Wednesday, March 31, 2010

National Children's Book Awards:Philippines

by Neni Sta. Romana Cruz
Neni Sta. Romana Cruz (nenisrc@gmail.com) is a member of the Philippine Board on Books for Young People, the Foundation for Worldwide People Power, and a trustee of the Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation.
Ms. Cruz has graciously given her permission to re-post her article in this blog. It was originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 27, 2010.
AT LAST YEAR'S NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS (NBA), the children's literature industry stakeholders were disturbed that the usual category for children's literature was not even in the line-up of contenders anymore, as it had been for many years before.
This was especially disappointing as the yearly output of publishers has been steadily increasing, encouraged by the growing public awareness of noteworthy Philippine titles for children and certainly boosted by the popular storytelling and read-aloud sessions by institutions like the Inquirer.

I am the first to admit that more titles do not always correspond to better quality; and I was awaiting the perfectly legitimate and acceptable-and yes, perhaps justified-reason from the Manila Critics Circle: that unfortunately, there was no book that met the standards of literary excellence for 2008. And what a helpful, though damning, statement that would have been for the genre.

No official reason was ever given or received. But moving from the endless conjecturing and the perils of sounding like sour grapes, could the category simply have been overlooked? That does not sound like the handiwork of a Manila Critics Circle-National Book Development Board (NBDB) collaboration.
Was it because for the first time, the NBA carried with it a cash prize aside from the coveted trophy by the year's invited artist? Was the children's literature category combined with or, horrors, subsumed by another?

The Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY) led by chair Zarah Gagatiga and secretary-general Ani Almario, Emily Abrera, RayVi Sunico and Karina Bolasco, sat down with NBDB executive director and booklover Andrea Pasion Flores to discuss where the industry could go from there.

And in typical Andrea fashion (pun unintended), a long held elusive dream of the multi-sectoral PBBY became a reality: the creation of the National Children's Book Award (NCBA), an NBDB-PBBY endeavor which will name not just one top book or the usual tiered roster of winners, but a "Best Reads List" of a maximum of 10 titles year after year.
Books selected for the year, after this initial 2010 competition, will be titles published in the preceding calendar year. The final selection will not be ranked. The board of judges is not compelled to name any minimum number of recommended reading titles should it not find any nominee deserving of inclusion.

NCBA captures much of PBBY's reason for being-to bring children and books together. What is essential to the organization is not only to encourage the writing, illustrating and publishing of quality children's books but also to make these known to parents and teachers, and the young readers who are the intended primary audience.
Finally, this looks like the beginning of the compilation of reading lists, requests for which we are endlessly besieged with.

This should also be the distinct recognition that the talents behind the production of an excellent book will finally be credited with.
The 1st NCBA has just officially begun, barely after the ink has dried on memorandums of agreement. This year's contest rules are condensed below:

1. Anybody, whether publisher, author or illustrator may nominate a children's/young people's book, fiction or nonfiction, for ages 0 to 19 published in the years 2008 and 2009. Not under consideration as yet are electronic books or textbooks.

2. The nominating party must be registered with the NBDB as publisher, author or illustrator.

3. The book must be authored by a Filipino citizen and may be written in English or Filipino. Books in other Filipino languages may be accepted, as specified in contest rules over the years.

4. The book must have been released to the public in the eligible years specified with proof of any of the following: delivery to a bookstore or a jobber; donation to a school or library; distributed to bookstores or entities that sell the book, including online distribution; produced or printed by an entity in quantities consistent with the act of publication.

5. Nomination forms have to be submitted for each title, along with seven copies of the book for the five-member board of judges.

Deadline for submission of all entries is April 15, 2010.

Nomination forms may be downloaded from the NBDB (www.nbdb.gov.ph) and the PBBY (www.pbby.org.ph) websites.
All submissions must be accompanied by a letter of nomination addressed to:

The Executive Director
National Book Development Board
2/F National Printing Office Bldg.
Edsa cor. NIA Northside Road
Bgy. Pinyahan, Quezon City
Subject: The National Children's Book Awards

Each selected title will be awarded a trophy. A citation from the board of judges for each book will be read during the awards ceremony.

The special logo for the NCBA was created by talented illustrator and former PBBY chair Totet de Jesus.
May the Best Reads List for 2010 --to be announced in July at a special awards program --open up young minds to worlds (and yes, words, too) beyond their ken and nurture discriminating, critical readers. We owe our youth that.

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