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Andersen Press launches illustrator award
Andersen Press is marking its 40th birthday by launching a picture book prize for début illustrators.
The £5,000 Klaus Flugge Prize will be an annual award for picture books created by a first-time illustrator and published in the UK. Andersen will be eligible to enter titles for the award because it will be administered by Guardian children’s editor Julia Eccleshare, Authors Aloud co-founder Anne Marley and Oxford Literary Festival programmer Andrea Reece, who run the Branford Boase Award, which annually recognises children’s or YA novels by a first-time author.
Mark Hendle, m.d. of Andersen Press, said [Andersen Press founder] Flugge’s ability to discover new talent was “legendary” so it was “wonderful and fitting” to launch a prize that celebrates new talent.
Submissions for the prize will open in February, when a panel of judges will also be announced. The shortlist will be revealed in April and the winner in September—the month in which Flugge launched Andersen Press back in 1976.
Other 40th anniversary plans include the launch of Elmer Day, an annual celebration of David McKee’s patchwork elephant Elmer. The event will launch at the Hay Festival on 28th May but Andersen is also creating party packs for bookshops and libraries that wish to join in the celebrations. Around 200 venues have already signed up for a free pack of stickers, posters and activity sheets, according to the publisher.
In terms of publishing, Andersen is re-releasing several of its classic books, including a new edition of its first ever picture book, Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Tony Ross (September, hardback, £12.99), and several David McKee classics: Two
Can Toucan (September, hardback, £12.99) and a collection of four King Rollo adventures (September, hardback slipcase, £12.99).
SuperGran by Forrest Wilson is also being reissued, with a new cover created by McKee (September, paperback, £6.99), who designed the original jacket for publisher Puffin in 1980.
Finally, Andersen will publish a 20th anniversary edition of Melvin Burgess’ Junk, with extra content about its controversial history - including letters from the 1990s calling for it to be banned - in June (paperback, £7.99).
