Who is the medal?

I learned about Newbury’s medal from the Soviet book. In 1989. I was also delighted that the National Library Association awards the medal, which is depicted on the cover when reprinting the book and stimulates sales. Now you press the button and ... you will learn everything about Newbury medals, at least the entire list of laureates since 1965. But quite little is written about that Soviet book. It was called a “distant friend” (Publishing House “Children's Literature”, 1989), an extremely cultural publication. Successful design: The book looks like an air office.

Under the cover, a collection of stories and excerpts from the stories of modern authors of the USSR and the USA. In the role of translators - graduates of Inyaz. Betsi Bayers, Virginia Hamilton, Scott O'Dell, Katherine Paterson and other authors are represented from the American side, and later Russian -speaking readers met closer.

When 15 years after that I visited the headquarters of the American Library Association ( American Library Association , ALA ) , I felt a little clearer why for the American reader the opinion of ALA is not an empty phrase. And the point is not only that ALA has existed for almost 140 years, but above all that it is a zealous defender of its users, which the entire population of the country considers. When, after September 11, laws restricting the freedom of the individual were adopted, Ala courageously stood up to her defense.

“I'm on the black list of the Minister of Justice,” Emily Sheketoff chuckled, deputy director of the Washington branch. And after all, it was possible to achieve that the library provides any information about users only by the court order. In the library, for example, no one is interested in whether the visitor is legally in the country (“this is the case of the police”), but please help find a job or learn a language. Yes, you can not listen to the voice of the librarians, but users are votes in the elections, lobbyists of the libraries.

By the way, Newbury and Kaldekott medals awards the ALA Alsc unit ( Association for Library Service to Children ) . In ALSC , a committee of 15 people is selected, which decides everything. It is funny that in the instructions for members of the Committee there are instructions of this plan: “If one of your relatives or close friends is a children's writer, illustrator or publisher, you should inform you about it.”

The medal is awarded annually for an outstanding contribution to American literature for children. The book should be published in English, to be written for a children's age reader. Its author must be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States.

And now each of these words is explained in detail in the instructions so that there are no discrepancies. What does “outstanding” mean, which means “contribution”, which means “reader of childhood”, which means “permanent resident”. Very instructive reading - this instruction.

And John Newbury himself, by the way, was the publisher of books back in the 18th century.

I don’t know why laureates books come out without an image of a medal. Maybe there are some rules. In my opinion, a bright print on the cover looks very beautiful.

By the way, the Kaldekott medal, which is awarded by the same organization and which was awarded the book by R. Makloski “The Road of the Ducks!” Is assigned not for illustrations, but for the best picture book [1] . Kaldecott “Younger” by Newbie - she is only 75. Name in honor of Randolf Kaldekott, a British artist. They began to award it when the art of creating a picture book due to the powerful development of printing and age-related pedagogy has become a serious phenomenon of culture.

Newbury and Kaldecott medals are usually compared with Carnegie and Kate Greenway medals.

Andrew Carnegie - an industrialist and a philanthropist, used libraries in childhood and promised, if he got rich, to build a lot of free libraries. He fulfilled his promise, almost half of the English biblotes - the library of Carnegie, and the medal of his name since 1936 has been awarded in the UK almost the same principles as Newbiei. At the Cilip Institute (the Charity Institute of Specialists in the field of library and information) there is a specialized group of libraries for youth, 12 members of the group and make up the jury of the prize. So the Carnegie medal is awarded by librarians.

I had to get to know one laureate better, however, it was a long time, but interesting. In 1994 , we had colleagues from the UK in our library and left several Books numbers for Keeps " . Then it was not as easy to “get” information or foreign periodicals as it is now, so I took care of all this and read it from crust to crust, which very, very helped. In one of the presented numbers there was an article by N. Tucker "Children's literature and an undesirable pregnancy." In it, the author was included in the polemic about Bailey Daherti's book “ Dear Nobody ” , who received Carnegie in 1991. Many experts believed that the story of a pregnant and gave birth to a schoolgirl was not the best example to follow. You yourself understand what you can reproach both the author and the book. The author of the article was more expressed “for”, and I got the impression that the book is quite chaste and interesting. Then I placed in the library journal "Kaleidoscope" the abstract of the article by N. Tucker under its original name.

“If one of your relatives or close friends is a children's writer, illustrator or publisher, you should inform you about it.”

