Hans Christian Andersen Award Nominations

Look. Just because something happens overseas, that's no reason to ignore it. I am referring, of course, to the Hans Christian Andersen Award nominations. Thus far I haven't found any American blogs listing the nominated persons. This will not stand, fellow citizens! So here, lifted directly from the IBBY website with some tweaks, are the nominees:

• Argentina: Author: Beatriz María Ana Ferro; Illustrator: Isol Misenta
• Australia: Author: Jackie French; Illustrator: Shaun Tan
• Austria: Author: Lene Mayer-Skumanz; Illustrator: Linda Wolfsgruber
• Belgium: Author: Anne Provoost; Illustrator: Kitty Crowther
• Brazil: Author: Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós; Illustrator: Rui de Oliveira
• Canada: Author: Brian Doyle; Illustrator: Pierre Pratt
• China: Author: Qin Wenjun
• Croatia: Illustrator: Svjetlan Junakóvic
• Cyprus: Author: Kika Pulcheriou
• Czech Republic: Author: Iva Procházková; Illustrator: Adolf Born
• Denmark: Author: Bjarne Reuter; Illustrator: Lilian Brøgger
• Egypt: Author: Fatima El Maadoul
• Finland: Author: Irmelin Sandman Lilius; Illustrator: Virpi Talvitie
• France: Author: Marie Desplechin; Illustrator: Claude Ponti
• Germany: Author: Peter Härtling; Illustrator: Jutta Bauer
• Greece: Author: Voula Mastori; Illustrator: Vassilis Papatsarouchas
• Iceland: Author: Gudrun Helgadottir
• Ireland: Author: Kath Thompson; Illustrator: Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick
• Italy: Author: Mino Milani; Illustrator: Roberto Innocenti
• Japan: Author: Shuntaro Tanikawa; Illustrator: Akiko Hayashi
• Lithuania: Illustrator: Kestutis Kasparavicius
• Mexico: Illustrator: Mauricio Gómez Morín
• Netherlands: Author: Guus Kuijer; Illustrator: The Tjong-Khing
• Romania: Author: Iuliu Ratiu; Illustrator: Stan Done
• Russia: Illustrator: Nickolay Popov
• Serbia: Author: Dragana Litricin-Dunic
• Slovak Republic: Author: Ján Navrátil; Illustrator: Olga Bajusová
• Slovenia: Illustrator: Lila Prap
• South Africa: Author: Beverley Naidoo; Illustrator: Piet Grobler
• Spain: Author: María Asun Landa; Illustrator: Ulises Wensell
• Sweden: Barbro Lindgren; Illustrator: Eva Eriksson
• Switzerland: Author: Jürg Schubiger; Illustrator: Hannes Binder
• Turkey: Author: Ayla Çinaroglu; Illustrator: Nazan Erkmen
• United Kingdom: Author: David Almond; Illustrator: Jan Pienkowski
• USA: Author: Lloyd Alexander; Illustrator: David Wiesner

The elected Chair of the International Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury, Zohreh Ghaeni (Iran) and Jury members from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, France, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and the United States of America, will meet in March 2008 to select from among these nominations the winners of the 2008 Andersen Awards.

The results will be made public at the Bologna Children's Book Fair, Monday, 31 March 2008 and the Awards will be presented to the winners at the 31st IBBY Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark on 7 September 2008.

I've a passing familiarity with thirteen of these author/illustrators. I need to work on that. My hope and dreams? Well, it'd be simply swell if Shaun Tan finally got his due. Anyone familiar with The Arrival would agree. As for authors, Guus Kuijer's The Book of Everything was a small gem overlooked this award season past. It's a little late for Mr. Alexander, but they might feel obligated to hand it to him. Which would kind of be a shame, considering he's not around to appreciate it and many of these other people are. As for Wiesner, does he really need another award? Really? Really really?

Thanks to Achocka blog for the link.