Editorial

Roxanne Harde

Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature, Volume 52, Number

2, April 2014, pp. iii-iv (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/bkb.2014.0061

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/539714

[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ]
 Editorial
“Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the
beat keep time with short steps.”
Hans Christian Andersen
Bookbird Editor
Dear Bookbird Readers,

T
his issue of Bookbird brings to its readers some of the very
best authors and illustrators of children’s literature from
around the world. Thirty-three national sections of IBBY
have nominated their best authors and/or illustrators of books for
children for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. This award is
given to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have
made a lasting contribution to children’s literature. Once the nomi-
nations have been made, a distinguished, multilingual, interna-
tional jury of children’s literature specialists reads a selection of
books by each nominee and decides on the winners. Up until 2008,
the Andersen Awards were supported by Nissan Motor Co. and
since 2009, Nami Island Inc. has generously extended a long-term
sponsorship of the awards.
The Andersen Awards are some of the oldest awards for children’s
literature. The Author’s Award has been issued since 1956 and the
Illustrator’s Award was added 1966. Even today, most awards for
children’s literature are limited to a single country, language, year of
publication and/or book. Truly international awards for children’s
Roxanne Harde is an Associate Professor
of English and a McCalla University
Professor at the University of Alberta,
Augustana Faculty. She studies and
teaches American literature and culture.
She has recently published Walking
the Line: Country Music Lyricists and
American Culture (Lexington 2013), and
her essays have appeared in several
journals, including International Research
in Children’s Literature, The Lion and
the Unicorn, Christianity and Literature,
Legacy, Jeunesse, Critique, Feminist
Theology, and Mosaic, and several edited
collections, including Enterprising Youth
and To See the Wizard.

© 2014 by Bookbird, Inc.

editorial

authors and illustrators are still rare. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial
Award, founded in 2002, has been a welcome addition to the interna-
tional recognition of the importance of authors and illustrators of chil-
dren’s literature.
The Andersen Awards offer a prestigious acknowledgement of an
individual’s life work. Simply being nominated for the award is a huge
merit, and also a way for the national IBBY sections to thank their
authors and illustrators for the many hours of hard work they have spent
producing these remarkable books (and often working with children
and novice authors and/or illustrators). As editor of this issue, my task
was to provide short introductions to each of the nominees and their
work, which I have done with the help of colleagues and
talented graduate students who are training in the
field of children’s literature. Since June 2013,
copies of the very best books by each of the
nominees have been arriving for us to
read and enjoy. Unlike the jurors, we do
not have to make the agonizing deci-
sion as to which nominees are most
worthy of the prizes. Like the chil-
dren for whom they are intended,
we can enjoy the books without
any sense that they compete with
one another.
All the authors and illustra-
tors nominated for the prize are
already winners. And by this I
don’t just mean that they have won
prizes in their respective countries,
although most of them have. Like
Hans Christian Andersen, these authors
and illustrators have produced books that
have touched the lives and hearts of children
and adults alike. Andersen’s continuing, pervasive,
and international influence was never clearer to me than
when a high school exchange student from northern China needed to
explain the extreme sensitivity of her skin. Casting about for an appro-
priate metaphor or cultural referent, she finally hit upon something we
would understand as she declared, “I’m like the princess and the pea,
only with soap instead of mattresses!” I feel certain that children from
around the world, when searching for ways to understand and express
their experiences and themselves, rely on these authors and illustrators
who follow Andersen, who make their beat, in words and pictures, keep
time with short steps.
Publication of this issue was made possible in part through a gift
from Nami Island Inc. in the Republic of Korea. IBBY gratefully
acknowledges their support of the Hans Christian Andersen Awards.

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