Editorial

This year, we have decided to publish the Hans Christian Andersen edition of Bookbird in April, before the announcement of the winners of the awards. This way, all the nominees are treated equally, and readers have a chance to review the full range of nominations before the spotlight falls on the winners.

We hope readers will be pleased with this new approach, as it will make useful information available sooner than it would otherwise be published, and that the nominated writers and illustrators will enjoy better exposure from early publication of their nominations.

The winners of the author's and illustrator's awards will be announced very soon after publication of this issue, and we will publish the full results, including the list of finalists in both categories, in our autumn issue, as usual. That issue will also contain articles on the two winners. And as usual, that autumn issue, with full HCA results, will be published a little earlier, so that it will be available in time for IBBY's biennial congress, in September.

Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations included in entries in this issue, from nominated authors and illustrators or from critics, are taken from the dossiers submitted by the respective national sections as part of the nomination process.

The editors have made every effort to reproduce names, titles and other information accurately from the material supplied by the respective national sections as part of the nomination procedures. The quality of the information provided by national sections varies, and the editors would like to take this opportunity to remind national sections that the more accessible and comprehensive the information they include when making their nomination submissions, the better and the more informative the entry in the HCA edition of Bookbird can be.

Congratulations to all the nominated authors and illustrators, and happy reading!