Every other year IBBY presents the Hans Christian Andersen Awards to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children's literature.

The Hans Christian Andersen Award is the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children's books. Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark is the Patron of the Andersen Awards.

The nominations are made by the National Sections of IBBY and the recipients are selected by a distinguished international jury of children's literature specialists.

The Author's Award has been given since 1956 and the Illustrator's Award since 1966. The Award consists of a gold medal and a diploma, presented at a festive ceremony during the biennial IBBY Congress. A special Andersen Awards issue of IBBY's journal Bookbird presents all the nominees, and documents the selection process.

The Andersen Awards programme was supported by Nissan Motor Co. until 2008.  From 2009 Nami Island Inc. has generously begun its long-time sponsorship of the Andersen Awards.

A publication about the Hans Christian Andersen Awards was prepared for the 2002 IBBY Jubilee Congress. It includes biographies and a selected bibliography of all the winners from 1956 to 2002, as well as the history of the Award.  Click here, to download the pdf.

IBBY Presence at the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair

To celebrate the Hans Christian Andersen Awards, IBBY, with support from the Frankfurt Book Fair, organized a panel discussion featuring the Awards.  The participants were Junko Yokota a former HCAA juror, Wally de Doncker immediate past Vice President of IBBY, David Almond  winner of the 2010 HCA Award for writing, Roger Mello two-time finalist for the illustrator Award, and Miriam Gabriela Möllers an expert on children's and youth literature who acted as moderator.

The hour-long discussion took place on Friday morning, 12 October in hall 3.0 as part of the Forum für Kinder- und Jugendmedien programme.  Thanks to an arrangement with Pioneerfilm from Ludwigshafen, Germany, we are proud to invite you to view a shortened version of the discussion here

We would like to sincerely thank Birgit Fricke from the Frankfurt Book Fair for supporting this panel discussion and IBBY Germany for their long-time support of IBBY representation at the fair. And most of all, we thank Nami Island Inc., for sponsoring the Hans Christian Andersen Awards.

The film is also available on YouTube.

Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2012

Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2010

Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2008

From 1994 Bookbird Special Andersen Issues have been published. The following issues are digitally available in the IBBY archives:

2008, 2006, 2004, 2002, 2000,

1998, 1996, 1994

HCA and HL 2006 Exhibition at the ILCL Japan

To see images from the exhibition click here

HCA at Northwestern University Library

Uri Orlev

Andersen winner 1996, Uri Orlev is the subject of a new Northwestern University Library exhibit celebrating Orlev's 80th birthday. The exhibition runs until 24 March 2011.

www.northwestern.edu

HCA Awards 2004

An exhibition of the 2004 Awards was on show during the summer of 2004 in the Northwestern University Library, this colourful exhibit highlighted the library’s extensive research collections in children’s literature, featuring a worldwide selection of the work of talented illustrators who were nominated for major awards in 2004.

exhibits.library.northwestern.edu