There are countless ways to engage with world kid lit: world literature for young readers. Whether you’re new to reading beyond your borders, or are a seasoned global reading explorer, prize lists can be a great way to find out about quality children’s and YA literature from around the world.
Prize-winning global children’s lit book list
Prizes for international literature for young people
ALA Batchelder Award
The Batchelder, administered by the ALA as part of the Youth Media Awards, has been awarded annually since 1968 to a US publisher of a book in translation, originally published outside of the United States.
Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was created in 2002 by the Swedish government to promote every child’s right to great stories. This global award is given annually to a person or organisation for their outstanding contribution to children’s and young adult literature.
GLLI Translated YA Book Prize
Awarded by the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative since 2019, this award is for YA fiction and non-fiction translated into English from any language.
- Shortlisted and winning books reviewed at GLLI (Global Literature in Libraries Initiative)
- GLLI Translated YA Book Prize: Resources and prize criteria
- Shortlisted and winning books featured here at World Kid Lit
IBBY Honour List
The IBBY Honour List is a biennial selection of outstanding, recently published books, honouring writers, illustrators and translators from 163 IBBY member countries.
IBBY Hans Christian Andersen Award
The Hans Christian Andersen Award is the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children’s books. Nominations for the Andersen Award are made by the national sections of IBBY.
Warwick Prize for Women in Translation
The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation is awarded annually to the best eligible work of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction, work of fiction for children or young adults, graphic novel, or play text, written by a woman, translated into English by a translator (or translators) of any gender, and published by a UK or Irish publisher.
In 2023, it was awarded to a graphic novel for the first time: Your Wish Is My Command – written, illustrated and translated by Deena Mohamed and published by Granta.
Yoto Carnegies
In 2023, two of the four Yoto Carnegie prizes went to translations – from Vietnamese and Welsh – a first!
Translation prizes: for translators to enter
Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize
This prize aims to encourage and support the next generation of literary translators and focuses on a different language each year running. Entry is open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 34, with entrants having no more than one full-length literary translation previously published. There is no restriction on country of residence. See the following links for details of the 2022 prize (translation from Indonesian), 2019 (French), 2017 (Korean), 2014 (German).
John Dryden Translation Competition
Prizes will be awarded for the best unpublished literary translations from any language into English. Literary translation includes poetry, prose, or drama from any period. Submissions usually during winter. Prizes will be awarded for the best unpublished literary translations from any language into English. Literary translation includes poetry, prose, or drama from any period. Submissions by translators usually during winter. See here for more details.
Stephen Spender Prize
The Stephen Spender Prize is the leading annual prize for poetry in translation, with categories for pupils, teachers and individual young people in the UK and Ireland, as well as an Open category for adults from all over the world. The rules are simple: translate into English any poem from any language – from French to Farsi, from Spanish to Somali – and win publication and cash prizes!
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