Children's stories competition

We have found the next Roald Dahl or Annie M.G. Schmidt!

The winners of the international children story competition were announced on 18 March 2013 during the awards ceremony at Meeting Plaza, Utrecht the Netherlands.

With around 100 people at Meeting Plaza, the jury revealed the winners of each category of our children stories competition. The excitement of the participants was palpable. They applauded the jury when we explained that all stories that have arrived within the deadline had been read and scored, and therefore treated equally. The participants were also in awe of the interest of writers from countries far from the Netherlands:

Individuals sent stories from Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ecuador, Egypt, France, the Philippines, Ghana, Kenya, Ireland, India, Indonesia, Croatia, Lesotho, Netherlands, Nigeria, Palestine, Pakistan, Romania, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Uganda, de United Arab Emirates, de United States, all the corners of the United Kingdom, Vietnam, South Africa en Sweden.

The announcement of the winners was also met with cheers! With her story 'Tellen en Rijmen met de Familie Muis' is Juliette Rosenkamp de winner of the category 1-3 years.

Marlise Achterbergh was the winner for the category 4-6 years with her lovely, insightful and humor-ridden story 'Prinses Feminina'.

The afternoon ended on the best-possible note for the participants and organisers as Philippe Werck, Director of Clavis Publishers announced that all the stories will be re-read by Clavis. If an additional story is found to be very original and meets the objectives of the competition, this one will be also published.

We therefore ask writers to not offer their manuscripts to other publishers during the year 2013. After 2013 everyone who was not contacted by Clavis is free to offer their manuscript to any other publisher.

Both stories will be illustrated and printed during the next months. Inclusive Works holds a pre-sale from May 2013 onwards.

Background and objectives of the competition
In all societies traditional roles have emerged for men and women. Often men are portrayed as a person whose orientation is outside home: working outside the house, in a father role in his spare time. Women, on the contrary, are family-oriented, care-takers and responsible for the home duties. These roles are reproduced in children stories; by assigning boys characteristics such as strong, bold, adventurers and girls characteristics such as vulnerability, gentleness, caring, etc. Children stories represent these roles and characteristics sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly in characters for boys such as knights and warriors and for girls as princesses.

In addition to traditional roles, children stories often forgo new choices and life styles available in our present world: fathers who take care of the children, male-nurses, female mathematicians, astronauts or engineers. And that these new roles are open and available to everyone; regardless of their age, ability, background, education, language, nationality, etc. For this reason, the children stories should show these new roles in the multicultural society.

These new roles in the multicultural society are the themes of our children's stories competition and Clavis Books, FEBE Support, Inclusive Works and the British Council Netherlands invite you to participate by submitting an original children's story for either children 1-3 years old or children 4-6 years old that addresses the two themes of our competition.