An award for Gloei

Wow, this is awesome: every second year IBBY (International Board on Books for Young people) composes the Honour List, an 'overview of children's and youth books of outstanding quality'. Every country within IBBY chooses one book for each of the three categories. In the category 'text' the Dutch jury picked Gloei, my book with poems and interviews with young LGBTQIA+-people. I made this book together with illustrator Floor de Goede. It was published by Querido, Amsterdam.

The winning books will be on display during several book fairs, and will permanently be shown in for example the Honour-Listcollection of the Internationale Jugendbibliothek in Munich.

In the illustration category the wonderful Alfabet, by Charlotte Dematons, was awarded. Click here for the full list. 

LITTLE FOX goes to...

Lovely news - the eleventh country for our Little Fox book (in Dutch: Vosje) is confirmed. The book, with its beautiful, beautiful art work by Marije Tolman, will be published next year in Lithuania. I'm so proud to have my first book in the Lithuanian language. A big thank you to the publishing house of Nieko Rimto!

Little Fox traveled to the United States, Argentina, Slovenia, North-Macedonia, Germany, France, Italy, Iran, Russia and Slovakia before. It was originally published by Querido in Amsterdam, and rights can be negociated with Querido's rights manager Luciënne van der Leije.

New book!

This week Daddy is a polar bear (Dutch title: Papa is een ijsbeer) was published at De Eenhoorn. It's my first collaboration with the wonderful Saskia Halfmouw, and I'm pretty proud of it. Thank you to her, and thanks also to Dries Desseyn, the designer.

Daddy is a polar bear started out as a short story, but Saskia Halfmouw made it into a richly illustrated little graphic novel, which also makes it an easy read. The story is about an older sister and her little brother, who one day starts repeating this sentence: 'Daddy is a polar bear'. The girl wonders: why does he do that, what does it mean? But then she watches a documentary about polar bears... 

Daddy is a polar bear is a tender, light and warm story about being the children in a divorce situation. For children from 8 year old and up. 64 pages, full colour. 

This hippo got awarded

My last book of poems, What to do when you trip over a hippo, a book that I made with the splendid illustrator Martijn van der Linden, got lucky this fall.

First of all it got two awards at the annual Dutch book prizes carroussel. It received both a Silver Slate (for the text) and a Silver Pencil (for the illustrations). As a result it's now among the books that are highlighted in all bookshops during the children's book week (beginning of October).

And another suprise: we recently heard the book has also been chosen as one of the international White Ravens for 2020! 

Thank you, dear juries! Oh, and publishers: the Dutch Literary Fund is promoting the book here. Some sample translations into English by David Colmer can be found here.

Ulf Stark posthumously honoured

Thanks dear Estonia - on your soil I met the great writer Ulf Stark (during this fantastic festival HeadRead) - and from there I got the opportunity to translate some of his books. 

The most beautiful of all are, of course, The little book of love (in Dutch: Liefde is niet voor lafaards) and The Runaways, first published by Lilla Piratförlaget in Sweden (Erik Titusson). 

Today it was announced that the Dutch translation of The Runaways, De weglopers, got two honorary mentions (Vlag & Wimpel) at our annual award ceremony, both for the illustrations (by the awesome Kitty Crowther) and for the text. 

So: thanks jury, thanks dear Swedes, to have us translate this book, thanks Querido, who published the book in The Netherlands and Flanders, and thanks dear, dear Ulf - so lucky that I got to meet you in what later proved to be one of your last years. The Runaways is in my eternal children's book top five. And even though this award is given to you posthumously, more translations will follow!

Photo Ulf Stark: Caroline Andersson

Little Fox' newest country

That's a first: a book sold for the Slovakian language. I'm delighted that Little Fox, the book Marije Tolman and I made, travels to its tenth country, and that it's publishing house IKAR in Bratislava who bought the rights. Ďakujem!

Previously the book got sold for these languages:
Russian (KompasGuide)
German (Gerstenberg)
French (Albin Michel)
Italian (Il Castoro)
English (USA) (Levine Querido)
Iran (Read My World)
Macedonian (Chudna Suma)
Spanish (Argentina) (Adriana Hidalgo/Pípala)
Slovenian (Sanje).


By the way: recently the Persian version came out (see picture). Translated by Toba Saberi.

More rights can be negotiated at the original publisher, Querido: here (rights agent: Luciënne van der Leije).

Once again: thank you very much!

Nomination ALMA

Happy to announce that for 2021 I will be nominated again for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA). I'm really proud to be nominated by IBBY The Netherlands, alongside illustrator Annemarie van Haeringen, the Internationale Jugendbibliothek München and author Aidan Chambers. Impressive company and again, lots of thanks - (again, because there were previous nominations in 2011, 2012, 2019 and 2020).