The book «Ours. Engineering History of Ukraine» reaches the finals of the BolognaRagazzi Award

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair has announced its list of one hundred finalists for the BolognaRagazzi Award, an award given to the best illustrated children’s books from around the world.

This year, 2,215 books from 62 countries and regions were submitted to the jury.

The finalist from Ukraine is the popular science book Ours. Engineering History of Ukraine, created by the team of the «Engineering Week» project for Ukrainian schools and published by My Bookshelf. It contains fifty stories about Ukrainian engineers whose discoveries changed the world 100, 200, and even 300 years ago.

The book’s author is Olena Shulha, co-founder of Engineering Week. Illustrations for the stories were created by: Rusaliia Abo, Volodymyr Holubiev, Vadym Husmanov, Kateryna Didyk, Olia Diatlova, Hrytsia Erde, Olena Kyrylchuk, Albina Kolesnichenko, Alina Kropachova, Iryna Morykvas, Roksolana Mokhnach, Khrystyna Naumenko, Liudmyla Panasenko, Tetiana Ryzhova, Roman Synenko, Anastasiia Starko, Oleh Trapezin, Olena Trofaniuk, Nataliia Shulha, Varvara Yahnysheva, Yaroslav Yakovlev. Mykola Kolesnyk did the design and layout.

Students from Ukrainian schools contributed to the book by helping to find information about engineers whose names were undeservedly forgotten.

Ours. Engineering History of Ukraine was created with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. In the fall of 2021, the first print run of five hundred books was sent to schools and children’s libraries. You can read the stories in Ukrainian and English for free, as well as see the illustrations created for each of them, on the book’s online platform.

The complete list of finalists can be found on the book fair’s website. On March 21-24, the selected books will be presented at a special exhibition The BRAW Amazing Bookshelf.

The BolognaRagazzi Award is the international award of the Bologna Book Fair for the best illustrated and most innovative books for children and adolescents. BRAW is one of the most popular international awards in the world of children’s publishing.

Awards are given in 4 main categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Opera Prima (for unpublished authors and illustrators) and Comics. The jury also awards a special New Horizons award to a particularly innovative book. In addition to the main permanent categories, each year BRAW also features one or more special categories.

The jury for this year’s prize in the field of children’s literature for illustrated books includes Yuliia Kozlovets, coordinator of the International Book Arsenal Festival and curator of the children’s program of the Book Arsenal.

Last year, Ours. Engineering History of Ukraine was included in the rating «Top BaraBuky: the best family publications of 2021» and received a special award from the Museum of Science of the Minor Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Books by Ukraine’s Agrafka creative workshop won awards at BolognaRagazzi 2018 in the category non-fiction for children.