Macedonia again

The Macedonian publishing house Ars Lamina didn't only buy the rights to HET HONDJE DAT NINO NIET HAD, they also bought the translation rights to DOEI! (SEEYA!), the picture book Marije Tolman and I made for Querido, a while back.
I'm really excited to have two titles in Macedonia soon, and I really wouldn't mind visiting the country in the future, haha!

DOEI! was also issued in Spanish (Colombia) and German and talks about Maartje who has wonderful flying dreams, and her older brother Bor who has nightmares, and definitely needs Maartjes help...

NINO to TURKEY and MACEDONIA

Very agreable news: translation rights for THE DOG THAT NINO DIDN'T HAVE (HET HONDJE DAT NINO NIET HAD) were sold to Turkey. The book will be published by Final Kültür Sanat Yayınları. But at the same time rights were sold to Macedonia: to the publishing house of Ars Lamina. Fantastic!

Originally the book was published in Belgium, by De Eenhoorn. It won a number of awards: the Children's Literature Award in Germany, the Prix Sorcières in France, the Boekenpauw in belgium, the Gulden Palet in The Netherlands and a Silver Medal in the United States. And it was only Antons first children's book...

The book was also sold to China, Brazil, USA, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Denmark and South-Korea.

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.