The Neev Literature Festival (NLF) recently announced the shortlist for the first annual “NEEV Children’s Book Awards” (NCBA) to recognise outstanding writing for children. NCBA aims to recognise, grow and create visibility for children’s literature that records stories of the changing India, her evolving voice, her changing characters, and issues that her children relate to, and her place, space and time.

NCBA has three categories – best picture book, best young readers book and best young adult book. Award nominations were open to all publishers for children’s titles either published in India or written by an author of Indian origin. Eligible books should have been published in the previous calendar year, but the first awards, in this launch year were open for books published in the previous five years (2013-2017). The three award winners will be announced during the second edition of NLF to be hosted in Bangalore on September 27-29, 2018. They will receive a cash prize of Rs 1 lac each along with a citation. The books shortlisted in each of the three categories for this year’s award are:

Picture Books

–       Rajiv Eipe, Ammachi’s Amazing Machines (Pratham Books, 2017)

–       Rinchin, I will save my land (Tulika, 2017)

–       Tharini Viswanath, Catch That Cat! (Tulika, 2013)

–       Anuradha Sengupta, Janice Goes to Chinatown (Pratham Books, 2017)

–       Mahasweta Devi, Our Incredible Cow (Tulika, 2013)

–       Sowmya Rajendran, Bhimrao Ambedkar: The Boy Who Asked Why (Tulika, 2013)

Young Readers Books

–       Mitali Perkins, Tiger Boy (Duckbill, 2015)

–       Shals Mahajan, Timmi In Tangles (Duckbill, 2013)

–       Venita Coelho, Dead as DODO (Hachette, 2015)

–       Venita Coelho, Tiger by the Tail (Hachette, 2013)

–       Lalita Iyer, The Boy Who Swallowed a Nail and Other Stories (Scholastic, 2016

–       Various authors, Flipped: Scary Stories and Funny Stories (Harper Collins, 2017)

–       Ranjit Lal, The Little Ninja Sparrows (Speaking Tiger, 2017)

–       Ruskin Bond, The Tree Lover (Penguin, 2017)

Young Adult Books

–       Devika Rangachari, Queen of Ice (Duckbill, 2014)

–       Shabnam Minwalla, What Maya Saw (Harper Collins, 2017)

–       Paro Anand, Like Smoke: A Collection (Penguin, 2015)

–       Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, Rasha: Little Girl, Big Heart (Penguin, 2016)

–       Paro Anand, 2 (Scholastic, 2017)

–       Venita Coelho, Boy No. 32 (Scholastic, 2017)

–       Sampurna Chattarji, Ela (Scholastic, 2013)

–       Zuni Chopra, The House that Spoke (Penguin, 2017)

The prize winners in each category are being decided by an International jury consisting of three educators (Colin Kelman, Dr. Anuradha Ruhil, Dhooleka Raj), three writers (Rasil Ahuja, Gita Vardarajan, Maya Thiagarajan) and three librarians (Jeremy Wilette, Katie Day, Nadine Bailey). The three winners of Neev Book Award 2018 will be announced on September 27, 2018 at NLF 2.0 which will be attended by over 60 authors from India (Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Raipur, Bhopal, and Mangalore) and abroad (UK, USA and Australia).

The Neev Literature Festival (NLF) aims to recognise great children’s literature, grow readers for life, and inspire reading for pleasure, knowledge and mastery. To learn more, visit www.neevliteraturefestival.org.