Edward van de Vendel
The multi-talented Van de Vendel (b. 1964) has a cabinet full of awards. Whether he is making picture books or children’s poetry (Superguppie, 2003), or writing a YA novel about gay love (Oliver, 2015), or a happy story about children and dogs (A Dog Like Sam, 2011), he finds the right form and tone for everything. After two collections of children’s poetry, he broke through in 1999 with the poetic adaptation of Gijsbrecht, based on the seventeenth-century Dutch classic, for which he was awarded the prestigious Gouden Zoen. He received this award again a year later for his totally different, pioneering adolescent novel De dagen van de Bluegrassliefde (The Days of Blue Grass Love). He also won a Silver Slate award for the picture book Dom konijn (Silly Rabbit). An all-rounder with more than twenty books to his name, both prose and poetry for children and young people of varying ages.