Did Asterix and Obelix cause unrest behind the scenes this time at the awarding of the youth literature awards? Because despite strict confidentiality obligations, it became known one day before the event at the fair in Frankfurt that Gudrun Penndorf had been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Prize, who has translated countless comics into German since the sixties, from Asterix to Lucky Luke. On the evening of the award ceremony, she described how she managed to translate the French original in such a way that it has the highest print runs in Germany in an international comparison. “Maybe I’ll get a prize for it in France one day,” she said in front of the 250 guests.
With youth literature we have to build bridges for educational equality and equal opportunities, a laborious and arduous path. “
“Children’s and young adult literature is the growth segment in the industry”, praised Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, the head of the German book trade association, publishers and book trade. “You have managed to react quickly and creatively to the challenges posed by new media such as Netflix and others in order to bring people to books and promote dialogue in society”. As far as the future of the book is concerned, there are evidently strong impulses from the youth. So optimism was felt among the youth book publishers – 250 national and international were represented with stands or in working forums – and confirmed that they had come through the lockdown well.
“That is of course due to the group of young, high-volume readers, which has increased,” said State Secretary Juliane Seifert, who announced the prices in place of Family Minister Christine Lambrecht. But she also had to confirm that the number of child non-readers is increasing. “We live in a two-class society. With youth literature we have to build bridges for educational equality and equal opportunities, a laborious and arduous path.”
The five prizes this year can inspire reading and books, they provide orientation in an increasingly complex world – but they need the public and adults to convey them. For children of preschool age the illustrator Sydney Smith shows in his picture book “Invisible in the Big City” (Aladin) a way home for a little boy and his beloved cat in virtuoso mysterious pictures. While in the children’s book “Somewhere is always south” (Woow Books) by Marianne Kaurin, the topic of bullying and exclusion for 10 to 12 year old children takes a hopeful turn in a hip summer story with a special friendship. Hope as shown in the graphic novel “Sibiro Haiku ‘(Baobab) by Jurga Vile and Lina Itagaki, in which a group of Lithuanians survived thanks to their solidarity in Siberia. The non-fiction prize went to Christoph Drösser” 100 Children “(Gabriel), is a Statistical “thought experiment” that tells about children from all parts of the world to readers from the age of 10. In times of fake news and lateral thinkers, the youth jury’s price book “After the Fire” by Will Hill (Hanser, dtv) gives a literary example of how difficult it is is to get rid of ideologies and conspiracy theories.
So optimism was abundant, despite the pandemic and new media. What is more of a concern for the industry at the moment is the shortage of paper.