Shaun Tan awarded 2011 Astrid Lindgen Memorial Award!

Head this fabulous news yesterday but only getting to blog about it today. Shaun Tan has been awarded the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award! For those of you not in the know, it's like the Nobel for Children's Literature with a award of £490,000.

The jury said “Shaun Tan is a masterly visual storyteller, pointing the way ahead to new possibilities for picture books. His pictorial worlds constitute a separate universe where nothing is self-evident and anything is possible. Memories of childhood and adolescence are fixed reference points, but the pictorial narrative is universal and touches everyone, regardless of age”

Shaun had no idea that he has won. He was washing the dishes at home when he got the call from ALMA. He wasn't even going to answer the phone. Read more on Shauns Blog here, and on The Guardian here.

I was really lucky to meet Shaun when he was in Dublin for the Children's Books Conference you can read about when I met him here. Members of the IGI got to hang out and talk about illustration for a few hours.

Shaun's illustrations are so amazing. His dedication and the love he has put into his books are inspiring. I first came across his work when Marie Louise Fitzpatrick brought The Red Tree and The Lost Thing back from Australia.

Go have a look at Shaun on World News Australia this morning. Imagine how overwhelming it is. I am absolutely thrilled for him!!!!

The Lost Thing wins Oscar!

I am absolutely thrilled that Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing won an Oscar last night!!!!

I met Shaun Tan in Dublin when he was over with CBI a few years ago here. He was such a lovely guy, and he spent a couple of hours chatting with the IGI about books and illustration. I am so delighted for Shaun, it couldn't of happened to nicer person. He has been working on this animation for ten years!

Huzzah!!!!

The Arts Show.

Following on from yesterday Shaun Tan and David Almond were on The Arts Show last night. You can listen here. Click on latest show to bring you to the interview. 

Here is a very good interview with Shaun Tan from The Australian from last year. 

Book overload!

After a weekend at the CBI conference, the icing of the cake was a special invitation to morning coffee and cake with Shaun Tan! 

Lots of happy illustrators(see pic!) crowded into the CBI offices and Mags Walsh of Children's Books Ireland just left us to it. So great to just talk pictures and hang out. Shaun lives in Melbourne, Australia so had come a long way for the coffee!

I was just delighted to meet him. I am a huge fan since Marie-Lousie Fitzpatrick showed me Shaun's books  in 2002 when she came back from her trip to Australia. His work is truely amazing. I am in total awe!

Shaun Tan in Dublin

The amazing illustrator Shaun Tan will be in Dublin this weekend as part of The Children's Books Ireland Summer School.   

Scamp the IGI blog has an overview of Shaun Tan's work here.

Martin Salisbury, David Almond, Celine Kiernan, Patrick Ness and Eoin Colfer will also be there this weekend in the National Art Gallery. What an amazing line up!

Tales from Outer Suburbia

I just finished Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book last night. I have been reading it really slowly (which is unusual for me) as I didn't want it to end. When my husband was a little boy he spent the first few years of his life living in a little cottage beside a round tower in the grounds of a graveyard. His mum tells stories of his older sister playing around the gravestones, with her bucket and spade.
This illustration above is by Shaun Tan, if you haven't come across his work I urge you to visit his website. CBI are bringing Shaun Tan over for the Summer School this year which is brilliant, he is one of my favourite illustrators.