HBP 2019: Train of Fish, Ulrike Jänichen, Text: Yaroslava Black, Typography: Helmut Stabe, Proofreading: Anjuscha Gabain
Statements by the jury for the Hamburg Picture Book Award 2019
– The book is outstanding for its unpretentious seriousness.
-The work appears like a collection of thoughts.
It utilises a reduced, sometimes sketchy aesthetic, giving it a diary-like character, often with just a few strokes that paint a fragmentary and open-ended portrait of a homeland and its traditions – peppered with little anecdotes.
Despite the reduced use of colour, the book never seems gloomy, sad or directly moralising, but rather documentary.
This is one of the illustrator’s greatest achievements.
– A quiet, tender and at the same time very expressive and touching book.
– It is a picture book that tells a courageous and socially relevant topic in a visually unique way and invites discussion.
Alternating between vignettes and full-page pictures, the story develops tension and narrative power.
The pictorial means are combined to create an artistically highly sophisticated, successful whole.
– A story from our real world is told to children and adults in a poetic and stylistically credible way and transformed into a magical world of images.
The pictures leave room for your own imagination and for questions when reading and looking at this book together. Nothing is “told” through the pictures, but there are enough details to keep children asking questions: What is that? What does it mean?
Powerful imagery – realised with poetry and space for your own thoughts – great.
– I am delighted to have a very worthy first winner of the Hamburg Picture Book Prize.
Jury 2019
Dieter Böge (Verein Neues Bilderbuch, Chair), Nadja Budde (Illustrator), Hans ten Doornkaat (Critics), Dr. Dagmar Gaußmann (Childrens Book House Hamburg), Renate Herre (Carlsen Publishing House), Torben Kuhlmann (Illustrator), Dr. Franziska Walther (IO)
Following its publication by the HAMBURG PICTURE BOOK PRIZE, Ulrike Jänichen‘s book has received further awards:
“DIE BESTEN SIEBEN” – Deutschlandfunk
“LESEPETER” – Working Group Literature and Media (AJuM)
“LESELOTSE” – Börsenblatt
KIMI seal for variety and diversity in children’s and youth books