The 2014 IBBY Awards

The Hans Christian Andersen Awards: The Jury Meeting

The meeting took place in the splendid castle, Schloss Blutenburg, that is the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany a week before the 2014 Bologna Children’s Book Fair. With a lot of planning and help from staff at the library, the 13 members of the jury finally sat down and discussed the candidates for the 2014 Awards. Although not all of the jury had met each other before, the atmosphere was very convivial. During the previous months the jury members had “met” in cyberspace by using the specially set up and password protected blog.

The working weekend started with the opening of the new IYL picture-book exhibition Knuffle Bunny Meets Rosa Parks curated by Claudia Söffner from prize-winning picture books from the recently acquired Lawrence R. Sipe collection. Two U.S. artists with very different styles, Christopher Myers and David Wiesner, conducted a conversation moderated by Junko Yokota about their work.

The 2014 Jury in discussion at the International Youth Library.

Over the next two days all the candidates were discussed by the jury; on Saturday it was the authors and on Sunday the illustrators. The books and dossiers that had been submitted by the National Sections in support of their candidates were on hand to re-visit and sometimes look at in a new light. The discussions were serious and intense and the evenings spent together for dinner were welcome spaces for relaxation.

The jury was led by jury president María Jesús Gil from Spain. The members of the jury were Anastasia Arkhipova illustrator, chair of the board of the Association of Moscow Book Illustrators and Designers, Moscow, Russia; Fanuel Hanan Diaz 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. Former IBBY Vice President Elda Nogueira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and IBBY Executive Director Liz Page were ex officio Jury members.

The 2014 Andersen Jury: l-r Elda Nogueira, Fanuel Hanan Diaz, Maria Jesus Gil, Deborah Soria, Sangwook Kim, Sabine Fuchs, Ayfer Ünal, Liz Page, Sahar Tarhandeh, Erik Titusson, Anastasia Arkhipova, Susan Stan and Enrique Perez Diaz.

On Monday, 17 March 2014 a press release naming the twelve candidates on the shortlist was sent around the world. The author shortlist comprised Ted van Leishout from the Netherlands; Houshang Moradi Kermani from Iran; Mirjam Pressler from Germany; Nahoko Uehashi from Japan; Renate Welsh from Austria; and, Jacqueline Woodson from the USA. The six short-listed illustrators are Rotraut Susanne Berner from Germany; John Burningham from the UK; Eva Lindström from Sweden; Roger Mello from Brazil; François Place from France; and, Øyvind Torseter from Norway.

The big moment came at the IBBY press conference at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair a week later on Monday, 24 March. Jury President María Jesús Gil gave the long-awaited announcement that the winners of the Hans Christian Andersen Awards for 2014 were Nahoko Uehashi from Japan for her writing and Roger Mello from Brazil for his illustrations.

Jury President María Jesús Gil announcing the winners.

The IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Awards: The Jury Meeting

The 2014 Jury met in Istanbul, Turkey in August 2013 immediately after the IBBY Executive Meeting. The members of the jury had previously studied all the nominations made by the National Sections and after long discussions they selected two projects that were judged to be making...