Chinese picture book award sparks hope for genre

Yu Liqiong's A New Year's Reunion carries the distinction of being a Chinese-language picture book that won accolades before and after its translation into English.

The Chinese-language version was winner of the Feng Zikai Chinese Children's Picture Book Award in 2009. Its English translation won The New York Times Top Ten Children's Books Award in 2012.

The Feng Zikai Award is important as it encourages authors, illustrators and publishers to create Chinese language children's books of a high standard, that are originally written in Chinese, rather than translated from English.

The vision of the award is to improve childhood literacy for the Chinese reading public.

From my perspective as a mother raising bilingual children in Hong Kong, I also appreciate this ready-made book list. Knowing that this selection comes from a panel of experts means I don't need to sift through the countless titles myself.

This year's award winners were announced last month. The winner and four honoured books were selected from 27 shortlisted works that were culled from hundreds of entries.

Liu Bole's I See a Bird (pictured) won the top prize for its meticulous illustration of a variety of species. Interestingly, this winning choice is completely unlike A New Year's Reunion, with its patriotic theme of how a modern family celebrates Lunar New Year.