- Tanja Nathanael
Translated Children’s Books You Should Know About
For this post we are proud to showcase a selection of international children’s books in translation. We asked 11 translators of international children’s books for their recommendations. Our question:
What international children’s book in translation inspires you or that you believe deserves more critical attention?
We would like to thank Claire Storey, Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp, and Jackie Friedman Mighdoll of #WorldKidLit Blog, along with all of our contributors below for their participation in this post: Emily Balistrieri, Olga Bukhina, Johanna McCalmont, Ayo Oyeku, Mia Spangenberg, Holly Thompson, Avery Fischer Udagawa, Helen Wang, Andrew Wong, B.J. Epstein Woodstein, and Anam Zafar.
Please enjoy this selection of highly recommended international children’s books in translation. We are sure these are books you do not want to miss!
AFRICA
Editor: Zukiswa Wanner
Translator: translated from French by Edwige Renee Dro and from kiSwahili by Elias Mutani
Publisher: Ouida, 2019
Language: English, French, and kiSwahili
ASIN: B08JVJJ71V
Contributors: Asiedu Benneh, Chinelo J. Enemuo, Fatma Shafii, Howard Meh-Buh Maximus, Justin Clement/Haku Jackson, Kêlvin Nonvignon Adantchede, Kofi Berko, Lukorito Wafula Jones, Laurence Gnaro, Merdi Mukore, Precious Colette Kemigisha, Priscillar Matara, Raoul Djimeli, Sabah Carrim, Shamin Chibba, Tamanda Kanjaye and Yamikani Mlangiza.
“This anthology is the first of its kind in recent memory on a continent where the majority of the population are Young Adults and yet are too often ignored.”
~Editor Zukiswa Wanner
Waterbirds on the Lakeshore grew out of a series of workshops for young writers run across Africa in three languages, English, French and kiSwahili. Carefully curated by editor Zukiswa Wanner, each short story in the anthology creates its own vivid world. The range and variety of styles, genres, countries, themes, and languages included is impressive. Whilst each writer stands out from the others, there is a strong sense of emotion, passion and keen observation of the world that nonetheless unites the teenage narrators.
The anthology opens with stories that primarily explore relationships: within families, between friends, with employers and, of course, young love, sometimes painful, sometimes sweet. The tensions in these relationships are palpable, like in Beninese Kêlvin Nonvignon Adantchede’s story Elxa, where the narrator declares “I didn’t want to be like my parents. I didn’t want to struggle. I wanted to be a doctor and cure my sister, whereas my mother felt I only went to school because it was free.”
The pain of the relationships in the opening stories transitions into the harsh, brutal reality of conflicts and wars that bring a halt to what had been normal routines. In Oubliette, for example, Anglophone Cameroonian Howard Meh-Buh Maximus, writes about two boys who love to play pranks on a teacher at their boarding school but suddenly face the horror of gruesome attacks on their teacher’s family and his murder in their village: “The terror was worse than any you had ever seen, worse than all the school handovers put together.” The anthology reaches a turning point in the middle with The Year of Failure by South African Shamin Chibba, the first story narrated by an older character looking back on twenty years of lost friendship with a girl he had worshipped but fallen out with.
The final stories move into magical and mysterious realms, into dreams and parallel worlds where the characters have special powers and fight battles between good and evil, worlds with anaesie and ujeru, worlds that occasionally overlap with the real world. The line between the real world and what is unseen blurs in these stories and Yamikani Mlangiza’s narrator in Forever hers captures this surreal sensation perfectly in the closing words of both the short story and the collection: “The other students were puzzled. They gathered around her, wondering who she was talking to, wondering if she was going mad. And maybe, just maybe she was.”
An anthology that demands to be read again and again!
Read extracts from the anthology published by the Johannesburg Review here.
