Every Child a Reader, the charitable arm of the Children’s Book Council, has named Caldecott Honor and Printz Award-winning artist Jillian Tamaki as the illustrator for the 2018 Children’s Book Week poster. More than 100,000 posters will be distributed to schools, libraries, and bookstores nationwide for the 99th annual Children’s Book Week celebration, which will take place April 30–May 6, 2018.
The creation each year of an official Children’s Book Week poster dates back to the literacy program’s inception in 1919. As the designer of the 2018 poster, Tamaki joins such acclaimed illustrators as Ezra Jack Keats, Jerry Pinkney, Marcia Brown, Brian Selznick, Maurice Sendak, Rosemary Wells, and Garth Williams. Tamaki’s poster will reprise the theme of “One World, Many Stories,” which was also the slogan featured on the 2017 poster by illustrator Christian Robinson.
Jillian Tamaki is a Toronto-based comics artist and the co-creator along with cousin Mariko Tamaki of Skim (Groundwood, 2008) and This One Summer (First Second, 2014), which received both a Caldecott Honor and Printz Award in 2015. Her solo graphic novels include SuperMutant Magic Academy (Drawn & Quarterly, 2015) and Boundless (Drawn & Quarterly, 2017). Tamaki’s debut picture book, They Say Blue, will be released by Abrams in 2018.
Shaina Birkhead, programming and strategic partnerships director at Every Child a Reader and the Children’s Book Council, told PW, “The creation of the Children’s Book Week poster is always a magical and inspiring process. We are so excited to be working with Jillian Tamaki and the design team at First Second Books on the 2018 poster, which will be displayed in schools, libraries, bookstores, and homes across the country. We have no doubt it will become a favorite of both kids and adults.”
