Awarding ceremony of the 5th De Men Children's Award 2024

The 5th De Men Children's Award - 2024 attracted the participation of 135 works composed and completed between January 1, 2023 and April 20, 2024. This is the season with the largest number of entries compared to previous seasons, an increase of 14 works compared to the last season held in 2023.

From these 135 works, through 2 rounds of judging, the Award Preliminary Board selected the Top 10 best works.

According to the assessment, the 5th De Men Award was also a successful season beyond the expectations of the organizing committee when for the third time, the award found a worthy author to "award" the title of Knight of De Men, following excellent names such as Nguyen Nhat Anh (2020), Tran Duc Tien (2023).

Accordingly, writer Ly Lan with the long story collection "Autobiography of a Pig" (2023) and her contributions to children's literature throughout her life and career - was honored to receive the Cricket Knight Award.

Poet Tran Dang Khoa - Chairman of the Jury Board commented: "The advantage of this work is that the author understands the life and lifestyle of pigs and many other animals very well, so it is very vivid and very real. The issue is also raised very well, which is the desire to live freely, not wanting to be a pet... This is the most outstanding work among the works submitted to this contest."

Writer Ly Lan was born in 1957 in Thu Dau Mot, Binh Duong province. Many readers have long known her as the translator of the "Harry Potter" series. Starting her literary career in the 1980s, writer Ly Lan has published dozens of literary works including stories, poems, novels, and essays.

Working far away and unable to attend the award ceremony, writer Ly Lan shared: “A work written for children or for anyone needs the writer’s heart, a sincere heart and respect for the reader. Children need entertaining books like they need toys and candy, and literature is the nourishment that nourishes the human soul.”

Mr. Le Xuan Thanh - Editor-in-Chief of Sports and Culture newspaper spoke at the ceremony. Photo: Organizing Committee

In addition, it is noteworthy that 1 of the 5 Cricket Aspiration Awards this year was awarded to “The Adventures of Cricket Ut” (a 4-volume comic book series by LinhRab, Kim Dong Publishing House), an adaptation of “The Adventures of Cricket”.

After 7 years of hard work, artist LinhRab has successfully recreated the journey of growing up of De Ut (based on De Men) and created a natural world that is both familiar and modern, close to today's young readers.

The award organizers also selected excellent paintings from the four volumes of “The Adventures of De Ut” to display within the framework of the award ceremony as a way for the audience to enjoy the joyful and brilliant “variations” of “The Adventures of De Men” in the souls of today’s youth.

It is known that the Cricket Children's Award was founded by the Sports and Culture Newspaper (Vietnam News Agency) and organized annually since 2020 to award outstanding artistic compositions and performances "by children" (children are the creative subjects) or "for children" (children are the service objects), including 1 Grand Award named Cricket Knight, and equal awards named Cricket Desire...