Room To Read
Writer Phung Nguyen Quang and illustrator Huynh Kim Lien won the Scholastic Picture Book Award 2015 with their “The First Journey” book. They were picked out of a contestant pool of 135 authors across the globe.The award-winning picture book tells the story of a boy named An, who has his first trip to the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam during flood season.
Shown is a portion of the $20,000 Exxon Mobil grant for the Vietnamese
children’s book collection at the Thomas Jefferson Library. In Vietnam, two
young Vietnamese authors took home the top prize for the Scholastic Picture
Book Award 2015. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Quang, a 26-year-old writer, and Lien, 23, has participated as an illustrator in the Children’s Books Publishing Program by Room to Read, a non-profit organization for improving literacy and gender equality in education in the developing world, in Vietnam.
According to Room to Read, the two authors have collaborated with the organization since 2012 to create children’s books in the Vietnamese language.
The Scholastic Picture Book Award seeks to foster the creation of picture books with Asian content by Asian writers and illustrators, to promote public awareness and interest in picture books with Asian content, as well as to recognize and award a prize to an excellent picture book with Asian content.
Other winners of this year’s awards include 1st runner-up “Pandu, The Ogoh-Ogoh Maker” by Indonesian writer Ary Nilandari and illustrator Dewi Tri K., and 2nd runner-up “Purchased Dream” by Mongolian writer Ganbaatar Ichinnorov and illustrator Bolormaa Baasansuren.
To read more, click here: https://medium.com/@RoomtoRead/for-international-literacy-day-meet-two-young-vietnamese-authors-who-created-an-award-winning-cee5bcebcafa