Editorial

IT’s often said that time flies when you’re having fun, and our four years (plus) as editors of Bookbird have certainly flown. As well as all that fun, we’ve also learned so much about children’s literature from many parts of the world. During our time as editors we published articles from every continent (well, every inhabited continent anyway – we didn’t get as far as Antarctica) and about literature written in many different languages. Literature is of course characterised by cultural and national identity, and we found it encouraging to see how particular identities are expressed in literature at a time when we hear so much about the homogenisation and globalisation of writing and publishing.

The fun part was mostly meeting and working with so many fine people through Bookbird. If ever evidence were needed of the outstanding calibre of those involved in the children’s book world, then it is to be found in the many encouraging, supportive and friendly emails we have exchanged with people all over the world.

We’ll never manage to thank everyone who deserves our thanks, but very special appreciation is due to those who served on the board of Bookbird Inc., during our term of office: Anne Pelowski, Ann Lazim, Elda Nogueira and Ira Saxena, and most of all the three officers, Joan Glazer, Alida Cutts and Ellis Vance, who gave us outstanding support and friendship. Liz Page, who was always cheerful, even when faced with tiresome queries, deserves our special thanks; it has been a great joy to work with you, Liz. Thanks also to Liz’s colleague, Forest Zhang, who has been of invaluable assistance, and to those others who supported us from the IBBY office we can only say that life would have been much more difficult without you all.

Bookbird editors

Valerie Coghlan is the librarian at the Church of Ireland College of Education in Dublin, Ireland. She lectures on and writes about children’s books and has a particular interest in picturebooks.

Siobhán Parkinson is a writer of fiction for children and adults (young and otherwise) and a professional editor.

All the IBBY EC members we met in various exotic locations at conferences and meetings have been unfailingly co-operative, on occasion stepping in as guest reviewers and sometimes even contributing articles to Bookbird. Together, the occasional and regular members of our editorial review board have ensured, through their perceptive comments and collectively wide knowledge of children’s literature of the world, that standards of accuracy and sound scholarship were adhered to in Bookbird. Our regular contributors, Glenna Sloan, queen of the postcards, and Christiane Raabe and her predecessor Barbara Scharioth, together with the team at the Internationale Jugendbibliothek in Munich, especially Jochen Weber and Claudia Söffner, have contributed enormously to providing the variety of outlook, tone and content necessary in a journal such as Bookbird. We valued also the professional input of our designer, Kieran Nolan, whose vision transformed the look of the journal, and our proofreader, Antoinette Walker, whose expertise was invaluable and whose flexibility has been legendary. And of course, those who contributed articles during our four years as editors must be thanked too – without them there would be no Bookbird.

We thank you all most sincerely, and we hope to stay in touch with you, and with our readers, in other ways. We wish our successors, Cathy and Sylvia – whom you will meet in the next issue –well, and trust they will find Bookbird as enriching an experience as we did.

Sayonara, Au revoir, Namasté, Auf Wiedersehen, Zai Jian, Khoda hafaz, Arrivederci, Adjø, Khairete, Segobe, Do widzenia, Choum reap lia, Do svidanja, Slán agaibh.

• A Tribute to Editors Extraordinaire
• Joan Glazer, President, Bookbird, Inc.

With this issue, Valerie Coghlan and Siobhán Parkinson complete their term as editors of Bookbird. We have been privileged to have had their extraordinary skill in all aspects of producing the journal for these last four years. We thank them and wish them well.

When Valerie and Siobhán applied for the position of editor of Bookbird, we read their credentials and...