ABOUT JOHANNA MCCALMOT: Johanna McCalmont was born in Northern Ireland and now lives in Brussels, Belgium where she works from French, German, Dutch and Italian. Her translations have been published by the New Books in German Emerging Translators programme and No Man’s Land. She loves connecting writers with audiences when interpreting at literary festivals and has a particular interest in African literature. More about Johanna McCalmont may be found on her website: www.johannamccalmont.com
CHINA
I WANT TO BE GOOD
Author: Huang Beijia
Translator: translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman
Publisher: New Classic Press, 2021
Language: English, Chinese
ISBN: 978-1-912553-85-3
Huang Beijia’s novel I Want To Be Good is a much-loved modern classic in China. Ten-year-old Ling is in her last year at primary school – that means she’s under constant pressure to do better, and pass the all-important school exams. But Ling just wants to be herself, to be happy, and for everyone around her to be happy. While her mother and others worry whether she’ll be good enough, Ling simply gets on with enjoying life. She may be dumpy, average at school, and rubbish at maths, but level-headed Ling has a wonderfully cheery outlook, and is genuinely interested in people and the world around her. I Want To Be Good isn’t about being a goody-goody—it’s about being happy being yourself.
ABOUT HELEN WANG: Helen Wang translates children’s books from Chinese (including Cao Wenxuan’s Bronze and Sunflower and Dragonfly Eyes), and co-writes the blog Chinese Books for Young Readers.
INDONESIA
Author: Reda Gaudiamo
Illustration: Cecillia Hidayat
Translator: translated from Indonesian by Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi Degoul and Kate Wakeling
Publisher: Emma Press, 2019
Language: English, Indonesian
ISBN: 9781910139592
I am recommending The Adventures of Na Willa, written by Reda Gaudiamo, illustrated by Cecillia Hidayat, and translated from Indonesian by Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi Degoul and Kate Wakeling. This middle-grade adventure is an absolute delight: the main character, a cheeky girl called Na Willa, narrates her adventures around the suburbs of Surabaya in Indonesia as she gets into scrapes with her friends, learns important life lessons from her family, and of course tries to outsmart them every once in a while. Na Willa's narrative voice is confidently playful - an effective style for introducing younger readers to topics such as racism and identity - and each short chapter is like a standalone episode, which makes sense as they started life as separate stories before being collated into one book. Both myself and my 12-year-old sister equally love The Adventures of Na Willa. It is the book that introduced me to the independent feminist publisher The Emma Press. Read a longer review by Claire Storey on World Kid Lit.
ABOUT ANAM ZAFAR: Anam Zafar translates literature for children and adults, from Arabic and French to English. She won the 2021 Gulf Coast Prize in Translation and was longlisted for the 2021 John Dryden Translation Competition. She volunteers for World Kid Lit and is based in Birmingham, UK.
Find her on Twitter: @anam_translates and on her website www.anamzafar.com.
JAPAN
Author: Sachiko Kashiwaba
Illustration: Miho Satake
Translator: Avery Fischer Udagawa
Publisher: Restless Books, 2021
Language: English, Japanese
ISBN: 9781632063038
A middle grade novel worthy of much attention from teachers, librarians, children’s literature specialists and young readers is Temple Alley Summer by Sachiko Kashiwaba, translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa, illustrated by Miho Satake (Restless Books, 2021). This novel opens with protagonist Kazu’s sighting of a ghost who soon appears to be new student Akari in his class. Her arrival sets in motion a mystery that leads Kazu to seek truths about a forgotten legend of a local temple. One thing leads to another, including a nail biter fantasy story within the main story. Readers who dive into this book will find themselves drawn into the mysteries and characters of both tales as the story gallops along to a conclusion that makes readers want to start all over again at the beginning. Sachiko Kashiwaba is a master storyteller, and Udagawa’s translation deftly captures Kashiwaba’s wit and narrative prowess. Readers will be hoping that we soon have more novels and chapter books translated into English from the many beloved and lauded Japanese titles for young readers written by Sachiko Kashiwaba.
ABOUT HOLLY THOMPSON: Holly Thompson (www.hatbooks.com) is a longtime resident of Japan and author of the verse novels Falling into the Dragon’s Mouth, The Language Inside and Orchards, the novel Ash and picture books Twilight Chant, One Wave at a Time, and The Wakame Gatherers. A graduate of the NYU Creative Writing Program, she writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction for children, teens, and adults, and teaches creative writing in Japan, the U.S., and places in between.
