age groups, from very young
children to adults. He has also written for Norwe-
gian radio and television.
Ingrid Urberg

Selected Bibliography
• 12 ting som må gjerast rett før verda går under [12 Things to be Done Before the End of the World]. Oslo: Aschehoug,
2001. Print.
• 24 I sekundet [24 by the Second]. Illus. Lars Elling. Oslo: Samlaget, 1999. Print.
• Ærlighetsminuttet [Moment of Honesty]. Oslo: Aschehoug, 2005. Print.
• Raudt, blått og litt gult [Anna’s Art Adventure]. Illus. Lars Elling. Oslo: Samlaget, 1993. Print.
• Den solbrente mammaen som blei bytta mot ti kamelar [The Sunburned Mother Who Was Traded for Ten Camels]. Illus.
Kim Hiorthøy. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1997. Print.
40 | bookbird IBBY.ORG

Øyvind Torseter
Norway ★ Illustrator
Innovation, intuitiveness and experimentation are
three of the qualities frequently associated with
Oslo-based illustrator, author, and artist Øyvind
Torseter, one of Norway’s most influential and
celebrated illustrators. While some of his tech-
niques are traditional, he also employs and exper-
iments with three-dimensional paper clippings,
ink drawing collages, graphic effects and digital
picture techniques, while retaining his own
distinct style and voice. Born in Stange in 1972,
Torseter received his education
at the Merkantilt Institute, the
School for Graphic Design in
Oslo, and the Kent Institute of
Art and Design in Maidstone,
England, before he debuted
as a children’s book illustrator
in 1999. He has both success-
fully partnered with highly respected Norwegian
authors such as Jon Fosse, Tore Renberg, and
Bjørn Sortland, and published a number of works,
which he has written and illustrated himself. The
first of these was Mister Random in 2002, and this
minimally texted book introduces the audience
to characters such as the elephant man and the
leopard lady who reappear in a number of Torse-
ter’s later works. The release of this book led to
an intense discussion surrounding intended audi-
ence, and like several of Torseter’s picture books,
Mister Random has a surrealistic side and can be
read as both one narrative and individual stories.
Selected Bibliography
• Avstikkere [Detours]. Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2004. Print.
• Eg kan ikkje sove no [I Can’t Sleep Now]. Text Stein Erik Lund. Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2007. Print.
• Gi gass, Ine [Get Going, Ine]. Text Tore Renberg. Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2010. Print.
• Klikk [Click]. Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2004. Print.
• Spelejenta [The Violin Girl]. Text Jon Fosse. Oslo: Samlaget, 2009. Print.
IBBY.ORG
Illustrator nominee: Norway
Torseter received a great deal of critical
acclaim for Detours (2007) for which he received
the 2008 Bologna Ragazziaward. Bordering on
the comic book genre, an area in which Torseter
has published, Detours is rich in allusions to films,
literature and other art forms, and demonstrates
both the ways in which Torseter calls upon his
readers and viewers to be co-creators, and his
success at addressing younger and older audiences
with the same material. The Bologna jury’s cita-
tion noted Torseter’s ability to
synthesize three-dimensional
painting, his refined comic art,
and his deep understanding of
visual art developments.
More straightforward
narrative and simpler artistic
techniques are seen in works
such as Click (2004). Written for very young
children, this book relates the panic of a young
boy and his grandparents—effectively conveyed
through the use of the color black—when he acci-
dentally locks himself in the bathroom. Torseter’s
use of basic colors to represent danger, fear and
safety are also seen in The Violin Girl (Jon Fosse,
2009).
Torseter talks about his art to groups of school
children and adults alike, and his work can be
found in the National Gallery and several public
buildings in Norway.
Ingrid Urberg
52.2 – 2014 | 41
author nominee: Russia

Vladislav Krapivin
Russia ★ Author
“Childhood is like a fairy tale that can be told every time in a new way.
The essence always remains: the happiness of discovering the world, the joy
of friendship and the feeling of the bright blue sky.”
Vladislav Krapivin

Born Tuymen, Siberia in 1938, Vladislav Krapivin
is the son of teachers. He studied journalism at
Ural State University before working for newspa-
pers and magazines. Krapivin published his first
books of short stories in 1962 and has worked as
a writer since then. In 2007, he was appointed
professor at Tyumen State
University where he teaches liter-
ature and creative writing. For
over 30 years Vladislav Krapivin
has served as the Commodore
of the Caravel, a special unit of
the Sea Scouts established by
him, where young people learn
the skills of reporting news and
seamanship.
Many of his stories have been
made into films and television
programs, including Lullaby for
the Brother in 1982. There are over
150 editions of Krapivin’s works,
including sixty cycles of realistic and fantastic
narratives, tales and short stories, eleven novels,
twenty-five plays, and five collections of poetry.
The most complete edition of his selected works
consists of thirty-five volumes. His work has
been translated into more than a dozen different
languages. Krapivin’s books have been included in
the “Golden Library of Selected Works for Chil-
dren and Youth,” and two volumes of the Japa-
nese series “Selected Works for Teenagers” are
devoted to Krapivin’s stories. He has published
numerous pedagogical essays, popular and schol-
arly. To reflect the importance of his work, in
2011 the Vladislav Krapivin Museum opened
at the Literary and Ethnography centre in his
native Tyumen, and the Ural Writers Association
established the International
Children Literature Award of
Vladislav Krapivin in 2006.
Over the years, Krapivin has
influenced millions of readers, in
Russia and beyond. He is known
for his able blending of realism
and fantasy, and for finely tuning
the psychological novel for young
adults. For decades now, his work
has reflected the social, psycho-
logical, and pedagogical prob-
lems of his homeland, and he has
traced the interactions of social
commentary and patriotism. For
Krapivin childhood is not only a period of prepa-
ration for adult life but is an important part of life
on the whole.
Roxanne Harde

