Are you a publisher on the look out for great books for children and young adults from across the globe? Are you excited about publishing fantastic stories in English translation? Then look no further! This week, World Kid Lit celebrates London Book Fair by bringing you a few suggestions we think readers (of all ages) will love! Today we travel to Belgium, Bulgaria, the Faroe Islands, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine. And the great news for publishers is that translation funding opportunities are available for all languages!

Belgium

Morris

Translation Funding: Flanders Literature & Flip Through Flanders

Review: Morris lives with his grandma at the foot of a mountain. Grandma’s dog, Houdini, lives up to her name: she’s brilliant at escaping. Morris climbs the mountain to fetch Houdini safely home for the hundredth time when a snowstorm catches them by surprise. High in the snow he meets a boy who deals very differently with all that life metes out to him.

In Bart Moeyaert’s latest creation, after having won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2019, we once again find the multi-layered yet measured sentences so characteristic of his work. He depicts Morris, with masterly precision, as a loner who carries sadness within him and at the same time – almost to his own surprise – doesn’t let anyone mess him about. With his beautiful illustrations, Sebastiaan Van Doninck brings warmth and colour into the snow-white cold of the story, thereby hinting at the tone of the heart-warming ending.

Morris won the De Boon Readers’ Prize for Children’s and Youth Literature and got several five star reviews from important newspapers, De Standaard calling it ‘a literary masterpiece’ and ‘Moeyaert at his best’ and NRC saying ‘One thing is certain: Morris is among Moeyaert’s best work.’ The jury of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award said that ‘Moeyaert’s rich oeuvre fascinates us for its will to challenge, its dedication to minimalism and its refusal to compromise. (…) [His] condensed and musical language vibrates with suppressed emotions and unspoken desires.’ 

Author bio: Bart Moeyaert (b. 1964) was barely nineteen when he made his debut in 1983. A master of the unsaid, his books are always received with great acclaim, and have been described by critics as poetic, cinematic and appealing to the senses. Moeyaert often deals with complex existential subjects in an insightful and accessible way. His books have won many awards at home and abroad, and have been translated into more than twenty languages. In 2019, he won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world’s most prestigious award for children’s literature

Bulgaria

Lupo and Tumba – Parts 1 and 2 

Translation Funding: National Culture Fund

Review: Lupo and Tumba (2018, in two parts), contains short, absurdist conversations between two animals – a raccoon and a dog. In 2018, Lupo and Tumba Part 1 was awarded the prestigious Hristo G. Danov national prize in the Children’s Book category. In late 2018, Lupo and Tumba was published in Germany by eta Verlag, and, in 2020, it came out in Hungarian. The author has worked in joyful collaboration with the Italian illustrator Romina Beneventi (1980) who resides in Tuscany. 

Lupo and Tumba is a book inspired by children’s fascinating lateral thinking and ingenious logic. The palette of 40 short dialogues between two hairy friends – the long-nosed dog Lupo and the naughty raccoon Tumba – will amuse both kids and adults with unusual points of view and startling revelations. The miniature stories are funny and easy to read, and contain pieces of unexpected wisdom. 

Author bio: Petya Kokudeva (1982) is a children’s book writer and a globe-trotter. She has been awarded 4 national prizes for children’s literature. Apart from writing children’s books, Petya is the author of a series of innovative resource books for primary school pupils in which the subject content is presented in the form of fairy tales. Some of her poems have been turned into songs; others have been included in textbooks for second and third graders. Her works have been translated for magazines and anthologies in Russian, Serbian, Macedonian, Czech. For the last few years, she is among the 10 most read children’s authors at the Sofia City Library.

Faroe Islands

The Lines – Strikurnar

Translation Funding: FarLit

In this exquisitely illustrated picture book we encounter grief through a child’s eyes. When a boy loses his grandfather, lines appear everywhere. In his painstaking efforts to avoid the menacing lines, the boy becomes increasingly isolated.

The book opens with a carefree stroll home from school, two best friends together. The lines, which on the first spread harmlessly separate the cobbles on the road, are by the middle of the book depicted as the beast on the terrifying cover. The grieving boy learns what it is like when your friend suddenly cannot bear to be around you anymore. The lines have taken over.

The striking compositions and colouring of the papercut illustrations, evocative of Faroese folklore, will appeal to children and adults each in their way. This is a book to share as a gateway to conversations about topics including death, grief, compulsions and communication between children and the adults in their lives.

The Lines is a timeless and universal articulation of our human need to master the difficulties in our lives. It tackles grief without trivialising it, and offers hope without glossing over the difficulties. The lines were there in the beginning, and they remain at the end. This is beautifully illustrated on the endsheets, which are the same, dark and  lined, the difference is that on the closing page bright flowers are sprouting between them. The book is nominated for the Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize.

Author bio: Dánial Hoydal is a trailblazer wherever his deep playful commitments take him –  from writing the libretto of the first Faroese opera, The Madman’s Garden, to co-founding the first Faroese whiskey distillery. He has penned several works for children, two with illustrator Annika Øyrabø. Their first picture book Grandad and I and Grandad won the 2022 West Nordic Council’s Children and YA Literature Prize.

