Children will boost prestige of books
Golden Stork literary competition launched
The Golden Stork is the name of the first Ukrainian literary competition for young schoolchildren, which got off to a start a few days ago. The Day is pleased to be one of the sponsors of this worthy event, which was the subject of a UNIAN press conference on May 16.
The project was founded by the First National Television Channel (UT-1) and Hrani-T, a young and progressive publishing company. “We are working in two directions: children’s books and cultural-educational literature,” says Hrani-T’s chief editor Diana Klochko. “We were confronted with several questions when we were founding these children’s projects and later, when we were trying to develop them. We believe that these questions can be answered by just such a competition. For example, there are many more illustrators of children’s books than children’s authors. This disproportion is caused by certain trends on the domestic book market. By comparing our situation with that in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic countries, let alone Russia, we realized that certain literary genres (novels and stories) require special attention in Ukraine. These genres must be activated, and this is best done in the format of literary contests like this one. I hope the Golden Stork is a success because books for children should be cheaper. There must be more book titles, and they must compete with each other. Finally, such books should introduce our children to a new dimension of contemporary life in Ukraine.”
The competition organizers are accepting novels and stories written in Ukrainian, provided they have never been published. They will be judged by a prestigious jury whose members include Oleksandra Koval, president of the Publishers Forum; Olha Bench, First Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine; Alla Myhai, commentator with the National Television Company of Ukraine; the writers Maria Matios, and Maryna and Serhii Diachenko. The Grand Prix in both nominations is 5,000 hryvnias. The second prize is 3,000 hryvnias, and the third prize has a cash purse of 1,000 hryvnias. The competition ends on Dec. 1, 2007. The founders promise to submit new books by the winning authors to the Publishers Forum, traditionally scheduled for the fall of 2008.
“Books for Ukrainian children should start being in demand and in vogue. This can be accomplished because our children are well educated and talented,” says Alla Myhai, the former host of UT-1’s Bedtime Story program. “Children used to send their stories and poems to Bedtime Story, and in almost every one of their letters they asked where Ukrainian books could be purchased.”
Such competitions are giving an obvious impetus to the literary process, which is rather slow in Ukraine. They encourage writers, even talented amateurs, who are then discovered by the reading public. The Golden Stork has every chance of becoming a success. The Hrani-T publishing company, founded a year ago, is developing excellent children’s literary projects, such as Irene Rozdobudko’s Misiats u sloiku (The Moon in the Jar), Lesia Voronina’a Prybulets z krainy niamlykiv (Man from the Land of the Niamlyks), Liubko Deresh’s Hania — zaklynachka zmii (Hania, the Snake Charmer), Larysa Denysenko’s Liza and Tsiutsia P., and Svitlana Povaliaieva’s Vrrum-charivnyk (Vroom the Magician). The organizing team includes a number of people who have been involved in the prestigious literary competition, Coronation of the Word.
