Lim, Sworder on 2024 IBBY Honour List
IBBY Australia has announced its 2024 selection for the biennial IBBY Honour List: for writing, Rebecca Lim’s Tiger Daughter (A&U, 2021), and for illustration, Zeno Sworder’s My Strange Shrinking Parents (T&H, 2022).
Describing the two books as ‘extraordinary’, IBBY Australia said: ‘Each of the two books selected this year powerfully reflects the experiences of immigrants to Australia.’
In the contemporary YA novel Tiger Daughter, Wen Zhou (the only child of two Chinese immigrants) navigates coming of age with a controlling father, parental and social expectations, and her own determination to create a different future for herself, starting with her plan to get a scholarship to a selective school. When tragedy strikes in the life of her friend Henry Xiao, Wen—along with her mother—defy her father to support his family. Said IBBY Australia of this book: ‘This beautifully crafted novel explores the experiences of Asian immigrants to Australia with wit and authenticity.’
Illustrated book My Strange Shrinking Parents is described by IBBY Australia as ‘an expressive metaphorical exploration of the sacrifices made by immigrant parents for their children to flourish in a new country’. The protagonist’s parents make a fairy-tale bargain to lose centimetres of their height each time they provide for their child. With illustrations ‘inspired by Japanese woodblock printmakers Hokusai and Hiroshige’, the book reinforces this central metaphor of size with ‘exquisite, muted artwork’.
The IBBY Honour Book List is compiled biennially by the international sections of IBBY, with each country selecting books published in the previous two years. The 2022 Australian books were This Is How We Change the Ending (Vikki Wakefield, Text, for writing) and Wombat (Philip Bunting, Omnibus, for illustration).
The full 2024 list, including the two Australian titles, will feature at a range of exhibitions, including the 2024 IBBY Congress, the 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair, and the 2025 Bologna Children’s Book Fair. More information about the Australian selection is available on IBBY Australia’s website.
Category: Awards Local news
