Text: Bodour Al Qasimi
Illustrations: Majid Zakeri Younesi
Publisher: Kalimat
Country: United Arab Emirates, 2024
What the jury said:
This book won over the hearts and gaze of the jury for the power of its creativity and the overall excellence of its production. The historical events of the destruction of the celebrated Baghdad Library – one of the largest intercultural institutions of all times, in a city that was a centre for the exchange of ideas, the art of translation and the celebration of cultures and languages – are brought to life again in these intense pages like a timeless force. The text is characterised by an elegant and confident literary style in perfect harmony with the stunning iconography that recalls the ancient Islamic miniatures reimagined in a modern context using limited yet powerful colour combinations, with the black and green standing out in particular. The book contains memorable images, like that of the river that turns black, dyed by the ink from the books that have been thrown into its waters. The work appears today as both a warning and a tribute to the importance of books and literature, to dialogue and the peaceful cohabitation between cultures, a universal plea that resonates like a keepsake and that requires protection, resistance and care for the treasures of humanity and culture as a whole.
Text and illustrations: Lauren Redniss
Publisher: Random House Children’s Books
Country: United States, 2024
What the jury said:
A book with a strong chromatic impact, almost screaming to wake us up to an awareness of global climate change. The impact of extreme heat is expressed with the pervasiveness of a powerful red palette in a monochromatic solution that gradually makes space for the presence of blue and the rain, in a visual translation of the physical variations in temperature that accompany the reader until finally sinking into the darkness of the night, when the sun disappears. The book presents a notable artistic skill in the composition of the illustrations on the page, the originality of the style with which the anatomy of the characters is traced, in the narrative use of the chromatic palette and in the choice of the picture book format for developing a reflection on climate change.
Text and illustrations: Sara Lundberg
Publisher: Natur & Kultur
Country: Sweden, 2024
What the jury said:
Lyrical, magical, fantastical, dreamlike and at the same time intimate, symbolic, sentimental and universal, this book bewitched the judges. Thick with tributes to the greats of literature and art, from Matisse to Sendak, from the painting of Rousseau to contemporary illustration, Sara Lundberg’s book combines a perfect use of different compositional registers with a rich and varied page layout. The images describe an imaginative and poignant educational journey that crosses realistic and imaginary places and landscapes, encountering dangers as well as magical helpers. Floating on the surface of the river, condensing a great adventure into a short space of time, expanding the space of their own autonomy through adventure, the central character and the author invite us to witness the magic of a perfect childhood novel.
Text and illustration: by Caroline Gamon
Publisher: hélium
Country: France, 2024
What the jury said:
With an unexpected rewriting of the traditional fairy tale, the book combines the retro flavour of some graphic languages with a profoundly modern narrative construction and the skill with which it employs and moulds numerous stylistic features of the picture book genre. Some pages are finely die-cut, and the overlapping creates visions of great symbolic impact, such as the mother’s hand on which rests the house that encloses the tiny shape of the girl. The shape of the cut becomes a metaphor for childhood capable of indicating new paths and adventure is at the same time both voice and distance. Other pages have no need for written text and the silent narrations flow supported by the figures for several moments. If the wood is an imaginary place rich in artistic and illustrative echoes of masterpieces, the interplay with design and contemporary art inhabits indoor spaces and objects. Dotted with literary and figurative references to fairy tales, from Little Red Riding Hood to Tom Thumb, both in the images and in the perfect, rhythmic and concise text, the book shows courage in publishing and attracts the reader from the very texture of the cover.
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