Winners have been announced for the 2019 Green Earth Book Awards, sponsored by the Nature Generation to recognize books that "best inspire youth to grow a deeper appreciation, respect, and responsibility for their natural environment." Winning authors and illustrators receive $1,500. This year's winners are:
Picture Book
Winner: The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World's Coral Reefs: The Story of Ken Nedimyer and the Coral Restoration Foundation by Kate Messner, illustrated by Matthew Forsythe (Chronicle)
Honors: Counting Birds by Heidi E. Y. Stemple, illustrated by Clover Robin (The Quarto Group/Seagrass Press); and Salamander Sky by Katy Farber, illustrated by Meg Sodano (Green Writers Press)
Children's Fiction
Winner: The Flooded Earth by Mardi McConnochie (Pajama Press)
Honors: Ellie's Strand: Exploring the Edge of the Pacific by M.L. Herring and Judith L. Li, illustrated by M.L. Herring (Oregon State University Press)
Children's Nonfiction
Winner: Trash Revolution: Breaking the Waste Cycle by Erica Fyvie, illustrated by Bill Slavin (Kids Can Press)
Honors: Bat Citizens by Rob Laidlaw (Pajama Press)
Young Adult Nonfiction
Winner: Dry by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman, illustrated by Jay Shaw (S&S Books for Young Readers)
Honors: Orphaned by Eliot Schrefer (Scholastic); and Beyond the Sixth Extinction: A Post-Apocalyptic Pop-Up by Shawn Sheehy, illustrated Jordi Solano (Candlewick)
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The Night Mail by Hoda Barakat has won the 2019 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Barakat, who was born in Lebanon and lives in France, wins $50,000, and a translation into English is being funded for the book to be published next year by Oneworld Publications as The Night Post. She was presented the award at a ceremony held in Abu Dhabi on the eve of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Barakat is only the second woman to win the award.
Organizers described The Night Mail as "the stories of letter writers. The letters are lost, like the people who have penned them, but each is linked to another and their fates are woven together, like those of their owners. The writers are foreigners, either immigrants by choice or forced by circumstance to leave their countries; exiled and homeless, orphans of their countries with fractured destinies. The novel's realm is--like the times we live in--one of deep questioning and ambiguity, where boundaries have been erased, and old places and homes lost forever."
Chair of judges Charafdine Majdouline added: "The Night Mail is a highly accomplished novel that stands out for its condensed economy of language, narrative structure, and capacity to convey the inner workings of human beings. By choosing to use techniques well-known in novel writing, Barakat faced a challenge, but she succeeded in creatively innovating within the tradition to successfully convince the reader."
Barakat has published six novels, two plays, a book of short stories and a book of memoirs. The Tiller of Waters won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2000, and The Kingdom of This Earth was on the IPAF longlist in 2013. In 2015, she was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize.