As during the conquest of the West, the Nugget is the most popular award in children’s literature. And among the approximately 20,000 titles published each year, only a handful of them are entitled to Children’s Book Fair which opened this Wednesday in Montreuil. Five exactly, crowning a junior novel, a teen novel, a children’s comic book and an illustrated album.
Award-winning family saga
In this little game, the big winner is this year (drum roll)… We will go through storms by Anne-Laure Bondoux, the story of a Morvan family over a century: from the First World War to the present day, with its share of family secrets and buried dramas.
Other awards from the show
Nugget of the illustrated book : Butterflies in the night by Olivier Ka and Christophe Alline (Les Grandes Personnes).
Nugget junior fiction : Ottoline and the monster vet by Yann Apperry and Laurent Gapaillard (PKJ).
Nugget of youth comics : Without panic by Coline Hégron (Delcourt).
Nugget teen fiction : OxceanNicolas Michel (High Talents)
If the winners are there to make people happy, the theme of the show, “the body in motion” was chosen for its very political subject” as stated by the director of the Show Sylvie Vassallo. The objective: to evoke “the way young people use their bodies” and “the way children’s literature represents them”. Undoubtedly with the taboos and censorship that sometimes results from this in the back of our minds, as was the case this summer with the ban on under-18s from Way too small by Manu Causse.
In order to defuse any controversy, psychiatrist Serge Hefez recalls in the show’s press kit the importance of fiction which “puts words on feelings, sensations and emotions” and allows one to enter “into a common story with the rest of the world.
Free for those under 18, the Children’s Book Fair expects more than 400 exhibitors, including many small publishers with original catalogs, and some 250 authors in conferences or signings. Its official channel offers three hours of daily programs on slpjplus.tv, every evening from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.