September is #WorldKidLitMonth, so we’re playing host to our friends at World Kid Lit, offering you their reviews of a selection of children’s books translated into English. Co-editor of World Kid Lit, Claire Storey, along with some regular contributors to the site – Johanna McCalmont, Mia Spangenberg and Georgia Wall – enthuse about kid’s fiction and nonfiction from Italy, Poland, Germany and Sweden.
Inspired by their work, we’re throwing in a few translated kids’ books of our own. Anna Blasiak had the enviable task of reviewing a selection of Latvian ‘Bicki-Books’, while Darcy Hurford is impressed by Nobel-winner Olga Tokarczuk’s foray into children’s literature.
Deputy review editor, Rosie Eyre reviews a French young-adult novel this month. And in fact Rosie has sat in the editing driving seat for this set of reviews, and she’s done an admirable job.
Ursula Phillips is back with her take on the short stories of Maciek Bielawski; Paul Burke returns with a review of Dominique Barbéris’s English-language debut, while Max Easterman is appropriately riveted by a debunking of the received wisdom around the history of language.
Rounding us off this month is our editorial assistant, Alice Banks’s review of a short-story collection by Trevor Żahra, which marks a first for #RivetingReviews: a book translated from Maltese. Please also be sure to read Alice’s La Española this month, as it also focuses on #WorldKidLitMonth.
Enjoy these reviews, and please do share them widely. We’ll be back with general reviews in October, before our Romanian special in November.
—West Camel