Five authors and five illustrators have been selected from 57 candidates submitted by 32 national sections of IBBY for the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award. The award, considered the most prestigious in international children’s literature, is given biennially by the International Board on Books for Young People to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made lasting contributions to children’s literature. The winners will be announced on Monday, March 19^th at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. The five short-listed authors in alphabetical order are:

• María Teresa Andruetto from Argentina is a master of creating sensitive books, which are deep and poetic and relate to a great variety of topics.
• Paul Fleischman from the USA makes an innovative and unique contribution to the literature for children. The jury especially appreciated his ability to create characters and to integrate music in his work.
• Bart Moeyaert from Belgium presents subtle depictions of strong characters by evoking poetical atmospheres using a language that combines both humour and seriousness.
• Jean-Claude Mourlevat from France writes for children and teenagers on many different levels, from poetic prose to fantasy or to realism; music is a constant source of inspiration for him.
• Bianca Pitzorno from Italy uses imaginative and diverse texts to share complicity with her readers, using humour and a skilful construction of characters.

The five short-listed illustrators in alphabetical order are:

• Mohammad Ali Beniasadi from Iran uses different techniques, colour and a subtle sense of humour in his work.
• John Burningham from the UK uses delicate irony mixed with innocence and high seriousness that with his use of line and colour, creates an intimacy with the reader.
• Roger Mello from Brazil tells the reader about popular culture, old legends and the traditions of Brazil by his skilful use of expressing emotions by using brilliant colours and images that are full of meaning.
• Peter Sís from the Czech Republic has an extraordinary originality and uses his powerful imagination to create complex and well-documented stories using different design and artistic techniques.
• Javier Zabala from Spain has the great ability to transform graphical language into narrative signs through complex, intuitive and detailed representations.
• A full list of candidates can be found at www.ibby.org.The ten members of the 2012 Jury were led by Jury President María Jesús Gil from Spain. They are: Anastasia Arkhipova (Russia), Françoise Ballenger (France), Ernest Bond (USA), Sabine Fuchs (Austria), Ayfer Gürdal Ünal (Turkey), Jan Hansson (Sweden), Eva Kaliskami (Greece), Nora Lía Sormani (Argentina), Sahar Tarhandeh (Iran) and Regina Zilberman (Brazil). Elda Nogueira from Brazil represented IBBY and Liz Page acted as Jury Secretary.