Reading Association of Ireland – winners

Big Congratulations to  Celine Kiernan and Conor Kostick who won RAI awards last night. Conor was presented with the Special Merit Award not just for his shortlisted title Move but for his wider contribution to the genre of political and science fiction. Celine scooped the 2009 Award for The Poison Throne. Bravo to all.

More details on reading.ie

When great things happen to great people

For many people in Ireland Robert Dunbar is the voice of children’s books having being a regular contributor on radio and in print. Robert has pioneered the study of children’s literature as an academic discipline. Today, Trinity are recognising Robert’s enormous contribution with an Honorary Doctorate. A very worthy accolade for a career dedicated to children’s books.

(rumours that CBI staff will be in Trinity Front Square wearing fake beards to celebrate are completely without foundation).

Here’s what Trinity have to say about Robert

Born in Co. Antrim and a graduate of QUB, Mr Dunbar for decades has been the doyen of children’s literature in Ireland. He has been a key figure for the establishment of children’s literature as an academic subject in Ireland and beyond. He has been the public face and voice of the study of children’s literature on television, radio and in the newspapers. Founding member of the Children’s Literature Association of Ireland and its President for two years. Most of his teaching career was with one of TCD’s associated colleges, the Church of Ireland College of Education, where he taught for over 25 years; he also lectured for many years on TCD’s Bachelor in Education programme.

Siobhan Dowd wins the Carnegie and Catherine Rayner takes the Greenaway

The Carnegie and Greenaway winners have been announced. Siobhan Dowd who has already scooped this year’s Bisto Award has also now won the Carnegie.

There’s a lovely piece by Siobhan’s publisher in todays Guardian blog as well.

Awards Awards everywhere

The Carnegie and Greenaway are announced on Friday – Both have very strong shortlists so it is impossible to pick a clear favourite.
Also the Reading Association of Ireland have announced the shortlist for the biennial RAI  Book Awards. Winners announced in September.

RAI SHORTLIST

1. The Poison Throne – Celine Kiernan ISBN-13 978-1-84717-170-2
2. Move – Conor Kostick ISBN-13 978-1-84717-010-1
3. The Story of Ireland – Brendan O’Brien ISBN-13 978-0-86278-881-0
4. Hal’s Sleepover – Maddie Stewart ISBN-13 978-1-84717-034-7
5. Wild Dublin – Éanna ní Lamhna ISBN-13 978-1-84717-142-9
6. Adolf sna hArda – Author and Illustrator: Marvin Halleraker, Translators: Treasa Ní Bhrua agus Magnus Vestvoll ISBN: 978-1-901176-81-

Congrats to all, its another strong shortlist – lot of them about these days!

Bog Child wins Bisto Book of the Year Award

The story of Fergus’ journey of self-discovery as he struggles to make sense of his personal, familial, and societal situation, as well as the voice of a bog child that comes to him in his dreams. To journey through this layered narrative is to be confronted with not only the frailty of life but also the redemptive qualities of love: unsettling yet optimistic, this is radiant prose that sings of the pain and beauty of the human condition.

Four other awards were also presented

•    Eilís Dillon Award  Mary Finn – Anila’s Journey

•    Bisto Honour Award for Writing  Kate Thompson – Creature of the Night

•    Bisto Honour Award for Illustration  Oliver Jeffers – The Great Paper Caper

•    Judges Special Recognition Award Kate Thompson for Highway Robbery

Also shortlisted for this year’s awards were Eoin Colfer for Airman, Ré O’Laighléis for An Phleist Mhór, Áine Ní Ghlinn for Brionglóidí, Roddy Doyle for Her Mother’s Face and PJ Lynch for The Gift of the Magi.

The Andersen Award nominations are out

I’m alway intrigued by the Andersen Awards, partly as they are made for a body of work, not just one title and partly because they offer such an international snapshot of authors and illustrators. It is fun to scan the list of nominees for familiar names and also to let unfamiliar names lead you off in new directions. Ireland’s very deserving nominees are Pj Lynch and Eoin Colfer. I’m also really please to see David Almond and Eric Carle there as well. More about the awards and Irish nominees on www.ibbyireland.ie

The Hans Christian Andersen Awards are presented every two years by IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important and lasting contribution to children’s literature.

