Herrick’s YA novel ‘By the River’ wins German Youth Literature Prize

NSW-based author Steven Herrick’s YA novel By the River (A&U) has won Germany’s Youth Literature Prize in the young adult division.

First published in 2004, By the River follows 14-year-old Harry as he grows up in a small country town. The novel won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award’s Ethel Turner Prize for Books for Young Adults, the Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Award for older readers, and was runner-up in the CBCA Book of the Year Award for older readers. German rights to the novel were sold in 2017.

The German Children’s Literature Award (known as Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis) is a state-sponsored prize with a total prize pool of 72,000 euros (A$115,790). It is awarded across four categories (picture book, children’s book, young adult book and nonfiction), with each category winner receiving 10,000 euros (A$16,082), and is open to German-language children’s and YA books including translations.

For more information about the prize, see the website here.

Category: Awards Junior Local news