Selected Bibliography
• Та сторона где ветер. [August, the Month of Winds]. Moscow: Progress, 1975. Print.
• Голубятня нe желтой поляне. [A Dovecote on the Yellow Glade]. Прага: Чешск, 1990. Print.
• Бегство рогатых викингов. [The Horned Vikings’ Escape]. Бухарест: Эдитуре ион Креанче, 1974. Print.
• Я иду встречать брата. [I’m Going to Meet my Brother]. Moscow: Molecular Café, 1968. Print.
• Журавлёнок и молнии. [The Little Crane and the Sea]. Роман: Казань: Татарстан китап нэшрияты, 1989. Print.
42 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Russia

Igor Oleinikov
Russia ★ Illustrator

Igor Oleinikov began where most illustrators do
not: as a student of chemistry at the Moscow Insti-
tute of Chemical Engineering. Born in Lyubertsy
in 1953, Oleinikov started his journey as a science
student, but heeding his passion, decided to work
as an assistant art director at a design institute.
Oleinikov succeeded quickly in his position and
eventually became the art director
himself, without any formal
education in art or design what-
soever. The illustrator went on to
become a well-known animator
for a number of Soviet cartoons,
including the very popular show
The Mystery of the Third Planet.
Oleinikov extended his practice
by branching out to film, and
eventually onto children’s periodi-
cals and various book publishers.
Oleinikov has illustrated for a
number of very popular titles
by Russian publishing houses,
including Lewis Carrolls’ Alice in Wonderland,
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde by R.L. Stevenson, and J.M. Barrie’s Peter
Pan. Oleinkiov has now worked for publishers all
over the world.
Oleinikov usually works quite quickly; he has
illustrated over fifty books with his signature
quirky style, making him one of Russia’s most
prolific contemporary illustrators. His work is
full of motion, which results in very vivid and
dynamic end product. The technique Oleinikov
uses is dry brush gouache, which allows him to
work in tiny strokes, dots, and points of shades
of the same color, which produce characters who
seem utterly full of life. Oleinikov is creative in
his depiction of fantasy, and his work inspires
the imagination both in children
and adults. He works to draw a
connection between the young
and old, and his illustrations often
involve humor and subtle irony, as
well as beauty. Oleinikov gets his
inspiration from the world around
him, as he believes “everything
that amazes can become a fairy-
tale in our li[ves].”
Igor Oleinikov has won a
number of awards in Moscow,
and has been nominated for many
more throughout the world. In
2012, Oleinikov made it onto
IBBY’s honor list for the creation of a recog-
nizable yet ultimately unique world in A Ballad
About a Small Tugboat. His distinctive style of
graphic instability has labeled him an innovator
among art gallery dealers in Russia, who have
even gone so far as to coin Oleinikov’s style as
“art-illustration.”
Tia Lalani

Selected Bibliography
• The Ballad of a Little Tugboat. Text Joseph Brodsky. Russia: Azbooka, 2011. Print.
• Br’er Fox and Br’er Rabbit. Text Joel Chandler Harris. Russia: Akvarel, 2012. Print.
• Nightingale. Text Hans Christian Andersen. Taiwan: Grimm Press, 2006. Print.
• The Ox and the Donkey Near the Manger. Text Jules Supervielle. Russia: Nikeya, 2013. Print.
• Working ABC. Text Joseph Brodsky. Russia: Azbooka, 2013. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 43
author nominee: Slovakia

Daniel Hevier
Slovakia ★ Author

Daniel Hevier, one of the most important figures
in Slovakian reading promotion programs, was
born in Bratislavia in 1955. He earned a degree
in Slovak Language, Literature, and Aesthetics
at Comenius University in Bratislava in 1980,
and began working in radio soon after. Hevier
published his first book when he was just eigh-
teen, and has been freelancing
ever since. From 1989-1991, he
was editor-in-chief at Mladé
Letá publishing, and in 1992
he founded HEVI publishing
house. Hevier decided to dedi-
cate himself to teaching in 2005,
and has taught Creative Writing
and Children’s Literature at both
Comenius University and the
Bratislava Academy of Perfor-
mative Arts. He has also worked
with Slovak television and radio
programs for children in order to
promote literary education.
For Hevier, the most important literary rela-
tionship is that between the text and the reader,
and a book is not truly created until a connection
is built between the words and their reader. Rich
language and wordplay permeate both his poetry
and prose, and it is within his humorous and
lighthearted writing style that the child is able
to discover profound messages and life lessons.
Hevier encourages his young readers to rethink
the conventional relationship between good and
evil, and recognizes that these two forces are
not mutually exclusive in everyday childhood
experiences.
Not only does Hevier’s influence emanate
throughout Slovakia, but he also
reaches young readers in Czech
Republic, Germany, Finland,
and Poland through his trans-
lated editions. He has also earned
a number of national and inter-
national awards for his children’s
poetry and prose. In 1994, he
received the Triple Rose Award,
the most prestigious award for
children’s literature in Slovakia,
and he recently won the Slovak
Republic Minister of Culture
Prize for his contributions to the
field of children’s literature. To
date, Hevier has published over fifty children’s
books, poetry collections, and anthologies, and
he continues to promote literacy and love for
reading and writing among young people across
Slovakia.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Hovorníček [Word Fun]. 1992. Illus. Olga Bajusová. Bratislava: Mladé Letá, 2010. Print.
• Kam chodia na zimu zmrzlinári [Where the Ice Cream Men Go for Winter]. Illus. L’uba Končeková-Veselá. Bratislava:
Mladé Letá, 1984. Print.
• Krajina Agord [The Country Agord]. Bratislava: HEVI, 2001. Print.
• Nevyplazuj jazyk na leva [Don’t Stick Your Tongue Out at the Lion]. 1982. Illus. Svetozár Mydlo. Bratislava: Mladé
Letá, 2003. Print.
• Xaver s nohami do X [Xaver with His Legs Like an X]. Bratislava: Perfekt, 2011. Print.
44 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Slovakia

