By Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp Hearty congratulations to Siân Mackie, translator of this year’s Global Literature in Libraries Initiative Translated YA Book Prize winner: Smash the Patriarchy: A Graphic Novel by Marta Breen & Jenny Jordahl. Published in English (and also German) by Helvetiq in 2023, this colorful and often very funny graphic novel was first published in Norwegian as Patriarkatet Faller. Opening with an overview of the centuries of male pontificating about women’s alleged inferiority, Smash the Patriarchy charts the history of misogyny and male gaze through the writi ..read more

by Paula Holmes One month ago, January 22, the 2024 Youth Media Award (YMAs) announcements took place during the American Library Association’s LibLearnX conference in Baltimore, Maryland.  For those interested in translations, one waits for the Mildred L. Batchelder Award, “for a children’s book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originally published in a foreign language in a foreign country, and subsequently translated into English and published in the United States.”   The 2024 YMA’s added a bit of extra translation excitement as the Stonewall and Printz Awards ..read more

Today we’re excited to post an interview between Japanese translators Deborah Iwabuchi and Avery Fischer Udagawa, whose latest translation The House of the Lost on the Cape just won the 2024 Batchelder Honor. Many thanks to SCBWI Japan Translation Group for graciously allowing us to repost. By Deborah Iwabuchi Avery Fischer Udagawa, translator of the 2022 Mildred L. Batchelder Award-winning Temple Alley Summer by Sachiko Kashiwaba, has translated a second book by the same author (Ed. note: it just won the 2024 award!) The House of the Lost on the Cape (岬のマヨイガ) is set i ..read more

Here at World Kid Lit, we aim to connect young readers with world literature. That can mean all kinds of things: stories, poetry, nonfiction and graphic novels published in other countries besides our own, books written in English from beyond our shores, or books written in other languages and translated into English. We place a particular focus on translations into English, because they tend not to get the critical coverage they deserve, and because they represent a vibrant and diverse section of children’s publishing. We’ve been keeping a list of published translations every year since 2017 ..read more

by Nanette McGuinness This article was first posted on the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative website as part of their #WorldKidLit Wednesday series and is now shared on the World Kid Lit blog with kind permission from GLLI. Looking to dip your toe into the ocean of new graphic novels (in translation) for children and young adults? Reading the Eisners is the perfect approach. The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are the comic kingdom’s equivalent of the Oscars, with the winners announced annually at San Diego Comic Con. Children’s graphic novels in translation ..read more

By Paula Holmes I always find it interesting what brings joy. For me, maps have that gift. Any type, atlases, historical maps, folded maps, huge maps on floors. I am extremely partial to ones in books. Maybe my love of maps comes from a childhood of seeing the world through library books.  A map in a book, whether based on fact or fiction, brings incredible excitement as it puts me into the story, I am the navigator! A map can tell a story of a journey between two kingdoms, demonstrate the topography of a small city that was devastated by a tsunami, or describe the story of one intersecti ..read more

Today we learn more about Vancouver, Canada-based Greystone Kids, which focuses on picture books and middle-grade nonfiction about science, health, nature and community. WKL contributor Mia Spangenberg speaks with Lara LeMoal, Publishing Director of Greystone Kids. WKL: Hello Lara and welcome to the WorldKidLit blog! Greystone Kids is a new imprint of Greystone Books. Could you tell us about what led to the formation this imprint? How does your mission inform the books you publish? Greystone Kids launched in 2019 as an imprint of Greystone Books, an independent publisher of adult nonfiction kn ..read more

This week we’re excited to have Nanette McGuinness share her recommendations from the 2022 Eisner Awards for comics and graphic novels. This post is re-posted with permission from SCBWI: The Blog. The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, aka the Eisner Awards, are the Oscars and Nobel Prizes of the comics world. Nominated and voted on by industry professionals, the Eisner Awards annually celebrate excellence in several dozen categories. Children’s graphic novels in translation lurk throughout but normally are clustered in the children’s and international categories. Surprisingly, this year’s chi ..read more

News It’s just 2 months until #WorldKidLitMonth: the month to explore the world through children’s literature from other countries! And to make it easier for you (and for booksellers and libraries) to find children’s books from around the world, we have published our 2022 List of Children’s & YA Books in Translation. So far, the list – which is still growing – includes books from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Mauritius, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zeal ..read more

Every year we in September we celebrate World Kid Lit Month! To help you find books from around the world to read and share in September, we’ve been busy compiling our annual list of translations into English for young readers. It’s a work in progress and you can help us by sending us book details. Please send any corrections and additions to us via this Google form. Thank you! You can look back at previous years’ lists here (we’ve been collecting this data since 2017). Where possible we #namethetranslator and list the country and language the book originated in, before this English ..read more