JAPAN
1945←2015: REFLECTIONS ON STOLEN YOUTH
Author: Yuriko Ochiai, Naomi Kitagawa, and Motomi Murota
Translator: Deborah Iwabuchi
Publisher: Korocolor Publishers, 2019
Language: English, Japanese
ISBN: 978-4-907239-51-0
1945←2015: Reflections on Stolen Youth by Yuriko Ochiai, Naomi Kitagawa, and Motomi Murota, and translated by Deborah Iwabuchi (Korocolor Publishers, 2019), gathers accounts of World War Two by 15 survivors. Each vivid account begins with a photo - this is my story. Each story is coupled with a response from present day youth, a combination that leaves a lasting impression and a reflection not just on war and peace but also on survival and life. After the section on museums and visitor facilities following the exchange of letters, in the English edition comes an afterword by Iwabuchi that ends with survivor Yoshio Shinozuka's question "What need do we have to destroy the peace?" Like Shinozuka, many of the survivors had already passed on by the time the Japanese title was first published in 2015. Neither for the faint-hearted nor a light-hearted read, as time passes, Reflections will remain an invaluable record of those voices for the future of peace and humanity. Avery Fischer Udagawa did an interview with fellow SCBWI member Deborah Iwabuchi on the SCBWI Japan Translation blog here.
ABOUT ANDREW WONG: Born and bred in Singapore, Andrew Wong lives in Tokyo, where he enjoys wandering into libraries and bookstores and the imaginary worlds they behold. He speaks Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) and translates from Japanese to English. He is the translator of The World's Poorest President Speaks Out (Enchanted Lion Books, 2020).
JAPAN
Author: Yoshimi Kusaba
Illustration: Gaku Nakagawa
Translator: Andrew Wong
Publisher: Enchanted Lion, 2020
Language: English, Japanese
ISBN: 978-1-59270-289-3
The World’s Poorest President Speaks Out by Yoshimi Kusaba, with illustrations by Gaku Nakagawa and translated by Andrew Wong, is inspiring as a whole since it’s based on a moving speech about the meaning of life and shared human happiness by Uruguay’s 40th president, José Murjica, but I’m also personally inspired because I know how long and hard Andrew worked even before he found such a good home for it at Enchanted Lion. Then the whole team continued working to give it a careful editing job—they even got some of the illustrations adjusted.
Why were we born? Was it to pursue economic growth and progress? No. This is a passionately crafted book that effectively delivers an important lesson about how spending our short lives striving towards ever greater consumption hampers our ability to enjoy what really matters. It can be a great springboard for kids to start thinking about the world beyond their home and school, and the resulting conversations may be enlightening for their parents, too.
ABOUT EMILY BALISTRIERI: Emily Balistrieri is an American translator based in Tokyo. He has translated fiction by Tomihiko Morimi, Ao Omae, Mikoto Mashita, and many others. Recent translations for younger readers include Shaw Kuzki's Soul Lanterns and Eiko Kadono's Kiki's Delivery Service.
NETHERLANDS
Author: Marcel Prins and Peter Henk Steenhuis
Translator: translated from Dutch by Laura Watkinson
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine, 2014
Language: English, Dutch
ISBN: 978-0545543620
Many cherish the diary of Anne Frank, translated by Susan Massotty among others, but an essential companion is Hidden Like Anne Frank: 14 True Stories of Survival by Marcel Prins and Peter Henk Steenhuis, translated from Dutch by Laura Watkinson. This book offers the stories of 14 Jewish people who were toddler- through teen-age during World War II, who went into hiding and somehow survived. Their years of enduring raids, escapes, and secret spaces ended with liberation, but they then faced new challenges as their families—often split up for years—reunited amid grief over murdered loved ones, lost livelihoods, and interrupted relationships. “Freddy, my boyfriend, opened the door. I was bald and emaciated. He didn’t recognize me until I spoke.” “I heard [my parents] coming up the stairs, and I turned around and said, ‘Hello ma’am. Hello, sir.’ That was it. I just went on playing.” These reflections on survival and reentry, complete with archival and family photographs and definitions of terms (Hunger Winter, Radio Oranje, resistance) culminate in stunning photographs of the hidden children as adults. A strikingly similar readalike is Reflections on Stolen Youth 1945←2015 by Naomi Kitagawa and Motomi Murota, translated from Japanese by Deborah Iwabuchi.