And I managed to see the book only two years later in Munich, in the International Youth Library. The curator of the English -language literature of Marta Bucher, seeing my interest in the novel, gave me a copy of her reserves. I read and fell in love with this book. Brought to Moscow. She showed, told. Among others and Nina Mikhailovna Demurova. And yet years later, she calls, says that the book is about to be released in Russian, and offers to arrange a presentation.

Of course, I am not going to retell it, I will only give the words of one of the few adult participants: “They are much smarter than we think!” “They” are high school students who first showed a prepared composition according to the letters of the main characters (and the heroes-boys spoke Russian, and the girls in English, which showed their mutual aircraft-speak different languages), Then they spoke about the book read (I still remember several statements: “What does the teenager do when he is bad? He takes the pen, paper and writes - Helen did it”; “Helen is brave - I did not agree to do an abortion”; “I didn’t believe my ears - they were going to talk about love with us! And at school we don’t say a word about it!”). And then they wrote a letter to the author. And then they received a very detailed and kind (handwritten!) answer . That's the whole story.

I don’t know why laureates books come out without an image of a medal.

The medal Kate Greenway, as well, is clearly awarded for the best illustrations.

There are national awards for children's books in many countries. More and less prestigious, often their award causes professional controversy. International awards, which are very important, are also very important.

First of all, Andersen's gold medal. This international award is probably the most prestigious. It is awarded once every two years by the International Council for Board Board On Books for Young People, Ibby ) . The decision is made by the international jury, which includes representatives of countries with national IBBY sections. In different years, Russia was represented by E.I. Ivanova (it was then that the medal was received by Tatyana Mavrina, the only Andersen laureate in our country), P.L. Frenkel, O.N. Myeots, A.E. Lebedeva, now in the jury is an artist Anastasia Arkhipova. Jury members get acquainted with a huge number of materials that send the national IBBY sections in support of their candidates, and then at a full -time meeting they discuss and choose laureates for several days. Andersen medal is an international recognition of the author’s merits (two nominations - text and illustrations), it is received by experienced, well -known writers and illustrators in their country. The medal is not awarded posthumously.

IBBY publishes Bookbird magazine . His thematic numbers regularly introduce readers with candidates for a medal, with authors included in the honorary list of Andersen medals. And in the past, 2012, the year Bookbird spoke about 27 applicants, and the Argentine writer and active public figure Maria Teresa Andruetto received the award, we have an unknown country in our country.

But the last laureate is the artist Peter Sis (Czech Republic) is familiar to us. The book "Wall. As I grew up behind the iron curtain, ”the Samokat publishing house was released, and Tibet. The mystery of the red box ” -“ The World of Childhood Media ”.

Not all laureates of Andersen medals were translated and published in our country, and if this happens, then, as a rule, after receiving a reward. Fortunately, the situation is improving.

Often they talk about why Russian authors do not receive Andersen medal. This is an interesting topic, but separate. And the Soviet writer V. Krapivin was put forward to the medal in 2014. Do you think he will get it?

You can’t tell about all the awards. Finally, I will touch on a rather new international award, the name Astrid Lindgren ( Alma ) . The prize can be awarded not only the author, but also the organizations working in the field of children's literature, and at one time our RGDB was nominated. Certain organizations can nominate, we were nominated for the IFLA children's libraries section. Preparing materials in the Alma jury is a troublesome thing, but the result - I will not say that it is zero. Still, it was honorable, in IFLA publications there were publications in support, members of the Jury of Alma, and these are the leading figures of the children's literature of Sweden, they learned about us. But we, of course, did not receive the prize, and probably, probably.

In 2009, in Stockholm, the standing committee of the children's section IFLA held a meeting with the jury Alma, which I had to be present. The chairman of the jury is Lary Lempert, director of the International Library in Stockholm. The jury are authors, professors, critics, librarians and granddaughter Astrid Lindgren Anika.

Lary Lempert in the upper row, the extreme on the right. Most of the jury members, as you can see, are men. All of them are “sick” by children's culture.

And I received the ALMA prize this year, imagine, also a representative of Argentina, the author of the picture book artist Isol. Speaking at the award ceremony, Isol said that the artist is a person who continues to remain a child, perceives the world and expresses his feelings with the help of pictures.

In a word, a bunch of everything interesting in the world of a children's book, and we still have to open it and open it.

The editors thanks the All -Russian competition for the best literary work for children and youth "Booker" for support when working on this material.

[1] What is a picture book is a special conversation.