Astrid Lindgren Prize Awarded in Stockholm
This story originally appeared in Children's Bookshelf on June 7, 2007 Sign up now!
by Julia Eccleshare, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 6/7/2007
On May 30 at a prize ceremony in Stockholm, HRH Crown Princess Victoria presented the 2007 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award to Banco del Libro of Caracas, Venezuela.
Accepting the award, which is worth SEK 5 million ($700,000), for the Banco del Libro, managing director María Beatriz Medina said, "When we heard we'd won we laughed, we danced and we cried. We are proud to be linked with an author whose work changed how we look at children and childhood. This is a prize with a soul. It will challenge us to find new ways of bringing books to children in a country where so many are denied that basic opportunity."
HRH Crown Princess Victoria gives Carmen Diana Dearden and Maria
Beatriz Medina from Banco del Libro the prize. Photo: Lars-Erik Örthlund.
Now an extensive reading promotion organization, Banco del Libro was founded in 1958 by a group of volunteering women who were determined to raise standards of education. Initially, it was set up as an exchange system for used textbooks as a way of supporting those who lacked sufficient educational resources: hence the name, which means Book Bank. Banco del Libro soon took on a much bigger role with an ambitious objective: "to support the reconstruction of the country's educational system, to improve the standard of teaching materials and to promote reading among children and young people."
To achieve this it has developed numerous projects, including the setting up of model libraries in remote communities with books being delivered by any means possible including by mule and by boat; the start-up of a school library network; the foundation of a publishing company, Ediciones Ekaré, now an independent business, in an effort to improve the available supply of good quality fiction; and the foundation of a research center that underpins the development and dissemination of children's literature across South America.
Most recently, Banco del Libro developed a "read to live" program in response to the needs of thousands of children who were orphaned following devastating floods in Vargas in 1999. The success of the book-based program in helping individuals and communities come to terms with the chaos caused by a natural catastrophe has led to it being replicated in other countries including, most recently, in Thailand following the tsunami in 2004.
The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, founded in 2002, is funded by the Swedish government with the intention of increasing interest in children's and young people's literature and promoting children's rights to culture on a global level. It may be awarded to authors, illustrators, storytellers or promoters of reading whose work reflects the spirit of Astrid Lindgren. Previous winners have included Christina Nöstlinger, Philip Pullman and Katherine Paterson, who won the 2006 Award.
