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The Klaus Flugge Prize 2020

Posted By Jacob Hope, 15 September 2020

We are honoured to invited Julia Eccleshare, critic and chair of the Klaus Flugge Prize to the blog to explain why this new award for picture book illustrators is so important.

 

Five years on and the Klaus Flugge Prize (KFP) is celebrating the most promising and exciting new-comer in children’s illustration. Although this year’s event is different and the judges had to argue gently across zoom rather than in the flesh, the end result has all the excitement of previous years as the winner of the 2020 KFP joins a roster of previous winners: the once newcomers who are now stars of the picture book scene. Watching anything grow is always a delight but watching the KFP grow has been a particular pleasure because it is a gentle snowball in a noisy world.

 

Illustration for children rarely gets the attention it deserves and, when it does, too often that attention focuses on the best of the classic illustrators. While the iconic images from the past provide the bedrock of the great illustration traditions in the UK, it is equally important to make sure that illustrators who reflect the world as we see it today are discovered, fostered and above all promoted. It is because it does that, because it is there at the beginning of a new creative career, that the KFP is so special. In shining a spotlight on a new talent, the KFP celebrates the important principle that every generation needs new illustrators to create images that imagine, reflect and re-imagine how we see the world today. While shaping visual tastes through experimental ways of portraying the everyday, these images will also give even the youngest children their earliest exposure to ways of seeing the real world beyond their own experience as well as entering richly imagined fantasy world.

 

Changing visual tastes is a subtle and often slow process particularly when it is around the way we show childhood. It raises questions about how we think of childhood and what we want to teach children about it. And it asks questions about how visually sophisticated children are. The best picture books are a perfect marriage between text and pictures but do readers value them for their beautiful images or their vibrant story line? Almost all books for children contain a certain amount of ‘information’ or moral messaging but how much can be included in a picture book? That’s to say, can picture books show children some of the more challenging aspects of life and if so, how can that be best dressed up? All of this and more is at the heart of all the picture books submitted annually for the KFP. Considering them collectively shows just what an open-minded concept a picture book is and how many different ways there are of telling stories in words and pictures. It also shows us why all readers, not just the pre-reading children for whom there are primarily intended, love picture books and what a lot we can all deduce from them.

 

It is the desire to share that knowledge that underpins everything about the KFP. Just as it does all the work of Klaus Flugge, whose long and distinguished career is honoured by this prize which he funds. In 1976 he founded Andersen Press, the ground-breaking picture book list which promoted the early work of many of today's most distinguished illustrators including Chris Riddell, Tony Ross, and David McKee from the UK and also brought illustrators from around the world including Leo Lionni, Dan Santat, Uri Shulevitz and  Max Velthuijs to UK readers. Since then, and still now, Flugge’s belief that children deserve the best and his enthusiasm for getting it to them is perfectly matched by his keen eye for the most interesting ways of telling stories in words and pictures. Impelled by humanity, inspired by the search for innovation and tempered by commercial forces, Flugge’s Andersen Press and the KFP combine to bring us the substantial legacy which we treasure and celebrate.

 

The winner of the 2020 Klaus Flugge Prize will be announced at 6.30pm on Wednesday 16 September.

 

Thank you to Julia Eccleshare for the guest blog and to the Klaus Flugge Prize team for the opportunity.

 

 

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Tags:  Illustration  Prizes  Reading  Reading for Pleasure 

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