Deborah Soria: Jury Member of the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2014

On March 15 and 16, 2014 the Jury meeting for the Hans Christian Andersen Award will take place at the International Youth Library in Munich. We feel honoured to host this important event and look forward to welcoming the jury members.

After studying children’s book illustration, literature for children and history of illustration at the European Institute of Design in Rome, Deborah earned a diploma Bookstore Management and from 1999 worked at a mega bookshop for children in Rome. In 2006 she set up her own bookstore Ottimomassmio, which is a traveling bookshop that takes books to children in remote areas where they have no access to books.

She has been a member of IBBY Italia since the section re-joined IBBY in 2003, and then joined the board of 2010 and has served as the Vice President from 2012.  In 2012 she initiated an IBBY project called Silent Books: Final Destination Lampedusa, which promotes books for young people as a tool for integration. The project has collected the best books without words with the help of the IBBY members – Silent Books – and donated them to Lampedusa in the Mediterranean, which is the first port of call for those arriving from across the sea on their way to starting a new life.

Deborah is bilingual – Italian/English – and this is her first term on the Hans Christian Andersen Jury.

The other Jury Members are: Fanuel Hanan Diaz, Ayfer Gürdal Ünal, Susan Stan, Maria Jesus Gil, Sabine Fuchs, Erik Titusson, Enrique Pérez Diaz, Sang-Wook Kim, Elda Nogueira, Sahar Tarhandeh, Anastasia Arkhipova