From: Kathy Isaacs <kisaacs>
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 20:06:15 -0500

The Batchelder Committee can and does consider picture books, within the limitations of its guidelines. I quote from the manual:

"Primary attention must be directed to the text. Picture books should be considered only if the text is substantial and at least as important as the pictures."

Another piece of the guidelines is also relevant:

"The book should not be unduly 'Americanized.' The book's reader should be able to sense that the book came from another country."

It was my experience in reading for the Batchelder this year, that many publishers had chosen to translate precisely those picture books in which there was little or no clue in the illustrations that the book originated in another country. While this is understandable for commercial reasons, it is not the intent of the award which was established in 1966 "in the belief [I quote from the manual again] that 'interchange of children's books between countries, through translation, influences communication between the peoples of those countries...'."

"Bowen, Brenda" wrote:


-Kathy Isaacs kisaacs at mindspring.com
Received on Wed 23 Jan 2002 07:06:15 PM CST