Spanish Queen Letizia presented the 43rd Edition of the SM Awards for Children’s and Young People’s Literature “El Barco De Vapor” and “Gran Angular”. This year’s awards went to Beatriz Osés, for her work “A forest in the air” and to Chiki Fabregat for “El Cofre de Nadie”. The awards are endowed with 35,000 euros each, the highest amount in the Spanish-speaking world in its categories. The work of the authors was described as, “connect us with nature, with affections and with the search for our roots”.
SM, through the SM Foundation, annually allocates more than 200,000 euros to the SM Awards for literature and illustration. The SM Foundation has been committed for more than years to the promotion of reading as a source of learning and development for children and young people. It maintains its commitment to quality literature that is attractive and entertaining while transmitting human, social and cultural values. It directs all its initiatives to improve the equity and quality of education in ten Latin American countries so that no child is left behind.
The jury of the SM El Barco de Vapor 2021 Award has chosen “A forest in the air”, by Beatriz Osés, as the best work of children’s literature, because “it mixes a close and current reality with stories full of imagination, it is committed to the collective effort to recover the connection with nature and shows us characters from different generations who, like trees of different species, live and grow together ”.
The jury’s decision to award the SM Gran Angular 2021 Prize to the work of youth literature “El cofre de Nadie”, by Chiki Fabregat, is based on the fact that “it is a story of discoveries, affections and commitments told from an optimistic perspective, diverse and multicultural. In addition, it provides a fresh and current vision of contemporary reality, with an agile rhythm and impeccable construction, in which all the pieces fit together perfectly. And, finally, it proposes a reflection on identity that invites us to write our own history ”.
Speaking at the event, Letizia thanked for the opportunity to “share an afternoon in which we celebrate the emotion of reading and the restorative power of a good book, especially after this 14 months pandemic ”, and congratulated the winners as authors of“ two stories with nothing in common, in appearance, but with great harmony in their values: diversity, the search for identity, the certainty that we live in community and all we have the importance of affection, oral tradition, the non-negotiable need to value and take care of natural environments and the debt of respect and affection that we have with our elders ”.
Her Majesty the Queen concluded her words “with thanks that I extend to all the people who during these months of a pandemic have contributed to making us feel better thanks to books: editors, authors, illustrators, booksellers, to all of you who work in the cultural book industry ”.
For the event at the America House in Madrid, Queen Letizia brought back Sandro green scarf-print dress.
We first saw the dress in December 2018. The midi dress featured a flowing dress with an all-over scarf print with Long sleeves and wrap-style neckline, pleated underskirt and Concealed zip fastening on the side.
Letizia teamed up the dress with her Manolo Blahnik BB Snakeskin Embossed Pumps.
She was carrying her Nina Ricci black snakeskin-embossed bag.
Her Karen Hallam ring and bamboo huggie hoops finished the look.
