The other day, Corinne gave a heads up to Dr. Myra Garces-Bacsal’s sparkly Pre-AFCC Glitter posts – well, today’s features Corinne herself – so head on over to the wonderful Gathering Books blog  to see what Corinne is going to be doing at AFCC…

One thing it doesn’t mention, though, is that Corinne is also on the judging panel of one of the children’s book awards that will be presented during AFCC… Just looking at the shortlists makes you gulp at the decisions she and the rest of the panel are having to make!

Reza Dalvand
(Iran)
Title: Who Knows Mr. Pink

Reza Dalvan is an author and a member of the Iranian Society of Illustrators. He won several prizes inc
including the Encouragement Prize for Nami Island International Illustration Concours, South Korea 2013, First prize for the Niayesh Illustration biennial – Iran 2012 and the First prize of Grand exhibition Isfahan University of Art – Iran 2012.

Bolormaa Baasansuren
(Mongolia)
Title:  Old City

Bolormaa Baasansuren was born in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts
in Mongolia and was a research student of Bunkyo University in Japan. She won the grand prize for
Noma 14th picture book competition in Japan and has four published picture books including Legend of Wives and My Little Round House. {See PaperTigers’ features on Bolormaa here, here and here}

Lak – Khee Tay Audouard
(Singapore)
Title: Wayang Night

Born in Singapore, children’s book illustrator Lak – Khee grew up in a multi – racial neighbourhood. She saw her first picture book at ten and since then she has been “hooked” on books. Lak – Khee is most keen to share her love for fast – disappearing cultural treasures with a whole generation of IT savvy children of today.

Gina Eugenia
(Indonesia)
Title: Cap Go Meh

Gina received her BA in Visual Communication from ITB University, Indonesia. Illustrated around 25 children books and has worked with Disney Magazine Indonesia, a project for Children Folktales in Southeast Asian Countries and Korea by the SEAMEO in 2012

From the official press release:

Commenting on today’s announcement, guest judge and children’s author Elizabeth Laird said, “Azzi tells a simple and powerful story, one with which we should all be tragically familiar, with a text and pictures that are rich, appealing and satisfyingly detailed”. Booktrust founder and guest judge Wendy Cooling added, “The graphic novel style gives it freshness and immediacy. The text and illustration work together brilliantly as they invite children to enjoy the story and to think about the lives of other children”.

In a marked departure for the author, best known for her warm narratives of family life, Azzi In Between is in a graphic format and tells the powerful story of a family forced to flee their homeland and settle in a strange and unfamiliar country. The book is based on the author’s own experience of working among refugee families and is endorsed by Amnesty International. Kate Kellaway of The Observer described Azzi In Between as a “masterpiece”. Fen Coles, director of Letterbox Library who administered the award, said, “At a time when there are so many damaging myths circulating about refugees and asylum seekers, it is heartening to see a book which tells the truth- and in a way which children can relate to”.

Earlier in the day, Wendy Cooling chaired a discussion on ‘progressive children’s writing’ with two of the shortlisted authors, Sarah Garland and Jeanne Willis. Elizabeth Laird described Willis’ shortlisted book, Wild Child (Walker) as “a truly radical work, celebrating freedom and originality on every page”. The two other shortlisted titles were John Boyne’s The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket (Corgi Children/Random House UK) and Yokococo’s Hans and Matilda (Templar Publishing).

The Little Rebels Children’s Book Award is a new award given by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers and administered by specialist children’s booksellers, Letterbox Library. The award recognises children’s fiction for readers aged 0-12 which promote social justice and is the brainchild of Nik Gorecki, Housmans Bookshop; speaking about the award, Nik said, “The Alliance of Radical Booksellers is working hard to promote radical publishing and children’s books are an important element of that. There’s still lots of plans in the pipeline for the future and next year we hope to introduce a category for teen readers”.

Here’s a photograph of Sarah talking about Azzi In Between during the panel discussion on Saturday, taken by www.ivereadthat.com – you can see all their photos from the day here – I wish I could have been there! (I know that Zoe from Playing by the Book was, and I will add a link to her post as soon as it goes live…) And also, below, is the great Little Rebels cartoon created by Guardian cartoonist Ros Asquith: a print will be given to each year’s winner as part of their prize.

The 2013 SingTel Asian Picture Book Award (Author) candidates are:

Swapna Haddow
(United Kingdom)

Don’t Eat That, Phoenix!
Phoenix, a young Chinese boy, is celebrating New Year with his family. Phoenix is excited to get the banquet started and sets his dinner table with lots of Chinese New Year items he discovers in his home. The entire family sits down to dinner and enjoys Phoenix’s unique banquet.

