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Ten Hans Christian Andersen Award-winning illustrators have created original art for a collection of beautiful silk scarves as their donation to IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) and its work to promote the expansion and development of children's reading.
The scarves have been produced in limited editions of 50 copies for each design. The 50x180cm (19.7”x 70.9”) scarves can be bought for US$200.00 each (plus P&P).
The Hans Christian Andersen Award is one of the highest international recognitions given to authors and illustrators of children's books. It is assigned every other year by IBBY and generously supported by IBBY’s partner Nami Island Inc. Korean designer Kang Woo-Hyon of Nami Island has designed and overseen the creation of these beautiful scarves.
The ten illustrators who generously donated their art work for this project are:
Albertine (Switzerland, 2020): "Children are intelligent readers and Germano and I approach our stories in all their forms. The youth book is an open space of great creative freedom that allows all inventions and all pleasures. It’s a game, a dialogue. We invent stories together."
Quentin Blake (UK, 2002): "I tend to be concerned with people – the faces they make and the way they move. If you have the instinct to want to draw and tell stories in pictures, there are many different things one might contribute."
Robert Ingpen (Australia, 1986) : "Illustrative pictures are like our lives: they have backgrounds and foregrounds and imaginative space. The big difference is that in a picture the background and foreground are seen together, but in our lives, the background ceases right now and the foreground is our future."
Roberto Innocenti (Italy, 2008): "It has been amazing to discover, after years of atrocious doubts, that children understand everything and are not afraid but even love the complications, and that simplifying on their behalf does not mask a sacrifice on the author’s part but a competent ignorance."
Roger Mello (Brazil, 2014): "Narrative images in books can make a change, and they actually do, and we can see what happens to many successful initiatives when we travel around Brazil. Books encourage tolerance by accepting the difference without preconceived ideas or hate, without judging, and through the dialogue with the other."
Farshid Mesghali (Iran, 1974): "While Mesghali’s work is rooted in his culture, his childhood and his experiences, his themes and visual language are universal and can be understood worldwide."
Igor Oleynikov (Russia, 2018): "I use everything that comes to hand: broom, rags … as long as the idea is implemented expressively. For me the biggest compliment of the reader could be a surprised shout 'Ah!' when he opens a book with my illustrations."
Květa Pacovksá (Czech Republic, 1982): "A drawing is such as it is. It should not and cannot pretend. It expresses our feelings and our thoughts. It is like music. Each individual tone is beautiful by itself and in certain groupings we create new dimensions, harmony, disharmony."
Peter Sís (Czech Republic, 2012): "I found out that one doesn’t have to discover new continents, that people can explore in their mind even when locked in a prison cell and that books can be my home, my language, my country. Books are bridges taking you places…"
Lisbeth Zwerger (Austria, 1990): "Without proper details, a picture cannot be lifelike – but without skilful use of free space, a picture cannot come alive."
IBBY is a non-profit organization working in 81 countries to bring children and books together. Our National Sections – each one entirely local – undertake reading promotion projects; work to improve the quality of books published; build local libraries; and in many countries bring bibliotherapy to refugee children, children displaced by natural disaster, and unaccompanied minors. Since 1956, IBBY international has biennially presented the Hans Christian Andersen Award, which is the most prestigious international children’s book prize, to an author and an illustrator for their outstanding body of work.
Visit www.ibby.org to learn more about IBBY and to order your scarf.
