supported by the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine
The IBBY Honour List is a biennial selection of outstanding, recently published children’s books, honouring writers, illustrators and translators from IBBY member countries.
The titles are selected by the National Sections of IBBY, who are invited to nominate books characteristic of their country and suitable to recommend for publication in different languages.
The Honour List has become one of the most important activities of IBBY. For many National Sections the selection process presents a welcome opportunity to study and review new children’s books in their country. Moreover, it offers a unique opportunity to the member countries, especially those with less well-known languages, to present their best books to an international audience. An IBBY Honour List has been published every two years since 1956 and the first Honour List was a selection of 15 entries from 12 countries. Originally it was called ‘The Hans Christian Andersen Honour List’, because the same jury that selected the recipients of the Hans Christian Andersen Awards identified the books selected for the Honour List. Until 1974 there was one general category for an Honour Book, i.e. ‘a good book’. That year the category for Illustration was added, soon followed by Translation in 1978. Thus, the base was widened for the National Sections who now took on the role of the selection jury. Although it was not until 1980 that the name IBBY Honour List was first used and the annotated catalogue that we see today was published.
The 2018 Honour List comprises 191 nominations in 50 different languages from 61 countries. Selected for the 2018 list are 73 entries in the category of Writing; 59 in the category Illustration; and 59 in the category Translation. The 2018 IBBY Honour List includes the highest number of entries to date – this indicates an enduring and increasing interest in the IBBY Honour List.