This Friday afternoon, October 22, the winners of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 2021 will be announced at the Frankfurter Buchmesse. An exciting moment for Dutch children’s literature, since three originally Dutch books have been nominated for this prestigious German award: Vosje (Little Fox) by Edward van de Vendel, illustrator Marije Tolman and translator Rolf Erdorf, Haaientanden (Shark Teeth) by Anna Woltz and translator Andrea Kluitmann, and Het meisje met de vlechtjes (The Girl with the Braids) by Wilma Geldof and translator Verena Kiefer.
Further translations and previous nominations
The Girl with the Braids, a youth novel about the gripping true-life story of the youngest resistance hero in the Netherlands during WWII, has won Wilma Geldof her first nomination for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis. The novel has also been or will be translated into Italian, Czech and Bosnian.
For Anna Woltz and translater Andrea Kluitmann Haaientanden/Shark Teeth brings their third nomination for this grand German prize. This children’s book was written for the Dutch Children’s Book Week, printed in 335.000 copies and has also been translated into Slovenian.
Edward van de Vendel has won the prize in 2016 - the year of the Dutch-Flemish Guest of Honour program at the Buchmesse - together with translator Rolf Erdorf and illustrator Anton Van Hertbruggen for The dog that Nino didn’t have (Het hondje dat Nino niet had). His now nominated picture book Little Fox has been or will be translated into ten languages.
Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
The German Children’s Literature Award (Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis) is a state-sponsored prize endowed with a total of 72,000 Euros. The prize is intended to encourage the development of children’s and young adult literature, to arouse and maintain public interest and to stimulate discussions in this field of literature. The German Children’s Literature Award is awarded by a jury of literature specialists and critics in four categories: Picture Book, Children’s Book, Young Adult Book and Non-Fiction. Books either written in or translated into German are eligible for all categories. The award goes to both writer, illustrator and translator.
There will be a livestream of the award ceremony on Friday, starting at 17.30 CET at www.jugendliteratur.org.
For more information on these books and their authors you may contact the Dutch Foundation for Literature’s children’s books specialist Agnes Vogt.
Or browse through our website:
- Vosje (Little Fox) by Edward van de Vendel and Marije Tolman, 6+
- Haaientanden (Shark Teeth) by Anna Woltz, 10+
- Het meisje met de vlechtjes (The Girl with the Braids) by Wilma Geldof, 15+
- website Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German) or English page