The IRSCL Award:

The 2005 Award was presented to Roni Natov for The Poetics of Children's Literature (extensive reviews can be read on the web site). Roni has provided a brief reaction to attending the congress and receiving the Award. The Poetics of Childhood is almost out of print and so the IRSCL board has approached the publishers to encourage them to produce a paperback edition of the book.

Remember that the 2001 Award book by Emer O?Sullivan is now available in English as Comparative Children's Literature (Routledge 2005). Please try to order both books (and other books by members) for your institutional libraries.

"The 17 th IRSCL Congress was my first and I loved it. It was exquisitely organized, more so than any conference I?ve ever attended, so that I could go to the first half hour of one of the four concurrent sessions and the second half hour of another?and so forth. The sessions were informative and thoughtful. Some events?my favourite was the actors? pub tour?provided some entry into Dublin. What a lovely city! And at such a far-reaching conference, it was wonderful to have the time and space for socializing with people from around the world, most of whom I had never met before. I came away turned on to some new interests/perspectives?Japanese anime, new graphic novels, much dark and compelling adolescent literature. Of course, the highlight for me was winning the IRSCL Award for outstanding research for my book, The Poetics of Childhood .  It meant so much to me for my book to be recognized by international scholars. And with the award, I was presented with a most beautiful painting by South African illustrator, Piet Grobler. I am deeply honoured and look forward to the 18 th IRSCL Congress in Kyoto in 2007."

Roni Natov