Last month I was lucky enough to attend the 11th IBBY Regional Conference in New York, where I participated in a panel discussion on children’s literature in translation, at the invitation of Claudia Zoe Bedrick of Enchanted Lion Books in Brooklyn and Anita Eerdmans of Eerdmans Books for Young Readers in Grand Rapids, with thanks also to the Dutch Foundation for Literature for their support. Claudia provided the moderation for the session, and my fellow panel members were Mara Faye Lethem, who translates from Spanish, and Ajia, who’s translated many great books from English into Chinese. We had a wide-ranging discussion and covered lots of aspects of translating children’s books – and why it’s so important for readers of all ages to encounter new voices that they might not have heard before. Holly Thompson and Lyn Miller Lachman have both written fantastic roundup posts about the conference. Excitingly, I had some lovely chats with other IBBY members who were keen to hear more about translated children’s books and were already cooking up more plans to encourage translation for children. Watch this space…