Peter Uchnár
Slovakia ★ Illustrator

Peter Uchnár was born in Sobrance, an Eastern tools. He is an artistic chameleon—adapting his
city in Slovakia, in 1970. Both his secondary and technique to match the mood and plot of the
post-secondary education were grounded in the stories he narrates—yet he maintains a recog-
arts, studying at the High School of Arts and nizable style throughout his oeuvre. Uchnár’s
Crafts in Košice from 1984 to 1988, and at the compositions portray a dreamy fantasy world—
Bratislava Academy of Fine Arts and Design thick brushstrokes, rich, vivid colors, and close
from 1992 to 1998. After finishing his degree in attention to detail create a visual reverie that
Graphics and Book Illustration, he was hired by draws his readers’ attention and evokes strong
the department as an assistant professor, where emotional response.
he taught until 2002. One of the Uchnár began earning awards
most important children’s book immediately after entering the
illustrators in Slovakia, Uchnár realm of children’s illustration.
has dedicated himself to the His first book earned him the
field of picture books, painting, Biennial Illustration Bratislava
graphic design, and postage (BIB) Golden Apple Award in
stamps, and currently freelances 1999, and since then he has won
from Pezniok, near Bratislava. multiple awards in the Most
From his first published chil- Beautiful Books of Slovakia
dren’s book in 1998, an illus- contest and the Children’s Jury
trated version of Swift’s Gulliver’s Award at BIB 2009. He publishes
Travels, Uchnár has attracted both locally and abroad, with
a great deal of attention in the books published in Japan and the
realm of children’s literature. He Czech Republic, and his book
incorporates a heroic yet relatable Štyria škriatkovia a víla [The
character into each of his illustrated narratives, Four Elves and the Fairy] has been translated
and ensures that his young readers can make into English. Uchnár is a prominent figure in the
personal connections to the characters he brings middle generation of Slovak children’s illustra-
to life. It is important for Uchnár not to impose tors, and his work has been celebrated at exhibits
his own imagination onto his readers, but instead across Europe and Asia.
guide them through their own understandings of Samantha Christensen
the narrative using both text and image as their

Selected Bibliography
• Drevený zámoček [A Wooden Castle]. Bratislava: Buvik, 2011. Print.
• Gulliverove cesty [Gulliver’s Travels]. Text Jonathan Swift. Bratislava: Slovak Society of Writers, 1998. Print.
• Peter Pan. Text James Matthew Barrie. Bratislava: Slovart, 2008. Print.
• Štyria škriatkovia a víla [The Four Elves and the Fairy]. Text Ján Uličiansky. Bratislava: Perfekt, 2009. Print.
• Vel’ ká kniha slovenských rozprávok [The Big Book of Slovakian Fairy Tales]. Text L’ubomír Feldak. Bratislava: Reader’s
Digest Výber Slovakia, 2003. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 45
author nominee: Slovenia

Polonca Kovač
Slovenia ★ Author
“A child is exposed to all the troubles of the adult world, and is much more
vulnerable and psycho-socially less mature, so such stories must be written
‘realistically’ and without instant solutions. Not everything in life ends hap-
pily, not even in fairy tales; one has only to think of Andersen. However, we
can push in the right direction.”
Polonca Kovač
Born in 1937 in Ljubljana, Polonca Kovač earned of Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry series were
a degree in comparative literature and Italian chosen five times for the Slovene “My Favou-
from the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. She then rite Book” Award. She has also won the 2000
taught Italian and German at the Cene Štupar Večernica Award for the work Kaja in njena
Workers University in Ljubljana. She later družina [Kaja and Her Family] (1999), and the
worked at the Counseling Centre for Children 2009 Levstik Award for her life work.
and Adolescents in Ljubljana, Kovač’s stories for children
and then taught German in the most often function entirely
Centre for Foreign Languages. realistically in that they describe
Now a full-time writer, Kovač is people, their behavior and the
the author of over thirty original characteristics, and the “real
texts. Her literary works for chil- world.” Her children and young
dren and young adults encom- adults, in their sadness and
pass different genres, including confusion, in their considerations
fantasy tales, stories, and fairy- of life’s problems, thus come to
tales for children; realistic fiction matter to their young readers.
and non-fiction for teenagers; Ultimately, Kovač writes as an
plays; screenplays for television, advocate for young people, real-
and textbooks. Kovač is known istically but with great joy and
for creating important texts of humor.
high quality in all genres.
Kovač is also renowned as a Roxanne Harde
translator. Her translation of the
work of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales made
the IBBY Honor List in 2008, and her other
important translations include Anne Frank’s
Diary of a Young Girl, and books by Michael
Ende and Arcado Lobato. Kovač’s translations

Selected Bibliography
• Andrejev ni nikoli preveč [Never Too Many Andrews]. Illus. Melita Vovk Štih. Ljubljana: Borec, 1977. Reprinted: Illus.
Alojz Zorman. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1980, 1993. Print.
• Kaja in njena družina [Kaja and Her Family]. Illus. Maja B. Jančič. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1999. Print.
• Špelce [Lizzies]. Illus. Matjaž Schmidt. Ljubljana: Borec, 1983. Reprinted: Mladika, 1994. Print.
• Zelišča male čarovnice [The Herbs of the Little Witch]. Illus. Ančka Gošnik Godec. Ljubljana: DZS, 1995, 1998, 2002.
Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 2009. 2012. Print.
• Zverinice od A do Ž: izbrane zgodbe za otroke [Beasts from A to Ž: Selected Stories for Children]. Illus. Marjan Manček.
Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 2007, 2012. Print.
46 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Slovenia

