At the third annual celebration of the ‘Flying Turtle Awards’, three golden and three silver prizes were awarded to the winners, who included both Iranian and foreign authors, and two veteran artists were honored with special prizes.
The event held at Tehran’s Central Book City was attended by a number of authors, translators, and illustrators of children’s books, as well as children and their families, Mehr news agency reported.
“This is an exceptional celebration in terms of being held in a bookshop rather than a conference hall,” said Mozhgan Amjad, the bookshop director, adding that the aim is to provide an opportunity for children and young adults to become familiar with book providers.
Award Winners
In the section ‘The Memory’, Farideh Farjam, was acknowledged for her ‘The Uninvited Guests’, a fascinating book for children of several generations and likewise, regarded as an inspiration for many stories.
Two special prizes were conferred on Ali-Akbar Sadeghi, painter and illustrator, and author Naser Irani to honor their long-term contribution to children’s literature.
Their innovative and modern approach to traditional prose earned Mehdi Fatehi and Hamed Habibi the joint silver prize for the book series titled ‘The Thousand and Second Night’.
Annette Langen, a German author of children’s and young adults’ literature, also won the silver prize for her best-selling picture book series titled ‘Felix’. Its translation by Mahboubeh Najaf-Khani also saw her bagging silver.
New Method
Introducing a new method for Persian language teaching won Mohammad-Hadi Mohammadi the golden prize award. Mohammadi was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2006 -the most prestigious award in international children’s literature.
Another golden prize went to David Almond, a British author of children’s novels, for his narration of an emotional and inspirational story by combining art and illustration in a book titled ‘Slog’s Dad’. “The award is a proof of the international language of tales linking people across the world,” Almond said via a video message and thanked the jury for the award.
The book was translated to Persian by Nasrin Vakili, the winner of a golden prize for her competency in translation.
‘Flying Turtle’ is a list of children and young adults’ books provided seasonally in a collaboration between the Book City Institution and the Professional Journal in children and young adults’ literature (both founded in 1995).
Books are reviewed seasonally and ranked based on their content by 12 judges. At the end of each Iranian year (ends March 20), according to their aggregate scores, the best books are awarded with silver or gold prizes.
