Organization

Mingzhou Zhang from China earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Foreign Affairs Management from the Shanghai International Studies University and later worked in the Overseas Department of the China Youth Travel Service and as a Civil Servant at the Asia Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2003 he joined CBBY as Deputy Secretary General. He was elected to the IBBY Executive Committee from 2008 to 2012 and was the 2012 Chair of the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award. He was elected to the IBBY EC again in 2014 and served as IBBY Vice-President from 2016-18.

He was the organizer of the 30th IBBY World Congress held in Macau, China in 2006. Until 2018 Mingzhou Zhang was the General Manager of the CCPPG (Chinese Children’s Press and Publications Group) International division. He is a board director of China Publishers Association and Executive Vice President of China Children’s Literature Research Society.

E-mail: mingzhouzhang@bailuqiao.com

Denis Beznosov is the deputy director for Project Management and Public Events at the Russian State Children’s Library in Moscow, specializing in philology and translation. He is also a poet and literary critic. His areas of expertise are: library services; event management in the cultural and educational sphere; culture and literary studies; international library cooperation; cultural exchange; development of library services; and restructuring and updating library activities and concepts. At the children’s library in Moscow he manages and coordinates large-scale library projects focused on reading promotion for children and teenagers. He develops and organizes exhibitions of Russian authors, as well as international projects aimed at instilling tolerance and understanding based on children’s literature. As a member of Russian IBBY section, he has organized many projects and is on the organizing committee for the 37^th IBBY World Congress. He was a member of the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury for the 2018 and 2020 Awards.

Email: iozef_k@mail.ru

Doris Breitmoser studied at the universities of Passau, Germany, and Parma, Italy, and completed a MA degree in International Cultural and Business Studies at the University of Passau. She began her career in a publishing house and has been employed since 1997 at the head office of the German IBBY Section, Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur, in Munich. In 2003, she became the managing director of IBBY Germany. She has served as co-editor of the quarterly children’s literature magazine JuLit since 1997. She is responsible for the organizing and awarding process of the state-sponsored Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis and also organizes national and international workshops and conferences on children’s literature and reading promotion. Doris attended her first IBBY Congress in 2002 in Basel, Switzerland and has since then participated in five more congresses. She was part of a cultural delegation invited by prime minister Wen Jiabao to China in 2007.

Email: breitmoser@jugendliteratur.org

Sophie Hallam from the UK has over ten years’ experience in children’s publishing and literacy promotion and has been a member of IBBY UK’s Executive Committee since 2013. She currently works as the Commissioning Editor for Tiny Owl Publishing in London, UK, focusing on books that broaden perspectives and introduce artistic and literary traditions from around the world. She completed a MA degree in children’s literature and a postgraduate certificate in English Education at the University of Roehampton, UK in 2012, with her research focused on multicultural children’s literature and the wider socio-political and economic issues surrounding publishing, diversity and representation. She has spent a number of years developing literacy and art initiatives as a means to empower children, young people and adults through various charities in the UK.

Email: editor@ibby.org.uk

Basarat Midhat Kazim from Pakistan is responsible for the growth of the Alif Laila Book Bus Society from a children’s library to an entire educational ethos. Since 1978 she has been advocating the importance of books and reading for children and has worked on setting up children’s libraries, mobile libraries, reading corners and early childhood centres in public and private schools. She set up Busti Schools in squatter colonies in Lahore in 1990, and made them into activity-based learning centres where children learned through book projects and fun. She is currently working on three new projects: establishing 10 children’s libraries; assisting the Government of Punjab to design colourful and cost effective early childhood centres in public schools, and organizing play therapy training sessions for teachers.

Email: bmk_al@yahoo.com

Ahmad Redza Ahmad Khairuddin from Malaysia is currently managing Cerdik Publications, an educational publishing company that produces quality curriculum books for pre-schools, primary and secondary schools. He is a council member of the National Book Council Malaysia, the umbrella body for the book industry overseeing policy and development of the industry as a whole. He is also actively involved in the Malaysian publishing industry as a publisher and promoter of reading and literacy programmes. He sits on several committees led by the Government looking into improvements to policies and practices in the national book industry. He is currently the President of MBBY and served as a member of the IBBY Executive Committee from 2006-08, as Vice President from 2008-10. He was elected as IBBY President from 2010-14.