Alenka Sottler
Slovenia ★ Illustrator

Alenka Sottler was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia
in 1958, and grew up among a family dedicated
to the arts. Her father was a sculptor, while her
mother worked for a leading newspaper and
printing company. Alenka first learned to draw
and sculpt in her father’s studio, where she culti-
vated a love of art that would take
her through both undergraduate
and postgraduate studies in
painting at the Academy of Fine
Arts in Ljubljana. In 1988, Sottler
began to work as a freelance
painter and illustrator for Slove-
nian and foreign publishers and
magazines, including the largest
Slovenian publisher, Mladinska
knija. Since then she has illus-
trated more than 45 books, with a
particular flair for fairytales. She
has won many awards, including
the Hinko Smrekar Award at the
Biennial of Slovenian Illustra-
tion, and awards from other countries such as
Japan, Croatia, and Italy, as well as five certifi-
cates of Merit from the Annual Exhibition in
New York, and she made the IBBY Honor list
in 2008. She has received other accolades for her
work, most prominently for her illustrations in
Folk Tales from Around the World.
Sottler often takes risks and experiments with
her craft. Her artistry steadfastly displays an
awareness of the importance of artistic freedom
of expression. Her style is contemporary, with
subtle elements of modernist painting tradi-
tion reminiscent of the Late Gothic and Early
Renaissance. She is an extremely with precision
and consistency, allowing her images to adhere
to a system and form their own
personal narrative.
Alenka Sottler has illustrated
many children’s classics and
cultural stories and fairytales, and
has also brought to life the fairy
tales of Oscar Wilde by incorpo-
rating her own artistic style and
technique to the texts. Sottler’s
colorful, contemporary style has
also illustrated distinctly Slove-
nian cultural texts—works by
poets and authors such as Oton
Župančič and Grigor Vitez—
and her artistic contributions to
these canonical works prove that
illustration is an important aspect of Slovenian
literature and culture.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Agnes Cecilija [Agnes Cecilia]. Text Maria Gripe. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1998.
• Pepelka [Cinderella]. Text Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 2006.
• Pravljice [Fairy Tales]. Text Oscar Wilde. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1999.
• Svetlanine pravljice [Svetlana‘s Fairytales]. Text Svetlana Makarovič. Dob: Miš, 2008.
• Svetovne Pravljice [Folk Tales from Around the World]. Ljubljana: Nova revija, 2004.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 47
Illustrator nominee: Spain

Javier Zabala
Spain ★ Illustrator

With a passion for learning and an incredible flair abstract illustrations of his characters and their
for illustration, Javier Zabala has earned a reputa- surroundings, he manages to create a relation-
tion as one of the most talented and influential ship between text and image that is both familiar
illustrators in Spain. Born in León, Zabala origi- and relatable to his young readers. His ability to
nally did not see himself as an artist, but eventu- blend colors and bend traditional illustrative rules
ally left his studies in veterinary medicine and law makes him particularly skilled at capturing the
in order to pursue an education in graphic design essence of the stories he illustrates, and he does
and illustration at the Oviedo Art so uniquely and innovatively.
School in Asturias, Spain. It was Currently, Zabala teaches
in art school that he developed a summer courses at the Univer-
passion for children’s book illus- sity of Macerata in Italy, where
tration, and after beginning to he has been teaching since
publish in a number of prominent 2006, and in 2009 he also began
Spanish magazines and working teaching summer courses at the
for major publishers, he has Ostia Library in Rome. Zabala
currently illustrated over seventy has been recognized by many
books. Having been translated international awards, exhibits,
into fifteen languages, Zabala’s and children’s literature festi-
books are influential in the lives vals, including the 2005 national
of children around the world, award for Best Illustration in
and his ability to relate to chil- Children’s Literature and the
dren through thought-provoking 2010 APIC Junceda Iberia
imagery allows him to immerse readers from all Award for his illustrations in a children’s edition
over the world in Spanish culture. Picturebooks of Hamlet. He is also heavily involved in chil-
such as Santiago and Don Quijote are deeply dren’s reading programs in Spain, and has dedi-
embedded in Latin American culture and tradi- cated his life to art, children’s literature, and the
tion, and Zabala’s attention to detail and unique beauty implicit in blending the two.
artistic style capture his young readers’ attention
and familiarizes them with Spanish experience. Samantha Christensen
Zabala’s artistic style has been deemed avant-
garde, but while his pieces do offer somewhat

Selected Bibliography
• Don Quijote de la Mancha [Don Quixote of La Mancha]. Text Carlos Reviejo. Ediciones SM, 2004. Print.
• Hamlet. Text William Shakespeare. Madrid: Nordica Libros, 2009. Print.
• Por qué nos preguntamos cosas [Why We Wonder About Things]. Text Victoria Pérez Escrivá. Barcelona: Thule, 2013. Print.
• Santiago. Text Frederico García Lorca. Barcelona: Zorro Rojo, 2007. Print.
• El soldadito Salamón [Salamon the Soldier]. Text Rocìo Antón and Lola Núñez. Madrid: Ediciones SM, 2004. Print.
48 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Illustrator nominee: Sweden

Eva Lindström
Sweden ★ Illustrator
“The way I see it, if my story’s going to be the way I want it, I have to
be my own target audience. I’m afraid that what I want to say will get
diluted if I start thinking about the way anyone else, adult or child, might
conceivably want to read my book”
Eva Lindström

