IBBY Belgium – Flemish Branch – IBBY Flanders

The Flemish Branch of  IBBY-Belgium is affiliated with Stichting Lezen / Focuspunt Jeugdliteratuur (the Reading Association / Centre for Children’s Literature), and is therefore located in Antwerp.

The projects we do

To get Flanders reading, the Reading Association organises a Children’s Book Week (Jeugdboekenweek) in March which precedes Reading Aloud Week (Voorleesweek) in November. We join young reading enthusiasts in the Children’s Jury (Kinder- en Jeugdjury Vlaanderen) and developed Fahrenheit451 and the Challenge (De Weddenschap) for young people in vocational and technical education. Together with the Belgian Railways we’ve set up Everybody Reads (Iedereen Leest), a website for adult readers to exchange book tips. And in cooperation with the Flemish healthcare services we develop Book Babies (Boekbaby’s) for babies and toddlers.

The Library

Stichting Lezen has a subject library on children’s literature and reading promotion ranging from reference works and monographs, periodicals, congress reports, exhibition catalogues to cuttings collections, and a large collection of children’s books by Flemish authors, illustrators and translators.

The website www.villakakelbont.be publishes news from the world of children’s books and provides hundreds of author profiles. The Library organises training for (aspiring) teachers, librarians and other children’s books aficionados, often in collaboration with the University of Antwerp, and hosts the Book Quest site for children (www.boekenzoeker.org).

The people we work with

Our dedication exceeds the possibilities of Stichting Lezen so we have joined hands with people in schools, libraries, day-care centres, the book profession, and the media. With them, we develop ideas and projects. To widen our scope and to keep track of trends we exchange ideas and expertise with our international partners and occasionally adapt some of their successful projects to the Flemish context. Together with specialists and researchers we organise conferences and workshops.

IBBY-Belgium, Flemish branch

As IBBY-Flanders we coordinate the nomination of the Andersen Awards and the IBBY Honour List, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the BiB/Biennale of Bratislava.

A yearly activity is a visit to Children’s Book Fair in Montreuil, near Paris, which is a good opportunity to introduce Flemish illustrators and other professionals to the latest French publications.

Funding

All this is funded by the the Flemish Government.