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

Dear Bookbird Readers,

This 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 nominations have been made, a distinguished, multilingual, international 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 authors and illustrators are still rare. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, founded in 2002, has been a welcome addition to the international recognition of the importance of authors and illustrators of children'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 decision as to which nominees are most worthy of the prizes. Like the children for whom they are intended, we can enjoy the books without any sense that they compete with one another.

All the authors and illustrators 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 appropriate 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.