Award certificate free funny

This Hans Christian Andersen Award is a fitting honor for a great talent. Vivacious and creative, Quentin Blake is an artist who has clearly made a lasting contribution both to children's literature and to the world of children. This is evident from his many previous awards and his election as the United Kingdom's first Children's Laureate. His originality and sense of humor, together with his skill in using line, color, and movement, have made Blake a beloved illustrator with wide international impact.'

One of the most extraordinary things about Quentin is that he is quite unlike his work. It is as if all his high spirits and emotional energy dance through his nib and onto the page, leaving him quiet, considered, and modest.2 His scratchy drawings and spindly fingers are known and admired by children not only throughout Europe but worldwide. In fact, during his two years as Children's Laureate (1999-2001) some of his biggest fans (eighteen hundred French-speaking children) collaborated with him to produce his most recent picture book, Un bateau dans le ciel (A sailboat in the sky; Voisins-Le-Bretonneux: Rue du Monde, 2000). Quentin remarked that this gave him "the opportunity of living something like two differing Laureate lives in parallel. Tiring but fun!"3

Quentin Blake was appointed the first British Children's Laureate in May 1999. The medal was presented by the Princess Royal, and she told her audience that the award was intended to celebrate the best in children's books, "the ones I kept reading after my children had fallen asleep." Quentin brought imagination and dedication to this role of promoting children's literature. His work has not simply drawn children into the world of adults, but drawn adults into the world of children.4 He has spoken to countless groups of children and adults, initiated exhibitions that have linked narrative and art, and indefatigably raised the profile of children's literature, so that it now has a more important role in cultural life. At the beginning of his tenure, he said, "For the two years that I am Laureate, it will be a period for talking about book illustration, the relationship of words and pictures, the history of illustration and perceptions of illustration."5

This he has certainly achieved, judging from the response to his ambitious exhibition, "Tell Me a Picture," at the National Gallery in London. The young (and not-so-young) visitors were invited to create their own stories while looking at pictures from the work of both contemporary children's illustrators and more traditional artists. As an eavesdropper, it was delightful to see the visual concentration of the young viewers and to hear their refreshing interpretations of the Old Masters alongside the illustrations that were already familiar to many of them. Quentin's concept of such an exhibition was a masterpiece of visual design, and just one example of his ability to raise the profile of children's book illustration.

This achievement was preceded by a forty-year career creating picture books for which he has provided both texts and illustration. He has also illustrated the work of other authors, most notably Roald Dahl, Michael Rosen, Joan Aiken, John Yeoman, and Russell Hoban. He has absolutely no qualms about collaborating with others whose writing he admires, and his work with many of these authors has also gained classic status. To try to imagine Joan Aiken's Mortimer Says Nothing (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985) or Russell Hoban's Ace Dragon Ltd (Jonathan Cape, 1980) or Roald Dahl's The Twits (Jonathan Cape, 1980), without Quentin's illustrations is pretty nigh impossible.6

Quentin Blake, who is seventy this year, was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by the Queen in 1988 and has drawn for as long as he can remember. He has illustrated some 250 books including many of his own, rarely takes a holiday, and has a bit of a problem with not drawing. He gets twitchy and panicky!7 He read English at Cambridge University and took a teacher's certificate at London University, after which he decided to chance his arm as a freelance illustrator. He always "wanted to be a cartoonist, a humorous illustrator."

His first drawings were accepted by Punch when he was sixteen, and he continued to appear in that and other journals for many years. On one occasion, apparently, a commission for covers for both the Radio Times and The Spectator almost went disastrously wrong. Both were rejected, so some quick thinking was required...he swapped them, sent them off-and they were accepted!8

After attending life classes at Chelsea School of Art (1957-58), and as a result of his teacher training, Quentin thought that he could perhaps illustrate his own book, which children might enjoy-if they didn't, he would stop! He wanted humor to be in the drawings rather than the text, so he asked his friend John Yeoman if they could put something together. The book to emerge was A Drink of Water (London: Faber & Faber, 1960), written by Yeoman and illustrated in black-and-- white by Blake. Quentin then decided that he wanted to do a picture book, but in color.

The first Quentin Blake picture book was Patrick (Jonathan Cape, 1968), written and illustrated by himself. It was published in 1968, and has been followed over the past thirty or more years by a stream of classic picture books. Titles such as Angelo (Jonathan Cape, 1970), Zagazoo (Jonathan Cape, 1998), Mister Magnolia (Jonathan Cape, 1980), The Green Ship (Jonathan Cape, 1998), All Join In (Jonathan Cape, 1990), and others have established him as one of the most loved and respected children's book illustrators in the world. His drawings-free, funny, vital, full of movement and color-are now part of our visual landscape, and instantly recognizable.9 Many of his books lend themselves to being performed; they are excellent to read aloud and share with individual children. In All Join In, for example, Blake's verse comes in the form of short rhymes that are, from an adult point of view, extremely light and inconsequential, but they have been written to entrap a much younger audience. The rhymes are an incitement to give voice to the printed word, hence the invitation in the title. With this book we can see clearly how the words seduce the listening child to join in the game of reading while the pictures add a density and a visual rhythm-particularly-to the experience.10 It is this polysemic nature of Blake's work-his ability to interweave picture and text-together with the vibrancy, fun, and visual artistry of his illustrations, that have led to his success. He has been the recipient of a number of prestigious awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Children's Book Award (chosen by children), the Kurt Maschler Award, and a nomination to the Honour List of IBBY three times. He has also won the Ragazzi Prize at the Bologna Children's Book Fair and the Silver Brush Award in the Netherlands. Among his award-winning books are Mister Magnolia, All Join In, and Clown (Jonathan Cape, 1995). These and many of his other books have been translated into numerous languages, thus allowing children throughout the world to become familiar with his work. Quentin continues to foster links with children and children's literature in other countries through his involvement with the annual Children's Book Fair at the Institut Francais in London. An English edition of Un bateau dans le ciel is now available, published by Jonathan Cape.

The idea for Un bateau dans le ciel began when Quentin, who spends part of each year in France, was asked by a group of teachers if he would help them to create a book with their pupils "sur l'humanisme"! What he found out quite quickly was that they were not talking about Humanism, but about humanitarian problems: of racism, the environment, of how we treat our fellow men and women. "My first task (how could I resist?)" he jokes,11 "was first of all to find a visual pretext or starting point which could allow a young hero and heroine to encounter a variety of problems. As we were near the sea I thought of a boat..." From here the story progressed through sensitive intervention with the book's multiple authors and Blake's knowledge of what is essential to a picture book. His innovative style and semiotic knowledge of the visual image make this book another addition to his stimulating and exciting publications. It should be bought and savored.