From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Fri, 04 Dec 1998 18:19:12 -0600

This afternoon we discussed six translated books of substantial length published in new English translations in the U.S. for children and teenagers during 1998. Such books are always few in number in any given year.

Any publisher who makes a commitment to publishing a children's or young adult book in translation deserves the attention of the book community to that book and its potential. For that reason, the actual Mildred Batchelder Award to be announced by ALA/ALSC on Feb. 1, 1999, will be given to the publisher of the most notable translated book of the year.

Our two top choices were very close to each other in terms of balloting points. Each is excellent for its own reasons.They are completely different from each other in every respect.

CCBC Batchelder Discussion Winner: Thanks to My Mother written by Schoschana Rabinovici and translated from the German by James Skofield. (U.S. edition: Dial, 1998) 246 pages (ages 12)

(an outstanding Holocaust autobiography written from the author's childhood perspective, filled with vivid details and amazing incidents involving a Lithuanian woman who saves her daughter's life many times over; later this same girl also saves her mother's life)

CCBC Batchelder Discussion Honor Book: Secret Letters from 0 to 10 written by Susie Morgenstern and translated from the French by Gill Rosner (U.S. edition: Viking, 1998) 137 pages
(ages 9)

(an unusual, funny, joyful, moving novel with extremely memorable characters and carefully developed plot)
******************************************************** Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Fri 04 Dec 1998 06:19:12 PM CST