IBBY National Sections from 33 countries have made their selections, submitting the following 29 authors and 27 illustrators as candidates for the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Awards:

Argentina: Author: Liliana Bodoc; Illustrator: Luis Scafati

Austria: Author: Heinz Janisch; Illustrator: Linda Wolfsgruber

Belgium: Author: Pierre Coran; Illustrator: Carll Cneut

Brazil: Author: Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós; Illustrator: Roger Mello

Canada: Author: Brian Doyle; Illustrator: Marie-Louise Gay

China: Author: Liu Xianping Croatia: Illustrator: Svjetlan Junakóvic

Cyprus: Author: Maria Pyliotou

Czech Republic: Author: Pavel Srut; Illustrator: Jirí Salamoun

Denmark: Author: Louis Jensen; Illustrator: Lilian Brøgger

Finland: Author: Hannu Mäkelä; Illustrator: Salla Savolainen

France: Author: Jean-Claude Mourlevat; Illustrator: Grégoire Solotareff

Germany: Author: Peter Härtling; Illustrator: Jutta Bauer

Greece: Author: Loty Petrovits-Andrutsopulou; Illustrator: Diatsenta Parissi

Iran: Author: Ahmad Reza Ahmadi

Ireland: Author: Eoin Colfer; Illustrator: P.J. Lynch

Japan: Author: Shuntaro Tanikawa; Illustrator: Akiko Hayashi

Lithuania: Illustrator: Kestutis Kasparavicius

Mexico: Author: Alberto Blanco; Illustrator: Fabricio Vanden Broeck

Mongolia: Author: Dashdondog Jamba

Netherlands: Author: Peter van Gestel; Illustrator: Harrie Geelen

Norway: Author: Bjørn Sortland; Illustrator: Thore Hansen

Russia: Illustrator: Nickolay Popov Serbia: Author: Zoran Bozovic

Slovak Republic: Author: Ján Uliciansky Illustrator: Peter Uchnár

Slovenia: Author: Tone Pavcek; Illustrator: Ancka Gosnik Godec

Spain: Author: Jordi Sierra i Fabra; Illustrator: Xan López Domínguez

Sweden: Lennart Hellsing; Illustrator: Anna-Clara Tidholm

Switzerland: Illustrator: Etienne Delessert

Turkey: Author: Muzaffer Izgü; Illustrator: Can Göknil

Uganda: Author: Evangeline Ledi Barongo

United Kingdom: Author: David Almond; Illustrator: Michael Foreman

USA: Author: Walter Dean Myers; Illustrator: Eric Carle

The elected Chair of the International Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury, Zohreh Ghaeni (Iran) and Jury members from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States of America, will meet in March 2010 to select from among these 56 nominations the winners of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Awards

Results will be made public at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Monday, 22 March 2010 and the Awards will be presented to the winners at the 32nd IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain on 11 September 2010.

Carnegie and Greenaway Shortlists

Via achuka

The Carnegie and Greenaway Shortlists are out. Highly respected and much debated these awards are one of the most significant.

CILIP Carenegie Medal Shortlist
Frank Cottrell Boyce, Cosmic (Macmillan)
Kevin Brooks, Black Rabbit Summer (Penguin)
Eoin Colfer, Airman (Puffin)
Siobhan Dowd, Bog Child (David Fickling)
Keith Gray, Ostrich Boys (Definitions)
Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go (Walker)
Kate Thompson, Creature of the Night (Bodley Head)

CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal
Angela Barrett, The Snow Goose (text by Paul Gallico, Hutchinson)
Marc Craste, Varmints (text by Helen Ward, Templar)
Thomas Docherty, Little Boat (Templar)
Bob Graham, How to Heal a Broken Wing (Walker)
Oliver Jeffers, The Way Back Home (HarperCollins)
Dave McKean, The Savage (text by David Almond, Walker)
Catherine Rayner, Harris Finds His Feet (Little Tiger Press)
Chris Wormell, Molly and The Night Monster (Cape)

Those with eagle eyes will spot that four of the books shortlisted also feature on the Bisto Book of The Year shortlist- Jeffers, Thompson, Colfer and Dowd.