ABOUT AVERY FISCHER UDAGAWA: Avery Fischer Udagawa’s translations from Japanese to English include the middle grade novels Temple Alley Summer by Sachiko Kashiwaba and J-Boys: Kazuo’s World, Tokyo, 1965 by Shogo Oketani. Her short story translations have appeared in Kyoto Journal, Words Without Borders, Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction—An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories, The Best Asian Short Stories 2018, and A Tapestry of Colours 1: Stories from Asia. She serves as Translator Coordinator in SCBWI (see Translation in SCBWI) and SCBWI Japan (see Ihatov).
RUSSIA
Author: Alexandra Litvina
Illustration: Anna Desnitskaya
Translator: Antonina W. Bouis
Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2019
Language: English, Russian
ISBN: 9781419734038
From this beautifully illustrated, oversized book the reader will learn a lot about the 100 years of Russian history that includes three wars, two revolutions, Stalin’s purges, periods of starvation, the Thaw, stagnation, space travels, and life of ordinary people. The book talks about this painful, sorrowful, joyful, and exciting time using the story of five generations of one family and their neighbors in their Moscow communal apartment. The book is the great example of contemporary nonfiction that tells the truth about the epoch not just through important historic facts, but also through minute details of everyday objects and vivid descriptions of ordinary people’s everyday practices. Done in almost a Wimmelbook style, minimalistic narration and an abundance of images help to bring the epoch into life. Indeed, text and visuals combine perfectly in this amazing collaboration of two talented artists. Merging entertainment and education, The Apartment brings to contemporary child readers a fascinating cultural history of the Russian 20th century. The new work of the same duo, Trans-Siberian Railway (Thames&Hudson, 2021) is not only about history, but also about geography.
ABOUT OLGA BUKHINA: Olga Bukhina is a translator, a writer, a children’s books specialist, and an independent scholar based in New York City. She has translated almost forty books from English into Russian: American, British, and Canadian young readers’ novels and picture books as well as historical fiction, non-fiction, and scholarly books. Among the authors translated are Louise Fitzhugh, Carl Sandburg, Elizabeth George Speare, Jacqueline Kelly, B.J. Novak, C.S. Lewis, Enid Blyton, Philippa Pearce, Elizabeth Goudge, Philippa Gregory, and Jean Little. She translated into Russian Ben Hellman’s Fairy Tales and True Stories: The History of Russian Literature for Children and Young People (1574 - 2010). Bukhina’s last translations (with G. Gimon) are the Meg Rosoff’s YA novels How I Live Now and What I Was as well as Sean Rubin’s graphic novel Bolivar. Bukhina has co-authored three children’s books for the Children’s Project of Lyudmila Ulitskaya. She writes about children’s literature for various journals, collections, and online publications in Russia and in the U.S. Her book The Ugly Duckling, Harry Potter, and Others: A Guide to Children’s Books About Orphans was published in Moscow (KompasGid, 2016). She serves as an Executive Director of the International Association for the Humanities. More about Olga Bukhina may be found on her website: http://olgabukhina.com/.
SPAIN
Author: Equipo Plantel
Illustration: Mikel Casal
Translator: Lawrence Schimel
Publisher: Book Island, 2021
Language: English, Spanish, others
ISBN: 9781911496205
A Picture Book About Politics for All Ages
A picture book about politics? And one that conveys the importance of democracy in an easy to understand and engaging way? That is what we have with Equipo Plantel’s This is a Dictatorship, newly illustrated by Mikel Casal and translated by Lawrence Schimel (Book Island 2021). First published in Spain over 40 years ago to help children understand Franco’s impact as a dictator, it was republished in Spain in 2015 and has since then been published in more than ten languages.
It seems daunting to explain the terror of a dictatorship to children, but here, the focus on the dictator’s self-centered actions and arbitrary rules makes it easy to compare him to a child who doesn’t share his or her toys and lashes out at those who don’t abide by his or her rules. It opens up the opportunity for conversations about what it is like to live in fear of reprisal and to be expelled from a group. The colorful illustrations keep readers engaged as they learn about how dictators shape their countries and wallow in riches, while the people are exploited and impoverished. Mikel Casal’s dictator with the beet-red face vividly captures the unsavory nature of this small-minded character. A short history lesson at the end of the book provides additional context about dictatorships, what has changed, and where they still exist today, and this new edition includes a gallery of illustrations of dictators from recent history in the end papers, emphasizing that democracy is still something we must continually fight for.
