We need more international picture books!

I was interested to read this recent article from the School Library Journal about “Where the Wild Books Are”, an event focusing on the translation of children’s picture books. This discussion echoed many of the issues we talked about at the SCBWI...

Prizes and surprises

Blimey! What an exciting and surprising month it’s been. One of my recent translations, The War within These Walls, written by Aline Sax, illustrated by Caryl Strzelecki, and published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, has won a hat-trick of amazing awards in...

Talking translation with Tokyo and Singapore

Avery Fischer Udagawa, translator of Japanese children’s literature into English and co-leader of the SCBWI Tokyo Translation Group, recently contacted me for a chat about children’s books, translations, networking and promotion. We exchanged a few emails...

A Celebration of Soldier Bear

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...

The shelf life of a translator

I’ve just had a fine time at the annual Vertaaldagen, the literary translation symposium and workshop days organised by the Vertalershuis in Amsterdam. The symposium day, held this year in the beautiful cultural centre De Rode Hoed in Amsterdam, focused on the...