2nd National Children’s Book Awards
Best Reads of 2010-2011
LG&M Corporation, Publisher
Eugene Y. Evasco, Writer
Ibarra C. Crisostomo, Illustrator
And it doesn’t even matter that you don’t know what a bukitkit is. This book is a friend, a quiet friend that holds your hand and lets you be. There’s a hidden rhythm to the words that flow in the wind that takes the puffballs away. The drawings are executed in colored pencil, so they’re accessible, but they dance, and they shift your perspective in very subtle ways. The layout is loose, and you never get the feeling that you are confined to the pages that you hold in your hand. This counting book doesn’t condescend. It is playful but never silly. We need more books like this.—Ma. Elena P. Locsin, NCBA Judge
Tahanan Books for Young Readers, Publisher
Reni Roxas, Writer
Sergio Bumatay III, Illustrator
Ay Naku! Botbot is a walking disaster, and the single verbs and adjectives that accompany him only accentuate that. He wears his clothes inside out, falls down the stairs, bumps into objects, breaks the fishbowl. He hides under the sofa while his family cleans up after him. Ay naku. Lucky for Botbot, there’s a tolerance we reserve for our bunsos, our youngests, and we always love them anyway.—Ma. Elena P. Locsin, NCBA Judge
CANVAS (The Center for Art, New Ventures & Sustainable Development), Publisher
Eline Santos, Writer
Augie Rivera, Translator
Joy Mallari, Illustrator
Doll Eyes is a thrilling read, a thrilling ride, through the labyrinth that is Quiapo. The illustrations capture the mystique as well as the mess of the place, join together the marvelous with the everyday, and paint eerie portraits of a terrible dollmaker and her terrified and helpless dolls. This gripping horror story confirms our worst fears, withers our hopes, then restores us to the strength of friendship, reassuring us that help is just a prayer away.—Cyan Abad-Jugo, NCBA Judge
Tall Story
Cacho Publishing House, Publisher
Candy Gourlay, Writer
Yasmin S. Ong, Illustrator
Andi is mad about basketball but she lives in the wrong country—England, where nobody plays it, and anyway, everyone thinks she’s too small. One day, her mum, who works as a nurse in a London hospital, announces that the son she left behind in the Philippines finally got a visa to come to the UK. Andi is thrilled! It’s been ages since she’s been to the Philippines and seen her brother. And according to her mum, her long-lost brother Bernardo is tall. She can’t wait to play basketball with him! But when Bernardo turns up, he’s not tall—he’s an eight foot tall GIANT.
Reading Bernardo and Andi’s story forces you to be a keen and sensitive reader. You want the story to end well, but how can it? And so you keep on reading Tall Story no matter what and you pay attention to everything that happens. The plot pushes and surprises at so many different points. And you invest emotionally on characters that you discover you have loved long before the story reaches midway.—Victor Villanueva, NCBA Judge
The Great Duck and Crocodile Race
Hiyas-OMF Literature, Publisher
Robert Magnuson, Writer and Illustrator
It was a clear unanimous decision to pick The Great Duck and Crocodile Race as one of the top children’s books of 2011 – 2012. The story is delightful and the illustrations are wonderful. It is everything that will make a child want to fall in love with reading.—Robert Alejandro, NCBA Judge
The Secret is in the Soil
Conquest for Christ Foundation, Inc., Publisher
Gidget Roceles Jimenez and Flor Gozon Tarriela, Writers
Liza Flores, Illustrator
There is something innate in children that make them intensely curious about living creatures and the outdoors. We believe that this book could be the effective vehicle to develop this curiosity—most naturally. Many successes begin with a germ of a seed. Without a child feeling that they have to solve all the earth’s problems spawned (by adults) through the decades, by starting in one’s own backyard, The Secret is in the Soil can inspire anyone who wishes to put teeth into their answer when asked, “What do YOU do to the save the Earth?”—NCBA Judges Citation