With her unique and oftentimes dark subject balance between darkness and optimism. She
matter and highly personal technique, Eva Lind- also uses color to reflect the mood of the stories
ström has become an influential artist in the field she illustrates, along with the emotions of her
of children’s book illustrating. Born in Västerås in characters, and she works to capture realistic
1952, she attended the local school of arts for her experiences of childhood.
first year of post-secondary (1968-69), and from Lindström’s passion for capturing the essence
there she went on to the Art School of Konst- of childhood through color and familiar imagery
fack, where she studied painting until gradu- make her a beloved illustrator in the realm of
ating in 1974. Lindström’s time Swedish children’s literature. Not
at Konstfack was a period of left- only does she illustrate children’s
wing political activism, and she books, she also writes them.
and her classmates formed the Her first published text, Någon
radical group “Svarta hämnarna” flyttar in—Berättesler om Mats
[The Black Avengers], which Och Roj [Somebody Moves In—
used poster art to make political Stories About Mats and Roj]
statements. The group played a was published in 2002, and she
definite role in her dark, radical has written many picture books,
style. her latest being Olli Och Mo
Lindström began her illus- [Olli and Mo] (2012). She has
trating career in the mid-1980s, won a number of awards for her
where she illustrated texts by illustrations, including the Elsa
various authors and made a Beskow Plaque in 1993, the En
name for herself in the field. She Bok För Alla’s Literary Humor
authored and illustrated her first book in 1988, Prize in 2003, and Snöbollen’s Best Picture Book
Katmössan [The Cat’s Hat], and her second book, of the Year in 2012.
Lurix (1996) is considered her illustrative artistic Samantha Christensen
breakthrough. Her stories often deal with diffi-
cult subject matter, such as the search for iden-
tity and general loneliness, but her subtle humor
and rich color patterns help her strike a proficient

Selected Bibliography
• Apan och Jag [Monkey and Me]. Stockholm: Alfabeta, 2011. Print.
• En fågeldag [A Bird Day]. Stockholm: Alfabeta, 2000. Print.
• Jag rymmer! [I’m Running Away!]. Stockholm: Alfabeta, 2006. Print.
• Min vän Lage [My Friend Lage]. Stockholm: Alfabeta, 2001. Print
• Olli och Mo [Olli and Mo]. Stockholm: Alfabeta, 2012. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 49
Illustrator nominee: Switzerland

Albertine
Switzerland ★ Illustrator

Born near Geneva in 1967, Albertine studied space, and of the variety of media she employs—
at the École supérieure d’art visual of Geneva. including gouache, collage, line drawings,
After graduating in 1990, Albertine opened a and digital pallets—speak to her sense of play.
screen-printing workshop and became a press Overall, her art is aptly described as joyous and
illustrator for Le Nouveau Quotidein, L’Hebdo, unrestrained, and her refusal to subscribe to the
Bilan, Femina, and Les Carnets de Versailles. Her traditional constraints of illustrated books means
marriage to writer Germano Zullo in 1996 has led that her work will stay fresh and relevant to chil-
to an ongoing and productive collaboration. Their dren in the decades to come.
children’s books have won many
awards, including the Golden Roxanne Harde
Apple of Bratislava in1999, Prix
Suisse Jeunesse et Médias in
2009, the Prix Sorciéres in 2011,
and the New York Times Book
Review Best Illustrated Book in
2012. Albertine also collaborates
with director Claude Barras, and
they have made animated and
short films, and a puppet show
production. She continues to
develop her artistic career and
has exhibited drawings, screen
prints, lithographs, and wood
engravings in Geneva, Paris, Rome, Valencia,
and Tokyo. Albertine also teaches screen-
printing and illustration courses in Geneva.
In interviews, Albertine often references the
importance of games and play to her work. Her
commitment to the story comes through the
stroke of her Rotring, but her use of color and

Selected Publications
• Le Chat botté [Puss in Boots]. Text Charles Perrault. Geneva: Éditions la Joie de Lire, 2009. Print.
• Les Gratte-Ciel [Sky High]. Text Germano Zullo. Geneva: Éditions la Joie de Lire, 2011. Print.
• Marta et la bicyclette [Marta and the Bicycle]. Text Germano Zullo. Geneva: Éditions la Joie de Lire, 1999. Print.
• Les Oiseaux [Little Bird]. Text Germano Zullo. Geneva: Éditions la Joie de Lire, 2010. Print.
• La Rumeur de Venise [The Venice Rumor]. Story Germano Zullo. Geneva: Éditions la Joie de Lire, 2008. Print.
50 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 author nominee: Turkey

Serpil Ural
Turkey ★ Author
“When I consider what I wanted the children to gain from my books, that
two-part category comes to mind: ‘Roots and wings’: roots to introduce
their culture in such a way to give the child a sense of identity; wings to
motivate their fantasy, to give them a means of getting rid of prejudice,
gain tolerance and the ability to participate freely in a multi-cultural
world.” Serpil Ural

Born in Western Turkey in 1945, Serpil Ural
attended schools in Istanbul and the United
States before majoring in Graphic Design at the
School of Applied Fine Arts in Istanbul. After
graduating, Ural worked as a copywriter in an
advertising agency. She began writing books for
children after marrying and moving to Ankara in
1977, and published her first book, a picture book
about a chubby bunny, in 1979. Her texts have
rarely been as light-hearted as
she grapples with difficult issues
that affect real children. Ural’s
concerns include environmental
problems, war and death, divorce,
and physical challenges. She was
the first Turkish author to create
a picture book on disability,
and has been a groundbreaker
throughout her career, including
her recent collaborations with
authors from other countries and
cultures. Her books about other
cultures, including India and
Spain, promote cultural diversity.
To that same end, Ural translates
books from English into Turkish, and her work
has been translated into other languages as well.
Aside from her work writing books for chil-
dren, Ural has been a tireless advocate for the
field in her country. She began working towards
a Turkish section of IBBY as early as 1980,
after a trip to the IBBY Secretariat in Basel.
That effort was realized in 1994. In 1980, with
a research grant from the International Youth
Library in Munich, Ural research the history of
environmental issues in children’s literature and
later published her findings. Ural does volunteer
work for children’s literacy, including working
in a Bookmobile that distributes
books to children in rural areas.
She also participates in work-
shops, conferences, and exhibits,
and contributes book reviews to
a periodical aimed at parents and
teachers. Ural recently served
on the Board of Consultants
on Children’s Literature to the
Turkish Ministry of Culture,
and she teaches a course in the
field at the Middle East Tech-
nical University in Ankara.
Roxanne Harde

