Cheer-up bird in Chinese

Lately the rights for a Chinese version of CHEER-UP BIRD, the picture book I got to make with Ingrid & Dieter Schubert, were sold to publishing house Tomorrow. This will be the third translation after the English one in the United States and the German one. The book was originally published by Lemniscaat. Earlier also the Italian and Turkish rights were sold, but both deals were annuled.  

Butterflies in Ukrainian

Wonderful - this translation of ONE MILLION BUTTERFLIES, the picture book I made with Carll Cneut, is my first one into Ukrainian. I visited the country twice these past years and fell in love with it, so having a book there is just fantastic. Thanks you very much, Nebo Booklab Publishing, the book looks stunning, with the pink linnen band.

ONE MILLION BUTTERFLIES (EEN MILJOEN VLINDERS) was published in 14 languages and rights can be obtained here.

White Raven for Prince Hayo

Every year, the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany selects 200 exceptional books from all over the world, which are then introduced with short annotations in an English-language catalogue. Books are chosen based on their potential interest for an international audience, whether due to their innovative literary or illustrative quality, or due to their consideration of universally relevant topics. These books are awarded with a White Raven.

I'm very happy to have read that this year my latest book with the wonderful Mattias De Leeuw, HET TELBOEK VAN PRINS HAJO DE GELUKKIGE (THE COUNTING BOOK OF PRINCE HAYO THE HAPPY) was chosen as one of 2017s White Ravens. The book was originally published by De Eenhoorn in Belgium, but is, so far, also translated into German and Korean.

NEW PICTURE BOOK WITH ALAIN VERSTER!

Alain Verster is the wonderful artist that I got to work with twice: in THE DOVE THAT COULDN'T DIVE and VASCO THE LITTLE SOCCER PIG. Books that traveled over the globe, with editions in Germany, Norway, Brazil, Denmark and China.

And now our third book is out! VASCO AND THE GREEN MONSTER was published by De Eenhoorn and tells the story of a sweet pig that is crazy about 'his' Matteo - the little boy at the farm. But then he hears Matteo is getting a new present, and the present is called John. Vasco's envy grows and grows: is this John a monster? A green monster?

Alain Verster and I are planning more books, but for now it's all about our colourful Vasco. Rights can be negeciated here, by the way.

Talking about poetry for children

This year (March 2017) the very first Versfest was organized in Berlin: a festival about poetry for children. I was so lucky to be asked as one of the poets. A part of the festival is the Voices-project: writers and poets talk about their profession. Below you can hear the answers I had to come up with, answers to some pretty difficult questions.
By the way: the book I'm referring to can be found here.

New picture book announced

A new book about Vasco the Soccer Pig will find its way out into the world. In a few months this new picture book with the great and awesome Alain Verster will be published (by De Eenhoorn in Belgium). It's gonna be VASCO AND THE GREEN MONSTER and contains the story of how Vasco one day hoped to play soccer with his human mate Matteo (because they do so every day), but suddenly Matteo says he will be getting a new 'present' to play with - and this present is called John.
Vasco's head fills itself with jealousy and fear - will he be replaced by John, the Green Monster?

In 2011 Alain Verster debuted with my story THE DOVE THAT COULDN'T DIVE. The book was sold to six countries and received four awards. Our second collaboration was the 2013 VASCO THE LITTLE SOCCER PIG, which is also available in Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese and was nominated for the Boekenpauw, the highest Flemish illustration prize. VASCO AND THE GREEN MONSTER, which is to be read separately, is our third book together.

Honorary Mention 2017

At the annual children's books award ceremony our book IK BEN BIJ DE DINOSAURUSSEN GEWEEST (I WAS WITH THE DINOSAURS) got an Honorary Mention for the text (in Dutch: Vlag en Wimpel). This is a very nice reward (thank you, jury!) for the effort that was put into this book. The book was written for illustrator Floor de Goede, who used to be a 'dinosaur-kid'. He outdid himself, and I'm glad the book will get some more attention now. The picture book, which was published by Querido, Amsterdam, was already chosen amongst the ten books for the picture book days. It describes how a young boy wants to emerge himself in the dinosaur's world, by reading about it in his favorite book. But then his parents call him... The book, with ample text, is an ode to the colourful imagination children spin (and to the dinosaurs of course!).

The book has also been published in Denmark, by Turbine Forlag, and rights for other languages can be discussed here.

Danish tigers

The second book that I got to make with the awesome Ingrid & Dieter Schubert was called WIJ ZIJN TIJGERS! (WE ARE TIGERS!). This picture book is now starting to travel: after a previous sale of rights to Germany (Fischer Sauerländer) recently also the Danes have bought it. It will be published at Turbine Forlag. The original book came out at Querido.

An earlier book that the Schuberts and I made together, OPVROLIJKVOGELTJE (CHEER UP BIRD) was sold to Germany, Italy, the United States and Turkey. That book came out at Lemniscaat.

Even more poetry in the United States

And again some wonderful translation news. David Colmer is also working on the English translation of the poems from my volume I'M CHEERING FOR YOU - poems that are about animals and sports, written to the images made by Wolf Erlbruch.

The publishing house of Eerdmans, that also did THE DOG THAT NINO DIDN'T HAVE (with Anton Van Hertbruggen) and the consecutive books about the dog Sam (with Philip Hopman), will now publish I'M CHEERING FOR YOU. That is marvelous news. So, a big thank you to Eerdmans, to rights manager Luciënne van der Leije (of the original publisher Querido), and to David Colmer!

I'M CHEERING FOR YOU was awarded with the bi-annual Golden Poetry Medal for children's poetry and received an Honorary Mention at the Dutch Children's Book Prizes.

Sam à la France

More nice news: my book DE RAADSELS VAN SAM (SAMS MYSTERIES) will be translated into French. Last year the first book about the beautiful and mysterious white dog Sam came out in France, at L'école des loisirs. It was translated by Maurice Lomré. It was called LE CHOIX DE SAM.
Of course the stunning illustrations by Philip Hopman will be used, also for this second book.

The first book has been sold to more than 13 languagues, and the second book will now be available in English (this April, at Eerdmans USA), German, Estonian and French.
More information on the rights can be found here.

Poetry in the United States

It's not that often poetry gets translated - and certainly not in English. But master translator David Colmer is working on it right now: an English translation selection of poems taken from my two volumes AANHALINGSTEKENS (QUOTATION MARKS) and CHATBOX, that will be published by the small, vibrant American publishing house of A Midsummer Night's Press (directed by Lawrence Schimel). The publishing date will be somewhere this year.
These both books were originally issued by Querido, Amsterdam.

A huge thank you to both Lawrence Schimel and David Colmer.

Danish dinosaurs

This is cool and meget fint: the Danish publishing house Turbine Forlag bought the rights for the Danish translation of IK BEN BIJ DE DINOSAURUSSEN GEWEEST (I WAS WITH THE DINOSAURS), the picture book that Floor de Goede made (and that I wrote the text for).
The book will be in Danish shops in a few months.

Originally this book was issued by Querido in Amsterdam, and rights can be negotiated here.