IBBY EC meets in Istanbul

The second Executive Committee meeting of the year took place in Istanbul, 27-28 August. IBBY Turkey and the Bogaziçi University were the generous and gracious hosts. The meeting was held at the Department of Education on campus close by to the Bosphorus. The hospitality was splendid and the IBBY EC warmly thanks all those who made its stay so memorable.

Different meetings took place immediately before and after the main meeting, including the Bookbird Inc. Board, the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award Jury meeting and the project subcommittee meeting. Gulçin Alpöge reported on the progress made towards the organization of the 36th IBBY Congress, that will be held on September 1-4, 2018, in Istanbul, Turkey.

IBBY at the Frankfurt Book Fair October 2013

Thanks to the welcoming generosity of IBBY Germany, IBBY international once again was able to occupy a corner of the stand of the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur (IBBY Germany) in hall 3.0. The stand always becomes a meeting place for IBBY members who attend the fair, and we display IBBY brochures and pamphlets for distribution. On Friday morning, we organized a second panel discussion at the children's forum. The 2012 panel discussed the Hans Christian Andersen Awards and the 2013 panel looked at IBBY and its work around the world. Wally de Doncker led the discussion between Akoss Ofori-Mensah from Ghana, Eva Kaliskami from Greece and Liz Page from the secretariat in Basel. The talk focussed on IBBY sections and the work they do on a national level. Akoss talked about the problems that face literacy in Africa because of the many on going wars and civil unrest in many parts of the continent. Eva talked about the difficulties in Greece due to the financial ruin the country is experiencing, and how IBBY Greece is tackling it. Wally gave a resume of the history of IBBY and Liz gave an overview of the international activities and its projects with children in crisis. A short film has been made of the discussion, which can be viewed on the IBBY website in the news section and on the IBBY International Facebook page. From left to right: Eva Kaliskami (Greece), Akoss Ofori-Mensah (Ghana), Wally De Doncker (Belgium), Liz Page (Switzerland).

34th IBBY International Congress Mexico City September 10-13, 2014
MAY EVERYONE REALLY MEAN EVERYONE

In this column we address 3 questions to a member of a European Section of IBBY.

In this issue, meet María Jesús Gil from IBBY Spain!

Do you have a name to suggest for the next issue? Send us a mail!

1. You have been the President of the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury since 2010. What can you tell us about this experience?

The Hans Christian Andersen Award, the most prestigious award in literature and books for children has an international jury led by a president who is elected at the IBBY General Assembly from candidates nominated by the IBBY National sections. The members of the jury are selected by the IBBY Executive Committee from nominations made by the NS.

This way, above political matters and borders, creators from all countries have the opportunity to be considered by the jury. The jury studies very hard in order to select the most talented authors and illustrators in a world that needs, today more than ever, excellence in the stories for children and young adults.

2. What is the most interesting and exciting IBBY event you participated in?

Generally speaking I enjoy very much IBBY activities, specially attending the IBBY Congresses. Should I choose one, the IBBY Congress at Santiago de Compostela, in September 2010, was very important for the Spanish IBBY Section, mainly for the Galician section (GALIX). It was a great success and all the participants liked very much the programme and the city.

3. If we were in Madrid, and you wanted to take us to a special place, where would that be?

I would like to take you for a nice walk around the Paseo del Prado, and to visit one or two of the several museums we have in this area. And to have some nice pintxos and a cup of wine, of course!

From Belgium

O Mundo – The World in a Library
An initiative of Stichting Lezen and the Flemish branch of IBBY Belgium

"Many classrooms in Flanders are coloured. With the books of O Mundo – the World in a Library we light up these colours. And if the classes are not coloured? Then colour enters through these books".
Majo de Saedeleer

1. Motivation
On October 12th 2011 Majo de Saedeleer, director of Stichting Lezen and president of the Belgian IBBY section - Flemish branch, received the Filson Steers Mariman Prize for Education. She wished to use the prize money to develop a project for children from abroad who move to Flanders. These youngsters get immersed in the Flemish language, customs and culture and – with luck – also in Flemish books. The cultural richness of their native country is often overlooked.

