PBBY Honors the Palestinian Winners in IBBY International Honor List
IBBY/ Palestine held, on the seventeenth of October, a celebration to honor the distinguished winners of the International Honor List for the two periods 2014-2016 and 2016-2018 in an atmosphere of intimacy and pride:
The successful meeting was led by Mary Fasheh vice president of PBBY. She started with welcoming words, and then spoke briefly of the beginnings of the Palestine Branch and the difficulty to obtain full membership because of the refusal of Palestine’s existence and then how Jehan established PBBY in the International Organization. She also spoke of PBBY’s achievements in the Gaza Strip during the past ten years, the monthly meetings with writers and illustrators in Ramallah, recent activities in Jerusalem, in addition to the activities with mother IBBY, in attending IBBY Congresses, and nominating persons/ institutes for IBBY’s awards such as the Honor’s List, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award and others.
PBBY started to nominate books for the Honor’s List since 2004 in the three categories of writers, illustrators and translators.
The distinguished winners for the two periods are:
Zakariah Muhammad and Mahmoud Shukeir (writers))
Buthayna abu Bandura and Sameh Abbushi (illustrators)
Wassim el Kurdi and the team of the Tamer Institute (translators)
The publishers of these distinguished books were also honored and they are: Tamer institute for Community Education, Dar Al Aswar and the Qattan Foundation for Research and Educational Development.
Zakariah Mohammad apologized for not attending. He won for the book “Amira” and Buthaina Abu Bandura for the book “Nura’s cat”. She did not attend because of her living in Jordan.
Youssef el Shayeb presented a textual reading of Mahmoud Shukair’s book “I, my Friend, and the Donkey” and his analysis was interesting.
Sameh Abbushi spoke of his love for drawing and how he learned it in the courses he took, and how he used the story of “Wonder Box” from Jabra Ibrahim Jabra’s book “The First Well” to implement his illustrations.
Mahmoud Shukair spoke of his story by depending on a true story but included imagination and adventure using the narrative style. He included the humor element and the national cause.
Haneen el Khairi spoke of “A Small Kiss on Your Cheek”. It is a collection of writings and drawings in solidarity from writers and artists from around the world prepared after the aggression on Gaza 2014. It speaks of sadness and hope and how the stories and drawings form a kiss on the cheeks of children of Palestine and all the children of the world.
Wassim el Kurdi spoke of his experience in translating the book “How the Frog Went to Heaven”.
Hanan Hijazi spoke of the story Nura’s Cat published by Dar al Aswar- Akka
In the end the prizes and certificates were distributed.
The Administrative Committee of PBBY has formed, in mid 2017, a Nominating Committee, comprising Dr. Sharif Kanaana, Leila Yumna, plus three members of the Administrative Committee Arham Damen, Mary Fasheh and Jehan Helou, to choose winners. The committee members read tens of children’s books which were published in Palestine during the two previous years. They discussed them during two lengthy meetings in two days.
PBBY was happy to receive a short message from the great writer Mahmoud Shukair in appreciation of our efforts which are based on voluntary work and our faith in the power of books and creativity in our struggle for liberation.
