Winners of the Book Trust’s Best New Illustrators Award have been announced in the UK. According to the Trust’s website, the winners - Joe Berger, Claudia Boldt, Katie Cleminson, Chris Haughton, Alice Melvin, Sara Ogilvie, Levi Pinfold, Salvatore Rubbino, Viviane Schwarz and Kevin Waldron - “represent the best rising talent in the field of illustration today, who demonstrate remarkable creative flair, artistic skill and boundless imagination in their work”. An exhibition of the winning artists' work the Illustration Cupboard has just ended and will commence a tour of the UK.
In this narrated slideshow showcasing examples of the illustrators' work, award judge and children’s laureate Anthony Browne notes, “these illustrators recognise that the true picture book has a gap between the pictures and the words, a gap that’s filled by the imagination of the reader.”
Last year in Australia, two illustrators - Andy Geppert for Little big tree and Andrew Joyner for The terrible plop - shared the Crichton Award for Children’s Book Illustration. Here’s a link to the Illustrators Australia award winners for 2011, and here’s another to the Australia and New Zealand chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
The Wheeler Centre and the State Library of Victoria will host the Children’s Book Festival this Sunday, 3 April. Featured illustrators include Roland Harvey, Judy Horacek, Anne Spudvilas, Elise Hurst and many more.