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.