The White Ravens Database

ABOUT
HOW TO SUBMIT BOOKS
SELECTION AND TEXTS
 

About

The “White Ravens” catalogue is an annual, international recommendation list and the most important publication of the International Youth Library. It aims to promote quality in children’s book publishing and has become an increasingly useful tool for anyone interested in looking beyond national borders. Each year the catalogue contains a selection of 200 notable children’s and young adult books from approximately 60 different countries in about 40 languages.

The Library receives a vast number of donation and review copies over the course of every year from publishing houses, literary agencies, authors, illustrators, institutions, and organisations from around the world. It falls to our language and children’s book specialists to set aside new publications that catch their attention and strike them as noteworthy and that they want to recommend to an international audience. They are aided in this process by the highly valued suggestions and the support of befriended experts, whom we heartily thank. Books are chosen for the list based on the universal relevance of the themes they address, their literary and pictorial qualities, or their innovative approaches or design.

The catalogue is published prior to the Frankfurt Book Fair, where it is presented to an international audience. At the International Youth Library’s booth at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair all the books on the current list are put on display in hard copy.

The “White Ravens Database” was created with the aim of aiding scholarly research and in order to make the catalogues available to an even wider international audience. It currently features all catalogues from the year 2012 onwards, while older catalogues will be available as PDF as long as they are not included in the database.

We extend our sincere gratitude to the countless publishers who have been supporting the work of the International Youth Library for decades through their book donations, and to everybody else who has contributed to the “White Ravens” catalogues over the years.

How to submit books

Each year, the 200 children’s books included in the “White Ravens” are selected from the entirety of a large number of review copies, which the International Youth Library receives as donations from publishers, authors, illustrators, literary agencies, institutions and organisations.

The library’s aim is to present a wide variety of books in terms of countries, languages, genres, publishing houses, target groups, format, styles, topics, etc. Therefore, we are always looking for new, noteworthy candidates for our selection. Although not all donations can be included in the “White Ravens” catalogue, we add all high quality books to our unique collection of international children’s books, and hereby make them available to readers and scholars from all over the world.

Books eligible to be considered for the “White Ravens” list are:

• Original editions, both fiction and non-fiction for readers from 1 to 18. Translations are usually not eligible.
• Books published during the previous year, e.g. for the “White Ravens” list 2018, we looked at books published in 2017 and early 2018.
• Books of high literary and/or artistic quality.
• Books that are outstanding, original and innovative.

Books can be sent to the following address:

Internationale Jugendbibliothek / International Youth Library
“White Ravens” catalogue
Schloss Blutenburg
Seldweg 15
81247 Munich
GERMANY

One copy per title is sufficient and additional informative material not needed but welcome.

Customs regulations (relevant for donations from non-EU countries):

• Please note that all book donation shipments from non-EU countries must contain a pro forma invoice (the delivery slip alone is not sufficient).
• Even though the books are donations, German customs authorities demand that the invoice contains an estimated value for the books.
• We kindly ask you to label shipments as “Children’s Books” and with “no commercial value” to avoid confusions.
• Finally, please also add the “EORI Number: DE4123603” of the library and, if necessary, the following e-mail address: empfang@ijb.de.

For further questions, please contact us at info@ijb.de, thank you!

Selection and texts

(from 2020 onwards)

Theodora Arampatzi [TA]	Greek
Benas Bėrantas [BB]	Lithuanian
Michelle Bourgeois [MB]	English
Prof. Dr. Young Eun Chang [YC]	Korean
Prof. Dr. Moonsun Choi [MC]	Korean
Toin Duijx [TD]	Afrikaans, Dutch, Frisian
Prof. Dr. Fang Weiping [FW]	Chinese
Dr. Ines Galling [IG]	Danish, Finnish, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish
Dr. Marijana Hameršak [MH]	Croatian
Dr. Azad Hamoto [AH]	Arabic
Tilka Jamnik [TJ]	Slovenian
Zoltán Jeney [ZJ]	Hungarian
Dr. Isaac Larison [IL]	English
Dr. Olga Maeots [OM]	Russian
Dr. Leila (Roya) Maktabi Fard [RM]	Persian (Farsi)
Radek Malý [MA]	Czech
Dr. Nikola von Merveldt [NvM]	English
Reina Nakano [RN]	Japanese
Lucia Obi [LO]	Chinese, Filipino, Hokkien (Taiwanese), Myanmar, Vietnamese
Prof. Dr. Soin Park [SP]	Korean
Gabriele Poeschke	Italian
Krzysztof Rybak [KR]	Polish
Ulla Saar [US]	Estonian
Juraj Šebesta [JS]	Slovak
Daniela Skoković [DS]	Serbian
Claudia Söffner [CS]	English, Irish
Silvana Sola [SO]	Italian
Dr. Ilze Stikāne [IS]	Latvian
Valentina Stoeva [VS]	Bulgarian
Dr. Mateusz Świetlicki [MS]	Ukrainian
Dr. Ilgɪm Veryeri Alaca [IVA]	Turkish
Jochen Weber [JW]	Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Spanish
Sibylle Weingart [SW]	French
Dr. Katja Wiebe [KW]	Belarusian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukrainian
Dr. Junko Yokota [JY]	English
Dr. Zhao Xia [ZX]	Chinese