Sharjah Children's Book Illustration Exhibition Gains in Submissions

A substantial uptick in submissions to the illustration exhibition this year deepens the field for visitors and for visual artists working in children’s publishing.

The Sharjah Children’s Book Illustration Exhibition in April will include a competition worth more than US$18,000. Image: Sharjah Book Authority

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

‘Most Remarkable Talents’

Some 1,500 works of art from 44 countries have been received for this year’s Sharjah Children’s Book Illustration Exhibition. The show is part of the annual Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, which runs this year from April 19 through 29.

The influx of content for the illustrations show is running 9 percent above last year’s reception of 1,378 works for this program, which was established in 2012 with Sharjah’s Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi as its patron. In past years, the extensive focus of the show on book illustration for young people has attracted the participation of more than 2,500 artists from 40 countries.

Arab nations represented in this year’s exhibition are the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Morocco.

Non-Arab representation in the display includes work from Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Lithuania, Germany and Romania.

In a prepared statement, Sharjah Book Authority’s director of sales and marketing, Salim Omar Salim, is quoted, saying, “The Sharjah Children’s Book Illustration Exhibition receives hundreds of pieces of artwork from across the world each year, with the artists behind them all vying to display the most remarkable talents in the field of visual arts.

Salim Omar Salim

“The premium quality of illustrations and the innovative techniques used to create each piece enriches the exhibition and brings into the children’s book arena skillful artists who can contribute significantly to the industry in the future.

“The large number of submissions received so far for this year’s edition of the exhibition highlights the success of its vision and mission and underscores the goal of Sharjah’s cultural projects.”

The book authority’s competitive phase of the exhibition offers a first prize cash award of US$8,000; a second-prize purse of US$6,000; and a third-prize award of US$4,000. A series of additional categories pay $1,000 each to their winners.

For more information on this year’s Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, the site with full details is here.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.