First travel for Maths for life

The book that I got to write with Ionica Smeets and that Floor de Goede illustrated, Maths for Life - about a school class that gets to ask maths questions that resonate with their own daily reality - is now going to travel. The first country that bought the rights is... Serbia. We are very happy the book will be published by the beautiful publishing house of Odiseja. 

The book was published in Dutch by Nieuwezijds and the rights were negociated by Elaine Michon. (This is also where a sample translation into English is to be found).

Another starred review

Two weeks before its publication day in the United States, The days of bluegrass love, the English translation by Emma Rault of my young adult novel De dagen van de bluegrassliefde, got another starred review. Some weeks ago Kirkus gave it a star, and this time it's Booklist that stars the book as well: reviewer Michael Cart writes 'superb novel', 'beautifully written,' 'unforgettable characters', and he adds this brilliant final line of the review: 'First published in the Netherlands, this book has become a classic in Europe. It should absolutely become the same here.' 

Read the full review here. I'm incredibly proud to have this book in English after 23 (!) years. Thank you, Levine Querido, for taking it under your wing. I hope it will do you proud.

Starry

May 17th: that will be the worldwide English publication date for The days of bluegrass love, the English translation by Emma Rault of my young adult novel De dagen van de bluegrassliefde. My American publisher in the United States made a beautiful new cover design, which we will use for the upcoming Dutch print run as well. 

I'm incredibly proud to have this book in English after 23 (!) years. De dagen van de bluegrassliefde was first published in 1999, and became a bit of a classic. The book is still in print. It's about the love story between Tycho from Holland and Oliver from Norway. In 2006 Ons derde lichaam ('Our third body') was published, which talks about Tycho in the year after his bluegrass love year, and in 2015 there was Oliver, the novel about Oliver in Norway two years prior to Bluegrass. Both these books will come out in a new cover design in The Netherlands this summer.

So - we still have to wait til the month of May. But last week the famous review site Kirkus Reviews already published its judgement. Read here what it said, but... we got a starred review! And this: 'Van de Vendel's writing is poetic, intensely emotional, and sensitively philosophical in this beautiful translation by Rault.' Wow!

Yet another country...

Another Monday, another country for our Little Fox book (in Dutch: Vosje). The book, with its magnificent art work by Marije Tolman, will be published in China. A big thank you to the publishing house of Jieli!

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

LITTLE FOX travels to...

Wow - the twelfth 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 in Turkey. A big thank you to the publishing house of MEAV!

Little Fox traveled to the United States, Argentina, Slovenia, North-Macedonia, Germany, France, Italy, Iran, Lithuania, 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.Thanks also to The Black Cat Agency!

 

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).

Bluegrass Love in Latvia

A while ago the rights were sold, but now the physical book has been published: the translation into Latvian of The days of bluegrass love, my first young adult novel about the true, lifechanging love between Tycho Zeling and Oliver Kjelsberg.

In Latvia the book is called Zilās zāles vasara, it is published by the great publishing house of Liels un Mazs and translated by Dens Dimiņš.
The beautiful cover illustration is by Elīna Brasliņa.

I'm really proud that this book found its way to Latvia, a country that I have visited quite a few times, and that I am really fond of. I hope the book will now find its way to young Latvian readers. It can be ordered here.

Next year the American translation will be published by Levine Querido. Inquiries for new rights can be done here (Luciënne van der Leije, rights manager), and here you can find a special of the Dutch Literature Fund about this book. 

Little Fox travels to yet another country

The book Marije Tolman and I made about a little fox cub, Vosje, has already been sold to eight countries. Now the ninth language is confirmed - Vosje will be published in Slovenia, at the publishing house of Sanje.
We are both very happy with this news.

So far Vosje travelled to
Germany, France, the United States, Italy, Russia, North-Macedonia, Argentina (Spanish world rights) and Iran.
Other rights can be negotiated here.

Little Fox in Spanish

Little Fox, The book that I got to make with illustrator Marije Tolman at my publishing house Querido, is traveling to yet another language. Spanish world rights were sold to the Argentinian publisher Adriana Hidalgo/Pípala, who published more books by Marije Tolman.

We were delighted to hear about this new life for Little Fox, after the Russian, German, Italian, French, Macedonian, Persian and English (USA) editions. A big thank you to rights manager Luciënne van der Leije at Querido. 

In the meantime the German version, Der kleine Fuchs, translated by Rolf Erdorf, will soon come out at Gerstenberg Verlag. Looking forward!

Little Fox, Little Fox...

Our book Little Fox (in Dutch: Vosje) continues to surprise us. With 'us' I mean illustrator Marije Tolman and myself. Apart from the recent fifth print run for the Dutch edition there was a second print run, within a few months, in France, and today we got the news that the book will travel to its seventh country.

After Russia, France, Germany, Italy, the US and Iran the book will be made translated into Macedonian. At the new publishing house of Chudna Suma!
The book was orginially published by Querido, Amsterdam. Further rights can be negociated here.

Sam to a brand new language...

Dutch version of book two

I wrote two books about a big, dreamy, almost magical white dog, called Sam. The first book was A dog like Sam (2011) and the second one Sam in winter (2012). The illustrations were by the awesome Philip Hopman and the original publishing company was Querido.

French version of the first book

The books were sold to the US, to France, Germany, Estonia and South-Africa, but now there's a whole new language for the Sam-adventures: the publishing house of Petrkov bought the rights for the Chech versions of the books. I am very happy that both books will be published in Chech Republic next year!

Thank you very much, Petr Novotný!

New books travelling to the United States

Fantastic news: the new publishing house of Levine Querido, directed by the legendary Arthur Levine will devote a small segment of its program to books that were originally published by Querido Amsterdam. I'm really, really proud to announce that already in the company's first programs two of my books will be presented.

First of all the book I made with Marije Tolman will be translated. It's called Vosje which in the US-version will be Red Fox. David Colmer will be translating. This English edition succeeds the French, German, Russian and Italian editions.

But that's not the only book Levine Querido will publish. In the spring of 2012 there will be an English version of my Young Adult novel about the first passionate love between Tycho and Oliver, two eighteen year old European boys, who meet in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The book, which will be called Days of Bluegrass Love, (in Dutch: De dagen van de bluegrassliefde) was first published in 1999, with an updated version in 2015. Besides the United States the book will also be published in Latvia soon, by the way. I'm so thrilled by all this! Thanks to everyone involved.

The English SUPER GUPPY is out now

In 2003 Superguppie was published, by Querido, in The Netherlands and Flanders, and now, sixteen years later, it's out in the United Kingdom! It was translated for The Emma Press as Super Guppy - by the great David Colmer, who translated two other poetry volumes of mine into English as well.

Of course the illustrations are still by Fleur van der Weel, who gave my short poems a continuous sparkle. Superguppie was also translated into French and German.


The book could be ordered here (The Netherlands) and here (UK) or here (USA etc).

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.