Online Celebration: The 7^th Feng Zikai Chinese Children's Picture Book Award

Warmly Participated by 110 Thousand Audiences Globally  

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its rippling effects on travel restrictions, the 7^th Feng Zikai Chinese Children's Picture Book Award ("FZK Award") was held on 11 December, 2021 and was livestreamed via FZK Award WeChat official account, Facebook and Phoenix TV website on 11 December, 2021. The online award ceremony was warmly participated by 110 thousand audiences globally.

Ms Daisy Chen, sponsor of the FZK Award, kicked start the ceremony with a warm opening remark, followed by a speech by Professor Weiping Fang, the Chair of the 7^th award judging panel. According to Professor Fang, despite the change of the judge panel meeting into a virtual meeting, each of the panel members was able to review the content and pictures of all the entries and discussed thoroughly in a six-day meeting in August. The result was announced on 10 September, 2021.

The winning books were selected by the judging panel which comprises professionals from different areas such as children's education, children's literature, picture art criticism, children's library and reading promotion. The diverse background and vision of the panel members allow each of the entries to be reviewed in terms of content and creativity.  

The Best Chinese Children's Picture Book Award is awarded to Sudan's Rhino Horn. The four Outstanding Chinese Children's Picture Book Award are awarded to Happy Birthday, Button Soldier, Little Bear, Run, and Dung Beetle's Birthday Present. At the award ceremony, each of the authors and illustrators of the winning books gave an acceptance speech highlighting their process of creation.   

The 7^th Feng Zikai Chinese Children's Picture Book Award shortlisted the best picture books from entries which were first printed between January 2019 to December 2020, either in Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese. This edition, the award committee received 333 qualified entries, in which 203 entries were from Mainland China, 27 entries from Hong Kong, 100 from Taiwan, 2 from Malaysia and 1 from Italy. This was the first time in history that FZK Award had received entry from outside of Asia, reflecting the increasing influence of the award beyond Asia.

To identify the artistic value of the award winning books, Ms Song Pei and Professor Fengxia Tan, members of the judging panel, shared their pictorial and literary analysis of the winning books as well as other entries at the judge panel discussion. Other member Ms Sarah Ko specified that some publishers could pay more efforts on editing work to reach an even higher level of standard for their picture books.

The award ceremony reached its climax when the picture book duo Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen delivered a humorous yet insightful talk sharing how they worked pictures and text together to create the Caldecott Honour books Extra Yarn and Sam and Dave Dig a Hole. They were eager to answer the questions raised by online audiences from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other areas.

At the end of the award ceremony, the FZK Award committee announced six award ambassadors who will roll out quality online and offline activities in 2022 and 2023 for promoting picture books that are originally written in Chinese among young readers.