Bookbrunch already has some analysis with Fiona Barrows looking at the large number of male  protagonists featured in the Carnegie list and Nicolette Jones looking at the diversity of styles in the Greenaway list.

IBA Full shortlists available

Shortlists all out today – see here for all those irrelevant adult prizes!

Children’s Shortlists below.

The Dublin Airport Authority Irish Children’s Book of the Year – Jn for readers aged 8 and under.

THE GREAT PAPER CAPER by Oliver Jeffers

HER MOTHER’S FACE by Roddy Doyle, illustrated by Freya Blackwood

BEFORE YOU SLEEP by Benji Bennett

HIGHWAY ROBBERY by Kate Thompson

The Dublin Airport Authority Irish Children’s Book of the Year – Snr for children in the 9 + age group.

THE MAGICIAN by Michael Scott

ALICE AND MEGAN FOREVER by Judi Curtin

SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT – PLAYING WITH FIRE by Derek Landy

THE POISON THRONE by Celine Kiernan

Celine is also nominated in Best Newcomer Category, Bravo!

Irish Book Awards – shortlists on rte.ie

Tomorrow is the official announcement of Irish Book Award shortlists but rte.ie has a jump on everyone else it looks like.

Major congratulations to Celine Kiernan who is shortlisted in The Newcomer of the Year category for The Poison Throne.

The other category shortlists are also now visible on the main  awards site- more on those tomorrow.

Tamar Institute in Palestine wins the ALMA

More international awards for work with children and books and reading…

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was announced today in Bologne. The swedes take the legacy of Lindgren very seriously and every year they make an award to an individual, individuals or organisations who are active in reading promotion. And by serious I mean – the prize totals SEK 5 million (equivalent to approx. USD 578,000, 445,000 EUR). Lindgren is an extraordinarily important  figure in  children’s books and the Swedes are determined to celebrate her with this important prize.

As they say

“The prize aims to strengthen and increase interest in children’s and young people’s literature globally. The award is designed to strengthen children’s rights at global level.

This year’s recipient is Tamer Institute for Community Education, Palestine.

Tamer Institute for Community Education
The Tamer Institute for Community Education in Ramallah is an independent organisation that has carried out reading promotion work for children and young people in West Bank and Gaza since 1989. The Tamer Institute was founded to give children access to books and alternative learning as children’s and young people’s schooling, leisure time and lives suffered from the troubles in the area. The Tamer Institute also hands out reading passports. Holders get a stamp for every book they have read. This is a clear symbol of the fact that there are no borders for those who can read books. As Astrid Lindgren said: “Good children’s literature gives the child a place in the world and the world a place in the child”.

The Tamer Institute is the hub of a network that works with writing workshops, storytelling, drama and literary discussion for children and young people. They supply libraries with children’s books and they train librarians and parents. A national reading campaign is organised every year, culminating with National Reading Week. In 2008, the campaign reached 52,000 children in refugee camps and remote villages and communities, who took part in literary discussion, drama and drawing and writing workshops.

The Tamer Institute also carries out youth activities. The young people, who have often participated in Tamer’s work since they were children, publish their own newspaper, Yara´at, among other things. They use it to publish their thoughts, poems and stories. When the Tamer Institute was founded, there were virtually no Palestinian children’s books. The organisation has now published more than 130 titles and several of the children who attended the Tamer Institute’s writing workshops have started to write their own books as adults.

Despite difficult circumstances, the Tamer Institute works tirelessly on many levels to create a better situation for Palestinian children and young people via literature. Their conviction that words can tear down walls has resulted in innovative reading promotion activities of an unusual breadth, for which reason the Tamer Institute has been awarded the 2009 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

www.tamerinst.org