Selected Bibliography
• Ağrı’dan Zelve’ye Anadolu Anlatıyor [Folktales from Turkey: From Agri to Zelve]. Illus. Dilara Arin. Istanbul: Çitlembik
Yayınları, 2012. Print.
• Aksak Ali [Ali, The Limping Boy]. Istanbul: Ya-Pa, 1993. Print.
• Şafakta Yanan Mumlar [Candles at Dawn]. Australia: Limelight, 2004. Print.
• Trompistan’dan Gelen Çocuk [The Boy from Trompeland] Illus. Nathalia Kapatsoulia. Istanbul: TÜYDAP, 2009. Print.
• Üşengeç Yengeç [The Lazy Crazy Crab]. Istanbul: Turkish Ministry of Education, 2006. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 51
Illustrator nominee: Turkey

Saadet Ceylan
Turkey ★ Illustrator
“Nature is my chief source of inspiration. The beauties and peaceful state of
nature attract me. I believe children’s books must reflect affection, peace, and
confidence to children.”
Saadet Ceylan

Born in 1955 in Düzce, Saadet Ceylan began with my illustrations. I feel extremely free when
illustrating children’s books while still working working. I have the utmost respect for the author
on her degree in the Academy of Fine Arts at I do my best to perceive well the world which the
Marmara University. After graduating in 1979, author aimed to create, and to pains to shape and
Ceylan worked as a graphic designer before reflect that world.”
becoming a full-time artist. Since then, with In supporting her very busy career, Ceylan also
more than five hundred titles in print, including teaches art courses to children and enhances her
books in many different own artistic practice by taking
languages, she has had prolific a variety of courses, including
career, and has illustrated at in illumination, ceramics,
least one book for nearly every and children’s literature. In
Turkish author of children’s addition, Ceylan studied and
books and has been commis- teaches the Ottoman art of
sioned by the majority of marbled paper, and uses it
Turkey’s publishers. in some of her illustrations,
With her use of clean lines particularly collages. She has
and subtle colors, Ceylan’s also given many workshops
work appeals to audiences of and talks, attended chil-
all ages. While varying her dren’s book fairs and exhibits,
styles to suit the text at hand, spoken on many panels, and
Ceylan nonetheless has devel- served on several juries.
oped a distinctive oeuvre with an emphasis on
the natural world and the ability to imbue every Roxanne Harde
character with a vibrant personality, from a crow
to a snowman. Her wet on wet watercolors are
easily discernible, and her use of ink for details
over watercolor give her great flexibility in
serving the needs of the story. In an interview
with Serpil Ural, Ceylan describes her work this
way, “I believe I enhance the spirit of a book

Selected Bibliography
• Büyülü Bahçe [Magic Garden]. Text Ayfer Gürdal Ünal. Istanbul: Tudem, 2008. Print.
• Düşler Tramvayı [Dream Tramway]. Text Seza Kutlar Askoy. Istanbul: Tudem, 2011. Print.
• Maths Garden Stories. Text Nüket Solmaz. Dubai: Seri Yayıncılık, 2012. Print.
• Noktacık [Noktacik]. Text Seza Kutlar Askoy. Istanbul: Tudem, 2008. Print.
• Titiz, Cat on the Bosphorus. Text Figen Yaman Coşar. Istanbul: UMP, 2013. Print.
52 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 author nominee: United Kingdom

Jacqueline Wilson
United Kingdom ★ Author
“When I was growing up children’s books were bland and middle class, I
wanted books with more bite, ones that showed what life was really like.
So I decided to write them.”
Jacqueline Wilson

One of the most successful authors in the world,
Jacqueline Wilson has published over a hundred
books that have sold more than twenty million
copies and have been translated in to thirty
languages. Her work, which most often focuses
on the difficult issues that children face, has been
widely adapted for radio, television, and the stage.
Born in 1945 in Bath, Wilson
created stories from an early age,
and her first job was with the
girls’ magazine Jackie. Although
she wrote and published steadily,
Wilson had only minor success
until she published The Story of
Tracy Beaker in 1991. Wilson’s
titular character is a girl living
in a children’s home who longs
for a family. The novel is remark-
able for the fresh colloquial style
of Tracy’s first-person narration,
told through her journal. Tracy’s
narrative is both humorous and
moving as Wilson negotiates
between the sadness and anger the child holds and
her irrepressible energy and optimism. The novel
also marked the beginning of Wilson’s collabo-
ration with illustrator Nick Sharrat, who still
designs her book covers and provides ink draw-
ings to go along with her text. In a 2009 interview
with Partnership for Children, Wilson notes that
“Tracy Beaker is appalling badly behaved, but that
is because she had a very rough start in life. …
When I go to schools and ask children why they
like her, they say, ‘because she’s naughty.’ Then
when I ask why she’s naughty, they say, ‘because
she’s sad.’ I ask why she is sad, and the children say
‘because she wants to see her mum,’ or ‘she doesn’t
have any friends.’ I am thrilled to bits that they
can see the reasons why Tracy is
as she is.” Wilson went on to write
three sequels to The Story of Tracy
Beaker.
Wilson’s work has received
wide recognition. In 2002, she
was awarded the Order of the
British Empire for service to
literacy in schools, and she served
as Children’s Laureate from
2005 to 2007. In 2008, she was
appointed Dame Commander of
the Order of the British Empire,
the first children’s author to be
so named. Wilson’s books have
garnered many awards, including
the Smarties Prize, the Guardian Children’s
Fiction Prize, the British Books Awards Chil-
dren’s book of the Year, and the Blue Peter People’s
Choice Award. More importantly to Wilson, in
2003, UK children named her as their favorite
writer, and for a number of years she was the most
borrowed author from UK public libraries.
Roxanne Harde

