6 December 2023
Me and the Robbersons on IBBY’s UK Honour Books 2024 List
We are overjoyed to announce that the English edition of Siri Kolu’s ‘Me and the Robbersons’ has been nominated as the UK Honour Books for the 2024 list.
Me and the Robbersons is the first title in the successful children’s novel series about the Robbersons. Kolu’s amazingly entertaining and anarchic stories follow the Robbersons, a family of bandits, on their witty and pacey adventures as they screech down country lanes with the resourceful Maisie, a girl they snatched along in the first book. Since the original Finnish publication of Me and the Robbersons by Otava in 2010, the translation rights to Kolu’s books in the series have been sold in over 20 languages. Robbersons series includes 9 books with the newest, The Robbersons and the Embarrassing Fan (Me rosvolat ja nolo fani) just released in December 2023.
Stripes Publishing published the critically acclaimed novel Me and the Robbersons (Me Rosvolat, Otava 2010) in 2021 in the UK. The English translation by Ruth Urbom was well received in the UK and acknowledged with the prestigious English Pen translation award in 2021, given annually to a translation of high literary quality, a strong publishing project and based on their contribution to the UK’s bibliodiversity. The second title in the series The Robbersons and the Bandit Karaoke was published in 2022 by Stripes.
The selected books will become part of the 2024 collection alongside works from over seventy member countries that will be introduced at the IBBY Congress in Trieste, Italy, in August 2024. The IBBY Honour List is a biennial selection of outstanding, recently published books, honouring writers, illustrators and translators from IBBY member countries. Established in 1956, the IBBY Honour List is one of the most widespread and effective ways of furthering IBBY’s objective of encouraging international understanding through children’s literature.
A warm congratulations to Siri, Ruth and Stripes Publishing!
