‘Florette’ named on 2018 NYT/NYPL Best Illustrated Children’s Books list

9 November 2018 Books+Publishing

Melbourne-based writer and illustrator Anna Walker’s picture book Florette (Viking) has been named as one of the New York Times (NYT)/New York Public Library’s (NYPL) best illustrated children’s books for 2018.

New Zealand-based independent publisher Gecko Press is also represented on the list by German author Antje Damm’s picture book The Visitor.

Joining them on the list are:

The Forest (Riccardo Bozzi, illus by Violeta Lopiz and Valerio Vidali, Enchanted Lion)
Our Car (J M Brum, illus by Jan Bajtlik, Neal Porter/Roaring Brook)
Run Wild by David Covell (Penguin)
She Made a Monster: How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein (Lynn Fulton, illus by Felicita Sala, Knopf)
Ayobami and the Names of the Animals (Pilar Lopez Avila, illus by Mar Azabal, Cuento de Luz)
A House That Once Was (Julie Fogliano, illus by Lane Smith, Roaring Brook)
The Funeral (Matt James, Groundwood)
Dreamers (Yuyi Morales, Holiday House/Porter).

NYPL children’s librarian and judge Jenny Rosenoff praised Walker for ‘giving glorious visual representation to the increasing hopefulness of a little girl settling into her new urban landscape’.

Running annually since 1952, the award considers every illustrated children’s book published that year in the United States, with winners selected ‘purely on the basis of artistic merit’. This is the second year the award has been jointly presented by the NYT and NYPL.

The books will recognised at a reception at the NYPL on 15 November, and will be featured in a special children’s books section of an upcoming edition of the NYT Book Review.

To learn more about the winners, see the NYPL website or the NYT.

Category: Junior Local news