Selected Bibliography
• Hetty Feather. New York: Doubleday, 2009. Print.
• The Illustrated Mum. New York: Doubleday: 1999. Print.
• Lola Rose. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Print.
• The Story of Tracey Beaker. New York: Doubleday, 1991. Print.
• Vicky Angel. New York: Doubleday, 2000. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 53
Illustrator nominee: United Kingdom
John Burningham
United Kingdom ★ Illustrator
John Burningham (b. 1936) was very young
when the Second World War broke out, which
contributed to his unusual childhood, some of
which was spent living in a caravan because his
parents rented out their home to pay for school
fees. Burningham attended nine different experi-
mental boarding schools, including Summer-
hill. Burningham left Summerhill with a school
certificate in English literature, but failed many
other subjects including art.
Nevertheless, he was able to
enter the Central School of Art
in London, where he met his
wife, the award-winning chil-
dren’s illustrator, Helen Oxen-
bury. Some of Burningham’s
most loved books are based on
incidents in their family life with
their three children.
This year marks the fiftieth
anniversary of Burningham’s first
picture book Borka: The Adven-
tures of a Goose with No Feathers
(1963), and a special anniversary
issue has been released. Loved for its delightful
protagonist who—because she has no feathers—
cannot live like other geese, and so has to find
her own way of being in the world, Borka also
marks an important turning point in publica-
tion history. Borka was the first book that Jona-
than Cape published using full color lithography.
Selected Bibliography
• Borka: The Adventures of a Goose with No Feathers. London: Jonathan Cape, 1963. Print.
• Come Away from the Water, Shirley. London: Jonathan Cape, 1977. Print.
• Granpa. London: Jonathan Cape, 1984. Print.
• Husherbye. London: Jonathan Cape, 2000. Print.
• Mr. Gumpy’s Outing. London: Jonathan Cape, 1970. Print.
54 | bookbird
Until then, the colors were separated by hand,
a technique Burningham claims he could never
have managed. The result drew instant acclaim
and was awarded the Kate Greenaway Award for
illustration. Since then, Burningham has aver-
aged more than a book a year, and his pace has
increased in recent years.
Burningham’s stories typically portray ordi-
nary family life. His parents are often rather
tired. In his two books about
Shirley: Come Away From the
Water, Shirley (1977) and Time to
Get Out of the Bath, Shirley (1978),
the divide between the right and
left pages is used to separate the
mundane world of the adult from
the imaginative interior world
of the child’s imagination. Shir-
ley’s parents are so caught up in
the prosaic concerns of the here
and now, they fail to notice Shir-
ley’s fantasy world. Burningham
has frequently commented on
the importance of the extended
family, especially grandparents. Granpa (1994)
was inspired by the loving relationship his
youngest daughter had with her grandfather. A
similarly affectionate bond across the generations
is evident in the stories about Mr. Gumpy.
Lydia Kokkola
IBBY.ORG
 author nominee: United States

Jacqueline Woodson
United States ★ Author

Jacqueline Woodson was born in 1963 in
Columbus, Ohio. She was raised by her mother
and grandmother, as her parents separated when
she was a child. Woodson spent the first seven
years of her life in South Carolina, and then
moved to New York. Since then, she has chosen
to reside in New York; however, her life and
work are characterized by her dual experience of
the American South and the North. As a child,
Jacqueline was encouraged to
read extensively, and her encoun-
ters with books motivated her to
be a writer. Woodson earned a
BA at Adelphi University at Long
Island, NY, where she focused on
literature studies to prepare her
for writing.
Woodson’s work is eclectic in
nature. She has authored chil-
dren’s literature in the form of
picture books, but she also has
written novels for adolescents
and young adults. She has even written one novel
for young adults in verse form. Woodson, even
when not writing in verse, is especially attentive
to the fluidity and lyricism of her style. She often
uses dialect and repetition to elevate her prose.
As an African-American author, Woodson’s
employment of dialect captures the language and
spirit of the place she comes from: “It tells its own
story, our language does, and woven through it
are all the places we’ve been, all that we’ve seen,
experiences held close, both good and bad.”
The poetic use of dialect in her work—dialect
that tells of experiences “both good and bad”—is
fitting and indicative of Woodson’s attention to
both the beauty and harshness of human expe-
rience. Her narratives deal with many sensitive
issues, such as racial tension, drug abuse, sexual
abuse, sexuality, and more.
However, Woodson addresses
difficult issues because she
believes that these stories are
important to tell, and the telling
of a story is the first step towards
reconciliation and wellness. Even
so, sometimes Woodson’s stories
do not end on a note of healing, as
she seeks to teach young readers
about the potential irreversibility
of certain hurtful behaviours.
Thus, for example, in her 2012
picture book Each Kindness, a girl who has been
unkind to another classmate does not get the
opportunity to make amends, even though she
seeks to. Despite the cautionary nature of such
episodes, Woodson’s work is primarily character-
ized by the presence of hope for positive change
in the world.
Taylor Kraayenbrink

Selected Bibliography
• Beneath a Meth Moon: an Elegy. New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2012. Print.
• Each Kindness. Illus. E. B. Lewis. New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2012. Print.
• If You Come Softly. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Penguin, 2002. Print.
• Locomotion. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Penguin. 2005. Print.
• Show Way. Illus. Hudson Talbott. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Penguin 2005. Print.
IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 55
Illustrator nominee: United States

Bryan Collier
United States ★ Illustrator
“Once you form a sensibility about connection, how different elements
relate to each other, you deepen your understanding of yourself and others.”