This is why Majo de Saedeleer decided to use Stichting Lezen's international network (IBBY) to trace the most beautiful books in other cultures, to purchase several copies and to translate them into Dutch. Through Stichting Lezen's national network these books would then be introduced to teachers in multicultural classrooms.

The aim is to select excellent books from all over the world that allow migrant children to share something about themselves and their background and so open the eyes of all children in the class to the value of a multicultural society.

2. Pilot Project
Stichting Lezen identified the top ten countries of origin of foreign children in Flemish primary schools. Through the IBBY-network and its widespread international contacts, Stichting Lezen selected beautiful books from: Portugal, Turkey, Poland, Ghana, Italy, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Iran and Morocco.

• O Mundo num Segundo (Around the world in one second) / Isabel Minhos Martins and Bernardo Carvalho (Planeta Tangerina, Portugal)
• Pamietnik Blumki (Blumka's diary) / Iwona Chmielewska (Media Rodzina, Poland)
• The canoe's story / Asare Meshak (Sub-saharan Publishers, Ghana)
• Vorrei avere… (I would like to have…) / Giovanna Zoboli and Simona Mulazzani (Topipittori, Italy)
• Haló, haló, pani Mačka! (Hello Mrs Cat!) / Ľuboslav Paľo (Artforum, Slovakia)
• Kirmizi Elma (The Red Apple) / Feridun Oral (YKY, Turkey)
• Ако искаш вярвай (You may not believe but it is true) / Pancho Panchev (Izdatelstvo Janet 45, Bulgaria)
• Povestea-Lui Harap-Alb / Ion Creanga (Vellant, Romania)
• Davidam van Davidam (I ran and ran) / (Cheesta Pub, Iran)
• La maison de Lalla Chama = دار للا شامة (The House of Lalla Chama) / Ahmed Taieb el Alj (Marsam, Morocco)

This final selection was made together with the steering committee of the Flemish branch of IBBY Belgium and a group of primary school teachers who work in a multicultural context.

Foreign publishers offered the books at reduced prize –Stichting Lezen has so far bought 15 copies of each book – and did not charge translation rights. On September 17th the project kicked-off in five pilot schools in Ghent, Brussels, Mechelen, Antwerp and Genk.

Each school was presented with:

• the 10 books in the original languages
• a Dutch translation of each book,
• didactic and philosophical teacher guides for the presentation of the books in the classroom,
• audiorecordings in the original language of each book
• supporting material, such as a CD with songs from diverse countries (Didier Jeunesse), the book Atlas (a Polish book, in Dutch at publisher Lannoo), Mirror by Jane Barker (Walker Books),…
• a Kamishibai (a miniature Japanese storytelling theatre) for three of the ten books
• a supporting website.

3. In Addition
This is a pilot project. The aim is to fine tune the project during Autumn and Winter 2013 and then offer it more widely during the following school year. The project is receiving wide interest from public libraries that are keen to build up an international collection. It would be nice to accompany this project with research. Researchers at Louvain University are interested , but there is no funding at this stage, and the FSM prize money will not even stretch to a full implementation of the project.

IBBY Turkey is preparing for the 2018 Congress

Following the decision taken during the EC meeting in Bologna (March 2013) to hold the 36th IBBY Congress in Istanbul Turkey, IBBY Turkey set up a committee to work on the preparations of the 2018 Congress. The first step to be taken is to find a suitable congress venue. Thus, negotiations with possible venues have already started. IBBY Turkey members are all excited and are brainstorming for ideas to make the Congress a success!