Sophie Dewayani
(Indonesia)

Cap Go Meh
Nisa, a Muslim girl, and Lili, a Chinese – Indonesian, debate over where cap go meh rice cake is the genuine icon of Eid Al – Fitr tradition or Chinese New Year celebration. After sharing the rice cakes and the excitement of experiencing each celebration, Nisa and Lili end up discovering what is more essential; that a dish is able to bridge diversity.

Debra Chong
(Singapore)

If I Were…
“If I were a lion, I could scare enemies away with a single roar.”
If I were a giraffe, I could reach out and pick delicious fruits from the tallest tree.”
But Shan Shan is neither.
She’s a panda that’s good at….hmmmm, just what is it that pandas are good at anyway?

Ganbaatar Ichinnorov
(Mongolia)

Old City
Little boy Anar loves his toy horse. Suddenly his horse escapes into grandpa’s old photo album. Anar goes after the horse and finds himself in the photo album where everything is like in real world. Anar wanders in the city streets looking for his horse but the horse runs away from him and he can not catch it. However grandpa helps him to find his favorite toy horse and makes him happy.

Lak – Khee Tay Audouard
(Singapore)

Wayang Night
A narrative about a much awaited evening of roadside theatre outing for two siblings with their parents. As the young reader turns the pages, glimpses of culture, food and Peranakanarchitecture are offered. In the style reminiscent of 50s era comics, the central attraction will be the pop – up stage.

Maria Agnes Du’a Bewa
(Indonesia)

Utan For Marcia
Marcia is about to turn six years old and, as is tradition, should received an utan (type of sarong) woven by her mother as birthday gift. Unfortunately, her mother is very busy but Marcia has a plan to ensure she receives this special gift.

Press release:

Announcement of Shortlists of Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award 2013 and SingTel Asian Picture Book Award 2013

Singapore, 25 April 2013 – At the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) 2013 Press Conference, held today at Hotel Grand Pacific, Ms Claire Chiang, announced the shortlisted names for the Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award 2013 and the SingTel Asian Picture Book Award 2013. Ms Claire Chiang also unveiled the five-day festival, which will be held from 25 to 30 May.

Winners for both prizes will be announced during the Children’s Literature Lecture and Award Ceremony on 28 May 2013. The prize for the Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award is worth S$10,000, to be shared by the writer and illustrator. The SingTel Asian Picture Book Award offers a total of S$10,000, the First Prize consisting of S$5,000 for an author and S$5,000 for an illustrator. These will be individually known as the SingTel Asian Picture Book Award – Author, and the SingTel Asian Picture Book Award – Illustrator.

For the Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award, a total of 33 titles were submitted, out of which 16 entries were Novels and 17 entries were Short Stories or Picture Books. For the SingTel Asian Picture Book Award, a total of 158 manuscripts were submitted, out of which 79 were with illustrations. The award attracted submissions from 19 different countries in total.

The following shortlisted titles are not listed in order of merit:

The Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award 2013 Shortlist Candidates:

The Mudskipper by Ovidia Yu

Extraordinary Losers: Operation Pants on Fire by Jessica Alejandro

Farrer Park by Ann Peters

Where’s Grandma? by Edmund Lim

The SingTel Asian Picture Book Award 2013 Shortlist Candidates:

Author:

Don’t Eat That, Phoenix by Swapna Haddow (United Kingdom)

Cap Go Meh by Sophie Dewayani (Indonesia)

If I Were by Debra Chong (Singapore)

Old City by Ichinnorov Ganbaatar (Mongolia)

Wayang Night by Lak-Khee Tay Audouard (Singapore) [See PaperTiger's gallery of her work here]

Utan for Marcia by Maria Agnes Du’a Bewa (Indonesia)

Illustrator:

Who Knows Mr. Pink by Reza Dalvand (Iran)

Old City by BaaSanSuren Bolormaa (Mongolia) [Read PaperTigers' interview with her here and see two galleries of her work here and here]

Wayang Night by Lak-Khee Tay Audouard (Singapore) [See PaperTiger's gallery of her work here]

Cap Go Meh by Gina (Indonesia)

The Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) brings together content creators and producers with parents, teachers, librarians, and anyone interested in quality Asian content for children. With a mix of professional conferences, masterclasses and workshops, a rights fair and media mart, as well as public events, AFCC is a unique and popular event right here in Asia that provides an opportunity for writers, illustrators, editors, publishers, agents, distributors, parents, children, teachers, and librarians to meet, learn, develop their craft, and discover business opportunities.

PaperTigers is a proud sponsor of the Asian Festival of Children’s Content and both Marjorie and I will be attending this year. To learn more about the AFCC check the official website and read our July 2011 PaperTigers issue  Singapore and the Asian Festival of Children’s Content. Stay tuned to the blog tomorrow to learn more about the SingTel Asian Picture Book Award 2013 Shortlist Candidates.

