The 2014 Icelandic Children’s Book Award goes to Guðni Líndal Benediktsson for his book Leitin að Blóðey, as announced today. The book features a grandfather telling his grandchild a bedtime story about his amazing adventures.
Although unbelievable, the grandfather claims that the story is true, that he indeed had to rescue his wife from a wicked wizard, ninjas, lions, dragons, monsters and trolls, and locate a mysterious island which couldn’t be found in any map.
This is the 29th time that the Icelandic Children’s Book Award is granted. As always, authors submitted their scripts anonymously to a competition.
Guðni is a filmmaker and has written plays, short stories and short films but never had a book published before.
Currently, a reading marathon called Allir lesa is taking place in Iceland with almost 3,000 people participating.
A recent survey concluded that 66 percent of students in the 2nd grade in elementary schools in Reykjavík can read for their information, which is an improvement from earlier surveys.
PISA studies have revealed that Icelandic boys in particular are having trouble reading.
