Awards Five books nominated for the Children's and Young People's Book Prize 2025
Two picture books, a comic, a novel and short stories have been nominated for the Swiss Children's and Young People's Book Prize 2025, the organizers announced on Thursday. Three of the books come from French-speaking Switzerland, two from German-speaking Switzerland.
06.03.2025, 13:00
SDA
"The Village of Stones" is a picture book by Madrid-based author Lawrence Schimel and Basel-based illustrator Lea Studer. It tells the story of the blind girl Sonja, who feels the inscriptions on gravestones in a cemetery and thus immerses herself in past life stories. "The themes of death and disability are shown here in a light-hearted way as part of life," said the jury.
The literary mediator Eva Rottmann from Zurich is nominated with her ten short stories entitled "Fucking fucking beautiful". The stories are interwoven; young characters talk about their first sexual experiences. "Far removed from a sex education book and therefore particularly successful," said the jury.
"À l'eau" by illustrator Isaline from Lausanne tells the story of a paper boat's journey in black and white pictures with the paper boat as the yellow eye-catcher. The jury particularly praised the typography and the changing perspectives of the text.
Football team or the end of the world
The comic "Arrêt de jeu" by Vaud-based author and illustrator Maxime Schertenleib takes a critical look at the image of masculinity in football. Schertenleib himself played football for Yverdon Sport until 2018 and then studied literature and at art school.
In the novel "Demain n'aura pas lieu" by Iuna Allioux from Lausanne, the starting point is that the world is about to end because the sun explodes. A youthful community of fate forms around the first-person narrator. It deals with topics such as climate, literature, fan culture, family and reconciliation. According to the jury, the author experiments with text types and lets the narrator tell her story with "wit and linguistic finesse".
The Swiss Children's and Young Adult Book Prize is endowed with a total of 20,000 francs. It will be awarded on May 31 as part of the Solothurn Literature Days. The jury assessed 114 titles this year. The prize is sponsored by the Swiss Booksellers and Publishers Association (SBVV), the Solothurn Literature Days and the Swiss Institute for Children's and Youth Media (SIKJM).