Last week the AFCC organizers held a press conference at the host hotel, Hotel Grand Pacific, right across the street from the official festival venue, theCentral Public Library.  Head on over to Dr. Myra Garces-Bacsal’s wonderful Gathering Books blog to read about and see photos from the press conference (click here). Also, be sure to check out Myra’s Pre-AFCC Glitter posts in which she will be conducting short interviews with AFCC invited guest speakers and other conference attendees. First up is Holly Thompson who will be launching her newest YA novel The Language Inside at AFCC, Holly was raised in the USA and is a longtime resident of Japan. Her verse novel Orchards (Delacorte/Random House) won the 2012 APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature  and is a YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults title. She recently edited Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction—An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories (Stone Bridge Press) and was a guest blogger on our blog last year. Click here to read her PaperTigers’ blog posts.

Marjorie and I will be participating in several of the AFCC sessions. First up for us is Marjorie’s seminar/workshop The Fine Art of Reviewing Children’s Books. Should you be attending  the AFCC we would love it if you were able to partake in this event! Details are as follows:

The Fine Art of Reviewing Children’s Books

Monday, May 27th
2:15pm – 5:45pm

Presentation:

• What makes a good book? What makes a good review?
• The components of a book review.
• Choosing books to review,

Break

Workshop:

• Group-discussion, reviewing a book
• Writing a review for publication

Marjorie Coughlan is the Editor of PaperTigers.org, a website and blog which seeks to highlight the richness of multicultural books from and/or about anywhere in the world, with a particular focus on the Pacific Rim and South Asia. PaperTigers.org is part of PaperTigers: Books+Water and includes the WaterBridge Outreach program.

We are very excited to welcome artist Jimmy Liao to our Gallery on the PaperTigers website.  I love this illustration from his book The Sound of Colors, and I first fell in love with Jimmy’s work when I encountered The Blue Stone a few years ago.  Then, at the Bologna Book Fair in 2010, I was bowled over again by the vibrancy and joyous imagination of his work.  I just wanted to follow the little girl up that blossom-lined avenue!

…and as for the meadow on the cover of One More Day with You, that you can also see here, along with other examples of Jimmy’s books…

So I am thrilled that Jimmy has taken a pause on his phenomenal creative journey to join us at PaperTigers.  His books have taken his native Taiwan and also China and Japan by storm, and have been translated into many languages;  alas, they are not as well represented as they should be in English.  Please can we have more!

In our Gallery, Jimmy shares with us images from the three books that are available in English (When the Moon Forgot, The Blue Stone: A Journey Through Life, and The Sound of Colors: A Journey of the Imagination), as well as others — all depicting a physical journey within the realms of imagination: so head on over to the Gallery to find out more about Jimmy and his own personal journey as an artist, and to view some gorgeous examples of his vibrant artwork. (I should perhaps also point out that in the last few years Jimmy has also collaborated with well-known children’s authors to create some wonderfully imaginative children’s books – it would just be wonderful to have more of his own author-illustrator work available too.)

And is it possible that we have more for you? YES indeed!  For alongside Jimmy’s Gallery, we also have a very special Personal View “The Journey of Translation: Walking with Jimmy Liao“, written by author Sarah L. Thomson, who adapted the three titles mentioned above for publication by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers as picture books in English for children.  In the article she talks about the poetry within the books – and her article is itself a poetic tribute both to Jimmy’s work and to the art of translating – do read it!

And do share with us your own experiences of Jimmy’s books…

Ages 5-8

No wonder children love trains, planes, buses and the like – they take people places; and when you’re not one of the passengers, you can let your imagination fly about where they’re going and what awaits at journey’s end. These are the kinds of exhilarating ideas that The Matatu inspires in its young readers. Little Kioko has dreamed about jumping aboard the colorful matatu, the brightly painted local buses that pause on route through his Kenyan village in a cloud of dust, carrying passengers inside and luggage and livestock piled precariously high on the roof — and now, for his fifth birthday, oh joy! His grandfather is taking him for a ride all the way to the end of the line and back again. He can hardly wait! …

Read the full review

The cover image of a little girl clutching her teddy bear as she looks warily behind her while walking through a war-torn landscape sets the scene for what is to come, as Azzi and her family flee their unspecified Middle Eastern country and arrive as refugees in the Western city that will gradually become their home…the graphic format and the depth of this story aimed at young readers is also a quality read for older children through to adults…

You can read our full review here, and I also talk about it in my Personal View “Escaping Conflict, Seeking Peace: Picture books that relate refugee stories, and their importance“.

Azzi In Between is also one of the four books shortlisted for the recently inaugurated Little Rebels Children’s Book Award, given by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers and administered by Letterbox Library. The difficult task of deciding the winning book falls to guest judges Wendy Cooling and Elizabeth Laird, and the announcement will be made next week on 11 May at the new ARB London Radical Bookfair.  You can find out more about this exciting  award here, and follow news on the award’s blog.