I got well and truly stuck into my first ever LBF and attended some pretty amazing talks. By far, my favourite one was on Wednesday afternoon, called 'BookTrust announces 2018 Honour Titles for In Other Words with Waterstones Children's Laureate Lauren Child and Chris Riddell'. Such a snappy title...
The talk completely opened up my eyes to the world, quite literally. How is there so much untapped literature out there that we, as the United Kingdom, are seemingly happy to let slip us by? This is preposterous. An injustice. A crime against humanity. Need I go on?
Someone, I can't remember who (sorry), summed up the injustice by dropping a statistic into the mix: only 3% of foreign books are translated INTO English, whilst over 10 times as many English texts are translated out of their native language. It is so easy to summarise an English-written book's success by saying that is has been translated into X many languages across the world, but books written in other languages are not being 'allowed' to live up to this level of 'success'. How mind-boggling is that?
BookTrust are an amazing charity who are completely dedicated to ensure that families are reading. It is the UK's largest children's reading charity and the work that they do is incredible. Check out their website: here.
At London Book Fair, BookTrust announced the eight titles from authors from countries around Europe who they believed deserved to be translated into English, as part of their initiative In Other Words. This initiative aims to get more foreign language texts published in the UK and give these amazing authors and their books the recognition and reception they deserve. Lauren Child argues that it also goes deeper than that: there is a huge need for book from other cultures in this current climate. We should be teaching children to be more accepting of others, and what better way to learn to be tolerant of others than to see them before your very eyes, in the same book format as your favourite (possibly English?) characters?! These authors are often internationally-acclaimed, and the BookTrust's recommendation can really help give UK publishers the push they need to stop shying away from such books.
The winners were announced during the talk, whilst Chris Riddell was drawing characters/scenes from each of the books. An amazing experience to be a part of and I don't think I will ever recover from how effortless Riddell makes illustrating seem. Before the talk started, he was drawing the tech guy, as well as other audience members. He, for reasons unbeknown to me, decided to not draw the overly-enthusiastic and smiley girl with freshly-washed hair who may or may not have been me. What a shame on his part.
From the fabulous introductions that were given of each of the eight titles, I picked my own top three that I would buy if they were translated into English/if I could read the languages they were originally written in. I'll list them below and link their descriptions (click on their names) from the BookTrust website because I am helpful like that...
1 - Red Stars by Davide Moronsinotto - Originally written in Italian, this book seems absolutely incredible. I was especially intrigued by the format: two twelve-year old twins, Viktor and Nadia, share a diary. Despite being separated by war, the diary entires continue: black ink for Nadia and red for Viktor. There are also handwritten notes from the Secret Police who find the diary and use it as evidence against the twins, who play a major role in the famous Siege of Leningrad. IS THAT NOT JUST THE BEST THING YOU HAVE EVER HEARD?! I really hope a UK publisher snaps this up!!
2 - The Robbersons by Siri Kolu - Originally written in Finnish. This book sounds really funny and light-hearted. A story about a bandit family who accidentally kidnap a girl, whilst trying to steal sweets. Happens to the best of us, tbh. I think I remember hearing that this was already being made into a film, so it must be good!! It is also the first book in a six part series!
**The titles above are two of the three Honour Titles than Lauren Child so beautifully announced. So I have really good judgement skills and must be hired immediately.**
3. Wolf, Edda and the Stolen Relic by Kristin Ragna Gunnarsdottir - Originally written in Icelandic. Unfortunately this was not featured in the Honours Title (instead: Alaska by Anna Woltz). What's not to love about about an adventure story with a strong female character and a stolen Norse archaeological treasure?! It sounded to me like a Indiana Jones meets Hercules (they have to go to the realm of the Norse Gods to retrieve it) but with a girl at the helm of the story. It sounds like a must-have for my ever-expanding bookshelf!
I just want to clarify that I have not read these books in their entirety, this was simply a judge-a-book-by-its-cover situation. I've since read parts of the extracts given on the BookTrust website for these three books and I can confirm that they are as beautiful and vivid and fun and exciting as I expected them to be and SO much more. I need these books in my life!! I'm sure that they will entertain many other people so let's hope that some UK publishers make the right investments. The past winners have gone on to do quite well, I believe. Elise and the Second-Hand Dog was snatched up by indie publisher Wacky Bee Books. I managed to read a few pages of it whilst visiting their stand at LBF and it is safely in my Amazon basket for safe keeping until pay day. Looking forward to getting my hands on it. I didn't know it was translated until it was mentioned at the BookTrust talk. I did think it was weird to call a rescue dog "second-hand", but I just went with it because it is a children's book. Anything goes!
So, despite not knowing about this amazing initiative this time last week, it is now something that I feel really passionately about and will continue to research and go out of my way to support. I really hope everyone who reads this does the same too.
Bye x
P.S. This was my favourite part of the talk: Chris Riddell drawing Lauren Child as she announced the Honour Titles/gave a speech about the absolute treasure trove that is non-English Children's literature. Yes, that does say "Lauren doesn't like Brexit" and no, these pictures were not taken with a literal potato, but a reluctant-to-focus iPhone 6S.
Probably should have gotten Lauren Child in the photo for context but you could just Google her if you don't know what she looks like. I can't do everything for you.
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