We are pleased to welcome Jake Hope to the blog to talk about this year's shortlist for the Klaus Flugge Prize.  Jake was a judge on this year's award and is the author of Seeing Sense: Visual Literacy as a Tool for Libraries, Learning and Reader Development.

Illustrations in picture books can help to shape our early understanding of who we are, of the world that surrounds us and of the ways we feel.  Since its inception, the Klaus Flugge Prize has showcased some of the vibrant innovation and technique that new artists are bringing to the form.  This year’s shortlist has been no exception and the books brilliantly shine a light upon the different roles illustration can play.

Like many of the best picture books, Kate Read’s One Fox works on many levels.  It helps provide a foundation for learning with its humour, drama and visual rhythm. It’s a vibrant counting story about a sleek sly fox who has three plump hens on his mind, but there’s a pleasing twist in the tale.  The lively combination of print and collage lends a real textured quality to the art.

Emotions and feelings can be complicated and hard to verbalise in early childhood.  Seeing and feeling the effect of these can thus be an incredibly powerful experience.  This is certainly the case in Eva Eland’s When Sadness Comes to Call.  It is a masterpiece of minimalism that shows real understanding of the format of the book, there’s great control in the use of a limited palette and in the fluidity of the line but each is saturated with depth of emotion.

Childhood can be a time of great adventure, of discovery and wonder.  This is captured brilliantly in Helen Kellock’s The Star in the Forest.  The interplay between light and darkness creates real impact and achieves an intimate dialogue between ‘reader’ and ‘book’.  Readers are taken on a journey into the heart of the forest and are reminded of the boundless quality of imagination!

There is something joyous about close looking, the act and art of uncovering new details finding new dimensions to stories.  This playful quality abounds in Puck Koper’s energetic Where is your Sister?  With a three tone palette, inventive use of patterns and incredible style this is a book full of laugh-out-loud moments and games!

Illustration can also help to relay detailed and complex information and ideas, helping to make this more relatable and easier to understand.  This is certainly true of Sabina Radeva’s On the Origin of Species which relays the enduring nature and the scope of Darwin’s remarkable impact on science and the natural world.  Composition and design is employed to great effect in this stylish and wide-reaching book.

The winner of this year’s Klaus Flugge Prize will be announced tonight (16 September), at 6.00pm, but with such a cornucopia of imagination, experimentation and innovation, the real winners are readers whose worlds are enriched and enhanced by such outstanding illustrated books.  Congratulations to each of the shortlisted illustrators and the publishing teams behind these incredible books.

Thanks to Jake for the blog.