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.

RUNNING DEER AT THE DEUTSCHE OPER IN BERLIN

Illustrator Mattias De Leeuw and me made THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER (DERTIEN RENNENDE HERTJES). It was translated into German by Rolf Erdorf, was published by publishing house Gerstenberg and now the famous Deutsche Oper company in Berlin will make a music theatre performance out of it! There will be music by Händel, Purcell, Monteverdi and Hanusa, and there will be puppeteers. The play, which is called DAS GEHEIMNIS DER BLAUEN HIRSCHE ('The secret of the blue deer'), will premiere November 4.
More info here.  

The book was originally published at De Eenhoorn.
Rights - so far - were sold to Germany (Gerstenberg), China (Petrel), Taiwan (Interminds) and South-Korea (Lime).
Rights can be optioned here,
and for translation and production grants: the Dutch Translation Fund made a special on this book - here. 

KOREAN NEWS, TWICE

A little while ago the Korean translation of THE DOG THAT NINO DIDN'T HAVE was published in South-Korea, at the publishing house of Jiyangsa. This book, made by illustrator Anton Van Hertbruggen and me, was already issued in German, Chinese, Danish, French and American English. The Brazilian version will follow soon.
Originally the book was published by De Eenhoorn. It got several awards, including the 'Gulden Palet' (Netherlands), the 'Boekenpauw' (Belgium), the 'Prix Sorcières' (France) and the Silver Medal of the Society of Illustrators (USA).
Rights can be viewed here.

But more Korean books are coming. The publishing house of Lime co. bought the Korean rights of THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER, the book that Mattias De Leeuw and I made. This will be out in the fall of 2016 and after the German, Chinese (mainland) and Chinese (Taiwan) it will be the fourth international version. Recently the book was nominated for the German Literature Award.
Rights can be checked at De Eenhoorn, here.

PRINCE HAYO ALREADY SOLD TO GERMANY

The book is not out yet - it will be soon, in March. But by now (February) the rights are already sold to Germany. To the publishing house of Gerstenberg. I'm talking about THE COUNTING BOOK OF PRINCE HAYO THE HAPPY - a big and colourful picturebook ánd a counting book, all in one. Made by the dazzling Mattias De Leeuw (pictures), the text is by me.

We worked together on two books before: THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER, that was sold to Germany, China, Taiwan and South-Korea, and received a nomination for the German Literature Award 2015.
We also made a poetry-picture book about happy sounds: MY HAPPY BOOK OF SOUNDS.

As for PRINCE HAYO: for the coming bookfair of Bologna this book is available at both the original publisher (De Eenhoorn) and the Flemish Literature Fund.

You can take a look at a few pages of the book here.

THE DEER TO TAIWAN

THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER (DERTIEN RENNENDE HERTJES), the book Mattias De Leeuw and I made for the Belgum company De Eenhoorn, was recently sold to Taiwan. Thus, it will be translated in what is called complex Chinese by Minya Lin. The Taiwanese publishing house will be Taiwan Interminds Publishing Inc.
The book came out in Germany (got a nomination for the German Literature Award 2015) and was also sold to China (mainland). 
More info on the rights can be found here.

Berlin: Literature Festival

One of the nicest, biggest and most impressive literature festivals in the world is the annual Literaturfestival in Berlin. It started this week. There will be many, many readings by many, many authors.
I was part of it in 2006 and 2011, and, I'm really happy about to say - this year again! I'll be present from the 12th til the 19th of September. I'll talk about my books THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER (DERTIEN RENNENDE HERTJES, in German issued as LENA UND DAS GEHEIMNIS DER BLAUEN HIRSCHE, with Mattias De Leeuw, Gerstenberg) and THE DOG THAT NINO DIDN'T HAVE (HET HONDJE DAT NINO NIET HAD, in German: DER HUND DEN NINO NICHT HATTE, with Anton Van Hertbruggen, Bohem Verlag, both books translated by Rolf Erdorf).
Take a look at the impressive list of authors that will be in Berlin. Amongst them: Peter Brown, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Jandy Nelson, David Almond, Sjoerd Kuyper and Kaatje Vermeire!
And check the programm here.

AUDIOBOOK-LONGLIST

Anne Moll is the voice on my first audiobook, the one that was made by Audiolino of the German translation (by Rolf Erdorf) of my book THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER (DERTIEN RENNENDE HERTJES), under the German title LENA UND DAS GEHEIMNIS DER BLAUEN HIRSCHE. The paper version was released last year by Gerstenberg and the wonderful pictures are by Mattias De Leeuw.
Now the audiobook is put on the longlist for the German 'Kinderhörbuchpreis' (Audiobook-award), the BEO 2015. The complete longlist can be found here.
The shortlist will be published in September and the winner will be announced in November. Nice news!

NOMINATION FOR THE GERMAN YOUTH LITERATURE AWARD!

Wonderful news: it was announced yesterday that the German translation of my book DERTIEN RENNENDE HERTJES (THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER) is nominated for the prestigious German Youth Literature Award (Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis).

The book came out at Gerstenberg in a flawless translated by Rolf Erdorf. The exuberant pictures were made by Mattias De Leeuw. In October (Oct 16th), during the Frankfurt Bookfair, the winners will be known.

Thanks for all who contributed to this book and congratulations to all the other nominees. More info is to be found here.

AUDIOBOOK AND MENTION

This fall my very first audiobook ever came out. In Germany. At Audiolino LENA UND DAS GEHEIMNIS DER BLAUEN HIRSCHE was issued. Anne Moll is the actrice who reads the story. It's the German translation of DERTIEN RENNENDE HERTJES (THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER), my book with illustrator Mattias De Leeuw and translator Rolf Erdorf.
In the meantime the paper version of the book (published by Gerstenberg) was awarded with the title 'Buch des Monats November 2014' (Book of the Month), by the Institut für Jugendliteratur in Austria!


The book can be ordered here and the audiobook here.

THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER ON GERMAN TV

QUERGELESEN is a nice German tv-program, in which host Marc Langebeck, highlights a few new books for children. In this weekend's episode one of these books was the German translation (by Rolf Erdorf) of the book I made with illustrator Mattias De Leeuw: DERTIEN RENNENDE HERTJES (THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER). In German the book is called LENA UND DAS GEHEIMNIS DER BLAUEN HIRSCHE. It was published by Gerstenberg.
Wanna see it? Check this link and look for the November show. (2014).
The item about the Running Deer starts at 05:32.