ABOUT MIA SPANGENBERG: Mia Spangenberg is a translator working from Finnish and German into English. Her work has been published in Finland and the UK, and in journals such as LitHub and Asymptote. She is also a regular contributor to the WorldKidLit blog. She holds a Ph.D. in Scandinavian studies from the University of Washington, Seattle, where she resides with her family. You can find her on her website: https://www.miaspangenberg.com.
SWEDEN
Author: Sara Lundberg
Illustration: Sara Lundberg
Translator: B.J. Epstein
Publisher: Book Island, 2020
Language: English, Swedish
ISBN: 9781911496151
I confess that the title I have chosen is one that I myself have translated: The Bird Within Me, written and illustrated by Sara Lundberg. I absolutely acknowledge my bias here, but I would still contend that it is a gorgeous book that deserves more attention.
The Bird Within Me is based on the true story of Swedish artist Berta Hansson and it about the importance of being true to yourself. Berta’s mother is ill with tuberculosis and her children cannot get too close to her, in case they get ill as well. Young Berta longs for her mother and tries to use her artwork as a way of connecting with her and maybe even keeping her alive. While Berta’s mother understands Berta and accepts her desire to be an artist, her father does not, and after the mother’s death, he tries to insist that Berta be like her older sisters and become a housewife. Berta has to learn to let the bird within herself fly free.
Sara Lundberg’s illustrations emphasize Berta’s feelings, particularly her need for connection, her fear and confusion, and her desire to find her own way in life. Any reader can relate to Berta and can feel inspired by the way she eventually makes the decisions that are right for her.
ABOUT B.J. EPSTEIN WOODSTEIN: B.J. Epstein Woodstein is an associate professor in literature and translation at the University of East Anglia in England. She’s also a writer, editor, and Swedish-to-English translator. Recent translations are The Bird Within Me by Sara Lundberg, Mapping the Invisible by Ylva Hillström and Karin Eklund, and The Book That Did Not Want to be Read by David Sundin, with illustrations by Alexis Holmqvist, and her next publication will be Summer of Diving by Sara Stridsberg, with illustrations by Sara Lundberg. B.J. has a PhD in translation studies and has published many academic articles and books about literature. She also works as a doula and lactation consultant. She can be reached at https://www.bjwoodstein.com.
SOUTH AFRICA
Author: Mabel Mnensa
Illustration: Chantelle and Burgen Thorne
Publisher: Jacana Media, 2020
Language: Afrikaans, English, isiXhosa, isiZulu
ISBN: 9781431428687, 9781431428755, 9781431428762, 9781431428779
My name is Ayo. It means ‘joy’. Beautiful as that name is, I struggled with sharing my name with friends beyond borders. Why? They struggled with the pronunciation, and a few times I suggested they call me by another name – an English one. Kantiga Finds a Perfect Name by Mabel Mnensa captures my experience. It is a story about a little girl who did not like her name. A magical tale from the mouth of her Gogo helps to solve this problem, as Kantiga finally embraces the uniqueness in her name. This inclusive and brilliantly told story has been translated to Afrikaans, isiZulu and isiXhosa, besides English. It is a compelling book I would recommend to all children, any child, across the world. My name is Ayo – don’t call me Joy.
ABOUT AYO OYEKU: Ayo Oyeku is a writer of prose, poetry, and screenplays. He made an early mark in 2004 when his first children's book, First Among Equals, was selected by World Bank for distribution across schools and libraries in Nigeria. In 2015, his young-adult novel, Tears of the Lonely, won the Ezenwa Ohaeto Prize for Fiction by the Society of Young Nigerian Writers. In 2016, his poem “Reeds on the Rivers” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He was shortlisted twice for the Golden Baobab Prize in 2016 and 2018 respectively. In 2019, he won the ANA prize for Children's literature for his book Mafoya and the Finish Line. He recently published his eighth children's book Queen Moremi Makes a Promise. Ayo Oyeku is a member of Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Besides writing, he is the founder of Eleventh House — a creative publishing firm.