LITTLE FOX is awarded - twice!

Halfway the month of June of every year the most important Dutch children's books prizes are announced. In several category's books are awarded as the best children's books of the year.

This year illustrator Marije Tolman and me were both awarded for our book Little Fox (Vosje). Marije got a Silver Pencil for her images and I got a Silver Slate for the text. We are humbled by the idea that both the jury's saw our book as one of the most outstanding. We are also very happy with all the colleagues that we are sharing this honour with.

Little Fox is the story of the first months of a baby fox, who dreams up his past and is uncertain of his future. The book was published by Querido, Amsterdam and is sold to Russia, France, Germany and Italy, with new countries to be announced soon. Rights can be negociated here.

SAM IN WINTER - HONOR BOOK

The Poetry House in Paterson, US every year awards the books for children with the Paterson Prize for Young People. The 2018 award was won by Ruth Freeman for her book One good thing about America, but I'm proud to say that my book Sam in winter (Dutch: De raadsels van Sam) was one of the three honor books for this category. Thank you, jury and professional readers! The book was translated by the great David Colmer.

Sam in winter was published by Eerdman's, with the original illustrations by Philip Hopman. The book was orginally published by Querido, Holland, and is also translated into
French, German and Estonian.

VOTE FOR THE OKAPI WON THE ZILVEREN GRIFFEL!

It's the best known children's books award in The Netherlands: the annual Zilveren Griffel (Silver Slate). Up to ten of these awards are given each year, in different categories, by a professional jury. One of these awards will be turned into a Golden one during the Children's book week in October.

This year my book STEM OP DE OKAPI (VOTE FOR THE OKAPI) won a Zilveren Griffel in the non-fiction-category. I am very grateful for that. Martijn van der Linden, the fantastic illustrator of this book, received a Vlag en Wimpel (Honorary mention) for the artwork.
The book was published by Querido in Amsterdam.

The book is promoted by the Dutch Literary Fund, so foreign publishers could apply for translation and production grants here.

For years the okapi has been my favourite animal. This animal that is shy and majestic at the same time, that was discovered only 100 years ago (in Congo), and that bears zebrastripes as well as horns - but actually its only familymember is the giraffe.
In this fullcolour book, that illustrator Martijn van der Linden and me have been working on for years, we present 88 reasons to take the okapi as your new preferred animal. The book has nine chapters, and each chapter is different. In the first one we describe the okapi from head to toe, in another one we follow an okapi-zookeeper for some (dramatic) years, there are chapters with just okapi-illustrations, there is one with 4 okapi-poems, there is the okapi museum, in which we collect okapi-pictures (made by many leading illustrators, especially for this book).
It's a book full of passion, it's a book that provides you with everything that there is to know about the okapi, it's funny and light, it's serious and informative, we hope we have convinced you at the end to keep an eye on the shy and majestic animals ánd people around us...

VOTE FOR THE OKAPI WON THE WP AWARD!

Last week my book STEM OP DE OKAPI, which translates as VOTE FOR THE OKAPI, got a very nice award: the prestigious Woutertje Pieterse Prijs, which is given to the best literary children's book of the year, chosen by a professional jury. The award is for both the text and the images, which were made by the amazing Martijn van der Linden. It was published in Holland by Querido.

The book is promoted by the Dutch Literary Fund, so foreign publishers could apply for translation and production grants here.

For years the okapi has been my favourite animal. This animal that is shy and majestic at the same time, that was discovered only 100 years ago (in Congo), and that bears zebrastripes as well as horns - but actually its only familymember is the giraffe.
In this fullcolour book, that illustrator Martijn van der Linden and me have been working on for years, we present 88 reasons to take the okapi as your new preferred animal. The book has nine chapters, and each chapter is different. In the first one we describe the okapi from head to toe, in another one we follow an okapi-zookeeper for some (dramatic) years, there are chapters with just okapi-illustrations, there is one with 4 okapi-poems, there is the okapi museum, in which we collect okapi-pictures (made by many leading illustrators, especially for this book).
It's a book full of passion, it's a book that provides you with everything that there is to know about the okapi, it's funny and light, it's serious and informative, we hope we have convinced you at the end to keep an eye on the shy and majestic animals ánd people around us...

OLIVER WINS

Yesterday my book OLIVER was awarded with the Golden Frame 2016, which is the jury's prize for the best book for youth. It was a great surprise, and I'm very, very grateful.

This book, about the 16-year old Oliver who had a comfortable life, but suddenly is confronted with all kinds of things that shake up his entire existence, is the third book that I wrote about the Dutch Tycho and the Norwegian Oliver. The books are stand-alones, but could also be read as a series.
Back in 2000 the first book THE DAYS OF BLUEGRASSLOVE, got the same award (which then was called The Golden Kiss), as did the second book, OUR THIRD BODY, in 2007.

Translation rights to OLIVER are not sold yet, please contact Luciënne van der Leije for that.
The Dutch Literature Fund could support foreign publishers for the translation costs.  

Copyright Marco de Swart

NINO AWARDED IN THE US

Only a few days out now: the American-English translation of HET HONDJE DAT NINO NIET HAD, the picture book that Anton Van Hertbruggen and me made. THE DOG THAT NINO DIDN'T HAVE is the title, Laura Watkinson translated it, and Eerdmans published it. The book got some nice reviews, like the ones in Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.

But now there is an award! The Society of Illustrators once a year grants Golden and Silver Awards for 'the best books' and Anton gets one of the two Silver Medals! (The golden one is for Ji Hyeon Lee.) This is the list of previous winners.

In October, November and December the work of the winners is shown in the Society's museum in New York. More about that, and about the award is to be read here. Anton: Congrats!

NINO IS LISTED IN GERMANY

Every month thirty children's book-experts from Germany, Switzerland and Austria choose the best seven new children's books. These are announced by Deutschlandfunk.

In August the German translation of the book that Anton Van Hertbruggen and I made, HET HONDJE DAT NINO NIET HAD (THE DOG NINO DIDN'T HAVE) was one of the seven. The book is called DER HUND, DEN NINO NICHT HATTE in German, and was translated by Rolf Erdorf for Bohem Press. More info on the list: here.

Originally the book came out at De Eenhoorn, Belgium. It already got the French Prix Sorcières, the Dutch Golden Palet and the Flemish Boekenpauw Award.

The book came out in China, France, Germany, Denmark and will shortly be published in the United States and Brazil.