Bryan Collier

Bryan Collier is passionate about creating a voice
for young people through artistic expression and
powerful imagery, and he has dedicated his life
to empowering children and teens through his
artistic mediums. Growing up as the youngest of
six children in Pocomoke, Maryland, Collier spent
his childhood and adolescence not only writing
and illustrating stories but also playing football.
He declined a football scholarship in order to
instead attend Pratt Institute on
a talent scholarship, and it was
there he pursued both his passion
for painting and his dedication
to representing African-Amer-
ican experience through artistic
expression. While he was still in
art school, Collier began volun-
teering at the Harlem Horizon
Studio in New York’s Harlem
Hospital Center, where he
encouraged young people—both
patients and the general public—
to express themselves and build
self-confidence through art.
Collier’s style is incredibly unique—often
blending painting, drawing, and collage—and
much of his most astonishing work is embedded
in African-American experience. He attributes
his inspiration for his collage work, which incor-
porates magazine clippings, watercolors, and
clippings from his own paintings, to his child-
hood memories of his grandmother’s quilts, and
his style evokes the same familiar response in
those who engage with his work. Collier spent
seven years working to create a foundation for
himself in the realm of children’s book illustra-
tions, and it was in 2000 that Laura Godwin and
Henry Holt encouraged him to write and illus-
trate his first children’s text—Uptown (2000). The
book earned both the Coretta
Scott King Illustrator Award and
the Ezra Jack Keats Award for
New Talent, and it launched his
passion for illustrating children’s
texts representing African-Amer-
ican experience.
Much of Collier’s work depicts
African-American history in the
United States, and he has illus-
trated texts on African-American
figures such as Martin Luther
King, Rosa Parks, and Roberto
Clemente. He has earned many
awards for his illustrations,
including five Coretta Scott King Awards and
two Caldecott Honors, and he often volunteers
his time in schools, where he helps children and
teens express their own stories through artistic
mediums.
Samantha Christensen

Selected Bibliography
• Clemente. Text Willie Perdomo. New York: Henry Holt, 2010. Print.
• I, Too, Am America. Text Langston Hughes. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. Print.
• Martin’s Big Words. Text Doreen Rappaport. New York: Jump at the Sun, 2001. Print.
• Rosa. Text Nikki Giovanni. New York: Henry Holt, 2005. Print.
• Uptown. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. Print.
56 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Our Forthcoming Issues:

52.3 (2014) The Mexico City Congress Issue: Children’s Literature in the
Hispanic World
52.4 (2014) Open Themed & the Hans Christian Andersen Award Shortlist
53.1 (2015) Ecocritical Perspectives in Children’s Literature

IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 57

58 | bookbird IBBY.ORG
 Call for Papers: Machines, Monsters and Animals: Posthuman
Children’s Literature
Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature invites contributions for a special issue
exploring the relationship between children’s fiction and posthumanism. From Charles Kingsley’s The
Water-Babies to Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy, children’s fiction intervenes in debates about
what it means to be human, animal, “natural,” or machine. Indeed, children’s fiction has an imaginative
history of conceiving alternative modes of being. Human and animal ethics, utopia/dystopia,
anthropomorphism, and ecocriticism would be appropriate topics to explore. Areas of thematic interest
may include, but are not limited to:
• The alien or monstrous “other” • Digital technology and virtual reality
• Animal ethics • Dystopia and utopia
• Anthropomorphism • Ecocriticism and nature studies
• Artificial Intelligence • Machine animism and robotics
• Cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) • Wildness and civility
• Digital childhoods

Full articles should be submitted to the editor, Björn Sundmark (bjorn.sundmark@mah.se), and guest
editor, Zoe Jaques (zj216@cam.ac.uk) by 1 June 2014. Please see Bookbird’s website at www.ibby.org/
bookbird for full submission details. Papers which are not accepted for this issue will be considered for
later issues of Bookbird.

Would you like to write for IBBY’s journal?

Academic Articles ca. 4000 words
Bookbird publishes articles on children’s literature with an international perspective four times a year
(in January, April, July and October). Articles that compare literatures of different countries are of
interest, as are papers on translation studies and articles that discuss the reception of work from one
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writer may also be suitable, but it is important that the article should be of interest to an international
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from Bookbird’s web pages.

Children and Their Books ca. 2500 words

Bookbird also provides a forum where those working with children and their literature can write about
their experiences. Teachers, librarians, publishers, authors and parents, short articles discussing the
ways in which you have worked with children and their literatures, or have watched children respond to
literature are welcomed. Articles concerned with a particular national issue are of interest, but should
be written in a manner that appeals to an international audience.

Postcards and Letters ca. 300 or 1000 words

Bookbird publishes reviews of both primary and secondary sources. Brief ‘postcards’ (ca. 300 words) on
individual works of children’s literature, or extended ‘letters’ (ca. 1000 words) introducing the work
of a particular author or illustrator are welcomed. In addition to the full publication details, please
comment on whether the works are available in translation.

IBBY.ORG 52.2 – 2014 | 59

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The Journal of IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People
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52.2 (2014)

Special Issue:
2014 Hans Christian Andersen
Award Nominees