Turkish authors participate in activities abroad

Author - illustrator Can Göknil went to London for the opening of the Sheffield International Artists Exhibition where her books were among the books chosen from 35 different countries. The exhibition is on untill November 30th. Also, author - illustrator Serpil Ural and author Ayça Nur Kip Akyol went to the Netherlands to participate in the Children's Book Market Day of The Hague on October 13th.

Can Göknil	Serpil Ural	Ayça Nur Kip Akyol

UK nominated books included in The IBBY Outstanding Books for Children with Disabilities 2013 were Ten Little Ladybirds by Melanie Gerth, published by Gullane Children's Books; The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman, published by Frances Lincoln; and Me, the Queen and Christopher by Giles Andrae, published by Orchard Books.

UK nominated books for the 2014 IBBY Honour List are: for writing, Frank Cottrell Boyce, The Unforgotten Coat, Walker Books, 2011; for illustration: Sarah Garland, Azzi in Between, Frances Lincoln Children's Books, 2012; and, for translation, Howard Curtis, In The Sea There Are Crocodiles, Random House/David Fickling Books, 2012 (author: Fabio Geda). All three books highlight the lives of asylum seekers and young people coming to terms with life in a new, sometimes alien and often hostile, culture, written from the perspective of the young people themselves.

	UK nominations for the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Awards are: for writing, Dame Jacqueline Wilson; and, for illustration, John Burningham. IBBY UK has published 3 issues of its journal IBBYLink in 2013. IBBYLink included 36 published papers from the 2012 IBBY/National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature Conference on the theme of Beyond the Book. IBBYLink 37 was on the theme of Irish Children’s Literature; and IBBYLink 38 was about picturebooks for older readers. Our long serving editor, Pat Pinsent, retired in the spring and our new editor is Ferelith Hordon, a retired children’s librarian.
Dame Jacqueline Wilson		John Burningham

IBBY UK launches its new website in October. It has the same address as the old website, www.ibby.org.uk, but is redesigned and will offer greater facilities to members than the old website.

IBBY UK has awarded three bursaries for IBBY members to attend the 2014 IBBY World Congress in Mexico. The bursary holders are Sophie Hallam, Beth Cox and Osman Coban.

On September 11, IBBY UK and the online children’s books magazine, Books for Keeps, hosted an evening in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the publication of David Almond’s first children’s book, Skellig, and the publication of a new edition of this ground-breaking book. David, the winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2010, was in conversation with Erica Wagner, the Literary Editor of The Times. The evening was sponsored by Hachette Books, IBBY UK and Books for Keeps.

The 20th annual IBBY UK/NCRCL Conference will be held at the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at Roehampton University on November 9. This year’s topic is Feast or Famine: Food and Children’s Literature. Details on the Roehampton University website. Short versions of the papers will appear in IBBYLink 39.

Cambridge Scholars Press will publish the proceedings of last year’s IBBY UK/NCRCL conference: Beyond the Book.

David Almond and his notebook

This year’s IBBY UK Christmas card is designed by illustrator Jackie Morris. This is the first time that an illustrator has designed a card specifically for IBBY. Jackie’s design features the lavender bear from her book The Cat and the Fiddle, with a cart full of books. Jackie has also donated a print of the design to be used to raise funds for IBBY’s work with Syrian refugees in Lebanon. If you are interested in buying cards, please contact John Dunne, IBBY UK Secretary: j.f.dunne@btinternet.com

IBBY UK is sad to announce the death on September 29 2013 of Robert Leeson, one of the leading British children's writers and critics of the late twentieth century, a long standing supporter of IBBY and a former chair of IBBY UK. Bob Leeson wrote many books for children of all ages. He sought to make British children's books more responsive to changes in society and more inclusive and accessible, featuring children from all ethnic groups and social classes, and offering central roles to girls as well as boys. These aims were reflected not only in the books that he wrote for children but also in his works of criticism, including Reading and Righting (1985), a book that was a manifesto for making children's books more relevant and committed to social equality and diversity. He helped set up The Other Award (1975-1987), a children's book award that embodied these values. In 1985 he was awarded the Eleanor Farjeon Award for an outstanding contribution to the world of children's books in Britain.

