Thanks very much to my friends Mina Witteman and Rachelle Meyer of the Dutch chapter of the SCBWI for organising a celebration of Soldier Bear, which recently won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for “the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States”. It was wonderful finally to meet the Dutch Soldier Bear team in person: author Bibi Dumon Tak, illustrator Philip Hopman and designer Steef Liefting. Bibi and I gave a bilingual reading of the first chapter and Philip drew little Voyteks in everyone’s books. Many thanks to Beth Johnson of the Boekhandel van Rossum for her kind hospitality!
