Meeting with new creative and interesting people, a nice party with many little readers and a legend on an ancient bridge. Here is what I have been taking home from Monday, in addition to the main reason why I was in Tolentino: to collect the plaque of the honorable mention of the Legambiente ‘Un libro per l’ambiente’ (A book for the environment) award. The prize was assigned to the second volume I illustrated of the Atlas of Biodiversity: Ecosystems to Protect, written by Emanuela Durand and published by Sassi Junior.
The national award ‘Un libro per l’ambiente’ was created more than twenty years to highlight the best children’s books on environmental and scientific issues.
The prize is awarded by the largest popular children’s jury in Italy. For each section, they have the task of reading and evaluating the proposals and then deciding on the winners.
The award ceremony was hosted by the ‘Il Pettirosso’ Environmental Education Center this year. Thanks to the participation of the municipality of Tolentino and the reading room in the Centrale, 70 students representing the jury of about 200 young people from the inland areas of Marche enthusiastically participated in the proclamation of the winners.
This year the award for popular science goes to “Animali in città” by Bruno Cignini and Andrea Antinori, published by Lapis. The fiction award went to “L’isola senza mare” written by Sabrina Colloredo and published by Giunti. A special prize went to the publisher Camelozampa for their beautiful books.
I also loved the place of the awards ceremony, the park in front of the reading room ‘Letture in Centrale’ with the suggestive Ponte del Diavolo in the background. Such a name could only hide a legendary origin that Fabiola from ‘Il Pettirosso’ circle told me, which will soon end up in my legends notebook!