Illustrator bio: With her exquisite paper collages, Annika Øyrabø stands out as an illustrator. In the style of William Heinesen, rocks and stones come alive in her pictures forging links with Faroese folklore. Details, such as a sock on a bed legs or a cat on the curtain rod, are reminiscent of author and illustrator Sven Nordqvist.

Spain

La Lloba Grisa (The Silver Wolf)

Translation Funding: Institut Ramon llull

Review: For YA fantasy lovers everywhere, Maite Carranza’s The Silver Wolf weaves together witchcraft and Greek mythology, following Demetor’s role in the battle between the witch clans of the Omar and the Odish. Growing up, Demetor is famous for her ability to read the future in the waters, but is unaware of where she gets her powers from – in an attempt to protect her daughter from her own traumatic past, her mother has concealed her true identity. All that begins to change when her fame draws the curiosity of Thea, one of the most powerful of the Odish witches, the opposing clan to her Omar heritage. Their rivalry stirs up the hatred against witchcraft and women that has been simmering beneath the surface among the inhabitants on the small Greek island where Demetor lives, destroying her childhood and forcing her to confront the realities of an age-old prophecy. The novel also tackles relevant themes of misogyny, jealousy, betrayal and the complex relationships between women. 

While readable as a standalone novel, this book also forms the prequel to one of the best-selling YA trilogies ever written in Catalan – The War of the Witches – which has sold over a million copies, with 29 translations in 27 territories. Celebrating 20 years since publication of the original trilogy and a TV series on national TV in the pipeline, The Silver Wolf tells how it all began. 

Author bio: Maite Carranza holds a degree in Anthropology and after a period of teaching, she has devoted her career to writing. She has published more than 60 books and has been recognised with literary awards and recognitions at home and abroad, including the Critics Prize Serra d’Or, the White Ravens, Protagonista Jove, Banco del Libro Caracas, as well as the Spanish National Award in 2011. In 2014, she also received the Cervantes Chico Award, celebrating her career in children’s and young adult literature. Her works for young people have been translated into over 30 languages, making her probably the most translated Spanish children’s author alive. http://www.matiecarranza.com

Sweden

Yani 

Translation Funding: Swedish Arts Council

Review: Amir, one of narrator Rayan’s best friends, receives a message from the Swedish immigration authority informing him that he will be deported to Iraq. Rayan, their other friends and their youth club leader decide that they will oppose Amir’s deportation. However, Yani is a book set in the real world and in the end the friends are unable to change the immigration authority’s decision. Yani is told in the language and slang of young people living in Stockholm with immigration backgrounds. At the age of 15 and 16, they are preparing to leave school and move on to either practical education or preparation for university. An air of uncertainty hangs over the group that is not entirely due to Amir’s imminent deportation. There is a very touching moment when the class decides that the money they raised for their end-of-school trip should be used to go to an amusement park in Stockholm because that is where Amir wants to go and he wouldn’t be able to join them abroad.

Yani touches upon other important social topics, such as racism, violence and society’s approach to ending it, friendship, belonging, feminism, grief and sense of community. As in life, these serious matters are interspersed with lighter moments, such as when the friends struggle to buy a vegan birthday cake for their teacher. Their everyday life, their joys and their hardships in a Stockholm suburb, where most families have an immigration background, is sensitively captured, making Yani a must-read in modern YA literature.

Author bio: Nora Khalil, born in 1997, is a teacher and poet. Yani is her debut novel, and she has also written a sequel, Abow, that follows the youngsters from Yani. She has received the Tensta Konsthalls Prize for her writing. Yani was nominated for the 2023 August Prize in the childrens and YA category and it won the Hjärtans fröjd-priset for Sweden’s best YA book in 2022

Ukraine

Horses and My Uncle’s Portrait

Translation Funding: Translate Ukraine 2024

Review: The protagonist of Horses and My Uncle’s Portrait, a Ukrainian teenager Platon Goryn, won the national competition in French and was awarded a two-week trip to France. Together with Maryse, a girl from his Parisian host family, Platon ‘meets’ some world-famous artists hailing from Ukraine. They explore a wide range of art styles: avant-garde, cubism, and many more. Wandering along the streets and museums of Paris, they discover the art of Davyd Burliuk, founding father of futurism, Alexandra Exter, avant-garde artist and fixture of Parisian salons, Sonia Delaunay, one of the primary propagators of Orphism and early abstraction, and others. But not just that. The two heroes of this artfully designed book are also on a mission to uncover the mystery of an art diary of one Ukrainian who knew the above legendary artists in person. 

Vividly illustrated and written in a fascinating, detail-rich yet accessible manner, this book is a real gem showing that Ukrainian art has long been part of the wider European art landscape, and Ukraine was home to some of the world’s finest artists. It is one of the few in its niche and contributes to intercultural understanding, expanding the horizons of its young readers and introducing them to the lesser-explored culture. The readers will have an opportunity to learn more about Ukrainian art and artists and their tight connections with the European art scene. I am sure that it will be an eye-opener for many and a gift for young art lovers (and their parents).

Author bio: Valentyna Kyrylova is a Ukrainian writer, publisher, member of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, and former director of Osnovy Publishing House. She is the founder and general manager of “NOMINA. Ukraine. Pages from a Family Album” (2017), a project about Ukrainians who made a name for themselves in world culture. Valentyna Kyrylova has participated in numerous artistic and publishing projects and is particularly interested in modern artists hailing from Ukraine.