Email: aredza@gmail.com

Shereen Kreidieh from Lebanon has a Bachelors degree in Elementary Education from the American University in Beirut, a Teaching Diploma in Early Childhood Education from the Lebanese American University, a Masters in Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey Roehampton, and a PhD in Publishing from Oxford Brookes University. She established and manages Asala Publishers that produces high quality children’s books in Arabic in 1998. She was a member of the Book and Reading Promotion comity in the ministry of culture in Lebanon. Currently she is the president of Lebanese Board of Books for Young Children and was a member of the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury. In September 2018 she began teaching children's literature in Haigazian University in Lebanon.

Email: sharshar55@hotmail.com

Constanza Mekis is currently the president of IBBY Chile and of the Fundación Palabra. She trained as a librarian at the University of Chile and gained a MA in Lectura, Libros y lectores Infantiles y Juveniles at the University of Zaragoza in Spain. She has been a school librarian for over 40 years. Constanza has also held many academic positions in Chile and Spain, and been an international consultant for school libraries, reading and literature for young people in Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and with CERLALC. Constanza is leading the major project Biblioteca Interactiva Latinoamericana Infantil y Juvenil, BILIJ that was initiated by Fundación Palabra to strengthen alliances and support throughout the Latin American region. She has worked on the development of school libraries, both at primary and secondary levels, and was in charge of the school libraries programme for 22 years.

Email:  liaison.latinoamerica.caribe.ibby@gmail.com

Akoss Ofori-Mensah earned a BA in English at the University of Ghana and a PhD from Nottingham University in the UK. In 1974, she received an internship from the United Nations in New York for six months and from there she went to the University of Chicago for an MA in Population Education. In 1978 she joined the Halko Group of Companies in Ghana, where she rose to become the Managing Director. In 1993, Akoss started her own publishing house, Sub-Saharan Publishers. Akoss has been honoured for her contribution towards the development of children’s books in Ghana as well as winning the Ghana Book Award for promoting Environmental Awareness through Publishing. Akoss has participated in IBBY activities both in Ghana and abroad. She has attended every IBBY Congress since 2010 and served on the IBBY Executive Committee from 2012-16, serving as IBBY Vice President from 2014-16. Akoss has also served on the jury of the Biennale of Illustrations, Bratislava in 2017 and in 2019. She organized the IBBY African Regional Conference in Accra in 2019.

Email: saharanp@africaonline.com.gh

Elena Pasoli graduated in Classic Literature from the University of Bologna in 1980. She joined the BolognaFiere (Bologna Children’s Book Fair) in 1987 as a special events manager, and became its project manager. In 2006, she directed the Communications department of the University of Bologna Foundation. She returned to the BolognaFiere in 2011 and was appointed director in 2014. Her work at the BolognaFiere has focused on the international development of the Fair. In this she has contributed to the creation of the New York Rights Fair (NYRF) in partnership with BookExpo, and more recently the China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair (CCBF). The fair is now co-organized by the BolognaFiere through its subsidiary BFChina. In 2019, she introduced collaboration with the Moscow International Book Fair to create a new Moscow International Children’s Book Fair (expected 2021). Elena is also a member of the board of IBBY Italia.

Email: elena.pasoli@bolognafiere.it

Sylvia Vardell from the USA is a professor of children’s literature at Texas Woman’s University and served as USBBY President in 2006. In 2017, she was awarded the USBBY Alida Cutts Lifetime Membership Award in recognition of her contributions to children’s literature. She was co-editor of IBBY’s quarterly journal Bookbird from 2009-11. She has a popular blog, Poetry for Children and has collaborated with poets around the world to create anthologies of poetry that provide strategies for teachers. She has taught at the University of Zimbabwe as a Fulbright Scholar, studied at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, and participated on a study tour of Yemen and Syria on a McGovern scholarship with the Middle East Policy Council.