Robert Lesson

Bookbird. Issue 51.3, 2013

A themed issue about multilingual children’s books, guest edited by Dr Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer of the University of Tübingen, Germany. In her introduction, Dr Kümmerling-Meibauer remarks on the importance of creating an ‘awareness that our global societies are more and more determined by heterogeneity, multilingualism, and multiculturalism. As a consequence, an increasing number of students speak different languages and are affected by diverse cultural traditions’. Reflecting such diversity is very much at the forefront of the aims of Bookbird. This issue highlights the variety of languages used within storytelling, written and oral, for children. Articles discuss the ways in which language reinforces identity, the operation of the ‘bilingual’ brain in literacy development, and multilingual and bilingual books from many different cultures and countries. Reflecting the theme of the issue, children’s books reviewed come from Venezuela, Iran, USA, China, Norway, Germany and Iceland. The acceptance speeches of the two winners of the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award (Maria Teresa Andruetto and Peter Sís) also in this issue, amply demonstrate the importance of reaching out to children’s literature in many languages, and, as Peter Sís says in his speech, ‘thank you IBBY, for building the bridges [to do this] all over the planet’.

Bookbird. Issue 51.4, 2013

The variety to be found in children’s books is strongly represented in this issue. Articles range from a consideration of ‘death’ in picturebooks by four recent Hans Christian Award recipients, to a discussion focused on a graphic novel adaptation of a 17th-century Dutch explorer’s journal. In between, many issues to do with ethnicity, class and identity are raised in articles dealing with representation of immigrants in Portugese children’s literature, Communist Albanian children’s literature and media, the Black community in Nova Scotia and the role of teachers in mediating the messages concerning values and morals in South African reading books. All of these articles, while focused on specific societies, have international application, as do the practical articles describing specific reading projects in Brazil, the Caribbean and Flanders. Added to this, news from The International Youth Library in Munich features author Joke van Leeuwen, winner of the James Krüss Award, and the very important work of the IBBY Documentation Centre of Books for Disabled for Young People, now moving from Norway to Toronto, is described. There is a substantial review section concerning books about children’s books, and shorter reviews of children’s books from different parts of the world. And, for the record, there is a list of the nominees for the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award.

Bookbird can be read on-line through Project Muse.
To subscribe, please fill out this form. More information on: IBBY's website.

Proceedings of a seminar on "Children in the time of war and youth literature (20th-21st centuries)", addressing the role and the place of children facing war in children's literature. The seminar was held on 18-19 November 2012, and organized by the French National Centre for Children's literature - IBBY France (French National Library) together with the Blaise Pascal University of Clermont-Ferrand - Research Centre on Literatures et Socio-poetry, and in collaboration with the French Association for Research on books and cultural objects of childhood (AFRELOCE).

The table of contents can be found here.

Enfants en temps de guerre et littératures de jeunesse (XXe-XXIe siècles) [Children in the time of war and youth literature (20th-21st centuries)], BNF/PUBP, 2013. PUBP: ISBN 978-2-35494-051-5, BNF: ISBN 978-2-84516-631-8, 23 €. Can be bought online at www.lcdpu.fr

Escales en littérature de jeunesse [Stopovers in Children's literature]

The French National Centre for Children's literature - IBBY France (French National Library) has put together a selection of 4200 titles for children and young adults, from 6 months to 14 years old. This selection, made of books available on the market, is classified by categories (picture books, novels, comic books, theatre, etc.) and proposes also books in Braille. The books having a digital version are marked by a pictogramme. An publication that will help people navigate between the immense production of books for children and young adults in French, including books published in Africa, the Arab World, the Carribeans and the Indian Ocean. A must have for everyone interested in books for children and young adults in French.