The list of candidates for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award has been revealed, with 62 authors and illustrators up for the children’s literature prize, Publishers Weekly reports.
The award, sponsored by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), is presented every two years to an author and an illustrator. It’s awarded in recognition of an artist’s complete body of work, not for a specific book.
The American candidates are Linda Sue Park, the Newbery Medal–winning author of books like A Single Shard and Prairie Lotus, and Kadir Nelson, the Caldecott Medal–winning illustrator whose artwork has appeared in Kwame Alexander’s The Undefeated and Ellen Levine’s Henry’s Freedom Box.
Other candidates include Angèle Delaunois and illustrator Sydney Smith from Canada, author Marcus Sedgwick and illustrator David McKee from the U.K., and author Joko Iwase and illustrator Ryoji Arai from Japan.
Selection criteria for the award “include the aesthetic and literary qualities of writing and illustrating as well as the ability to see things from the child's point of view and the ability to stretch the child’s curiosity and imagination,” IBBY says.
Previous winners of the award, which was established in 1956, have included Jacqueline Woodson, Maurice Sendak, Tove Jansson, and Katherine Paterson.
The winners of the award will be announced in the spring of 2022.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