Read her interview about IBBY here.

Email: svardell@twu.edu

Junko Yokota (USA) was re-elected to be the Hans Christian Andersen Jury President 2022 at the virtual 37th IBBY General Assembly.

Junko Yokota gained a PhD in Reading Education with a minor in Library Science from the University of North Texas in 1988 and is currently Professor Emerita at the National Louis University, where she was the Founding Director of the Center for Teaching through Children’s Books. Junko Yokota is a Past President of USBBY, served for three terms on the Hans Christian Andersen Jury (2006, 2008, 2018), and for many years served as secretary for the Bookbird, Inc. Board. She was the chair of the inaugural and subsequent Nami Island International Picture Book Illustration Concours (2013, 2015, 2017) as well as chair of the 2015 Caldecott Committee in the USA. Junko has held research fellowships at the University of Wrocław, Poland on a Fulbright Fellowship, at the Berlin Staatsbibliothek on a grant from the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany. She is the co-author of the children’s literature textbook, Children’s Books in Children’s Hands.

Email:  junko.yokota@mac.com

Ellis Vance (USA) was re-confirmed as IBBY Treasurer at the virtual 37th IBBY General Assembly in 2020. He has served as IBBY Treasurer since 2008.

After receiving a Master's Degree in Education, he worked as a teacher and school administrator for 40 years in the Fresno area in California. He supervised library services to children in 38 school districts in the country for a number of years before retiring. He has also taught reading methods, library services and children's literature courses at three universities in the Fresno area. He is currently an education consultant and devotes most of his time to USBBY and IBBY. He has received numerous awards in the fields of education and reading and been an active member of USBBY. He is the current Bookbird Inc. Treasurer, and also served as the USBBY Treasurer until 2008. He is currently the Executive Director of USBBY. Ellis served as IBBY Vice President from 2006-2008 before becoming IBBY Treasurer.

Email: vev40@comcast.net

Patricia Aldana was born and brought up in Guatemala and moved to Canada in 1971. In 1978 she founded Groundwood Books with a mandate to publish high-quality Canadian and international children's books for all ages; she remained the publisher until 2012. She was honoured with the Order of Canada in 2010 and has won prizes in Canada for her work in advocating the freedom to read for children and adults. She was elected to the IBBY Executive Committee in 1996 and served for four years. She was later re-elected in 2004 and served for two years as Vice-President before she was elected IBBY President in 2006 serving for four years until 2010. In 2014 she was elected President of the IBBY Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury and served for the 2016 and 2018 Awards. Patricia is currently President of the IBBY Trust. 

Liz Page grew up and lived in England until 1985 when she and her family moved to Basel. She soon became involved with JuKiBu, the Intercultural Children’s Library in Basel, of which she was a founding member. Later she was elected President of the Intercultural Children’s Libraries Association of Switzerland. She joined IBBY as Executive Assistant in 1997, worked as Administrative Director from 2003-2006 and Director of Member Services, Communications and New Projects until March 2009, when she was appointed Executive Director.

liz.page@ibby.org

Nina Garde was born and raised in South of France. She studied Art History at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris and at the University of Heidelberg. After that she worked as a project assistant, and later as a product manager, at the Frankfurt Book Fair from 2017 to 2020, where she was in charge of international projects and the Kids and New Generation activities of the fair. She joined IBBY as Communication and Administration Manager in November 2020.

ibby.secretariat@ibby.org

Susan Dewhirst was born and grew up in Canada. She studied international relations at the University of Toronto and continued her graduate studies in international economics in Geneva. After working for an investment bank in London, she returned to Switzerland in 1990 and worked on financial projects for a pharmaceutical company in Basel. Thereafter, she pursued studies in English and German literature. She joined IBBY as Administrative Assistant in November 2014.

susan.dewhirst@ibby.org