In 2025, International Children's Book Day (ICBD) is sponsored by IBBY-Netherlands and the poster is made by two Dutch creators of children’s books. The theme of the 2025 International Children's Book Day is The freedom of imagination, and the motto is the last sentence of the poem ‘The Language of Pictures’:
‘Make pictures for my poem, and please feel free: these words belong to you even though they came from me.’
The poem comes from the illustrated poetry collection Alle wensen van de wereld (2021) by Rian Visser and illustrator Janneke Ipenburg. This book was awarded a Zilveren Griffel in the Netherlands and the Gouden Poëziemedaille (Gold Poetry Medal) in Belgium.
I know very little about Dutch Children's Literature and this poem and illustration made me feel guilty that I didn't know more. Of course I know about Dick Bruna and Miffy is still popular in my Early Childhood Library. Miffy books are on display in the library at the moment along with other famous 'rabbits' in children's books eg Max and Ruby (Rosemary Wells), Simon (Stephanie Blake), Davy (Brigitte Weninger), Hopper (Marcus Pfister) and Betty Bunny (Michael Kaplan).
The other author Dutch author illustrator I know and admire is Max Velthuijs. His series of books about Frog will make you smile.
Other than those two, the library has very few other Dutch children's book makers... at least one book by each of these:
• Jan Jutte
• Wouter van Reek has a series of books about Coppernickel
• Annemarie van Haeringen
• Sarah van Dongen
• Mies van Hout
• The Tjong-Khing is an Indonesian-born children’s book illustrator based in the Netherlands who has won Dutch picture book prizes several times.
Time to do some more research and find some more!
Meanwhile I have written more comprehensively about Children's Book Day here and Momotimetoread has here.
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