Chinese Picture Book Awards

Well, first things first. Part of the cause of my most recent hiatus is that Carol had our second child last Friday, September 11. Her name is Isabel Vivian Astle and she weighed 6 lbs. 4.4 oz., 19 in. That was on top of an end-of-summer family trip to Coney Island and the circus on Monday and Loretta starting Kindergarten on Wednesday, so all in all it's been a busy week. Tomorrow I get to join the PTA!

So in the interest of passing along some interesting information without having to write anything myself, here are two interesting articles I got a while back from the SCBWI about a new set of awards for children's books in China. Presented in conjunction with the Hong Kong Book Fair last month, the Fengzikai Children's Book Awards (named for a great Chinese illustrator) will hopefully help improve the quality of children's book authorship and illustration in the People's Republic and bring recognition, including in the West, for those who create them. Here is the official press release with all the winners and here's an article from the English-language Taiwan News.