Annika Preil with "Annis wilde Tierabenteuer - Auf in den Dschungel!!!" Winner of this year's German Children's Book Prize - Ceremony in Cologne

Berlin, Cologne, October 12, 2024: "Anni's Wild Animal Adventures - Off to the Jungle!!!" - is the title of this year's winner of the German Children's Book Prize. The title promises extensive reading pleasure for children: the book is about ten-year-old Anni's first big journey. Although this story is her first book, the author is no stranger to children's books: The children's book was penned by Annika Preil, who was already in front of the camera at the age of two, is a very successful television actress and has appeared in many productions.

Among other things, the Dachau native and Cologne resident is active as a presenter of the program "Anna & die wilden Tiere" on KiKA. The subject of children obviously suits her: the 24-year-old studied to become a primary school teacher and passed her first state examination. She published the winning title together with illustrator Josephine Wolff at the Baumhaus Medien publishing house in Munich.

The German Children's Book Prize, which is being awarded for the fourth time this year, has also set itself the task of paying greater tribute to the work of illustrators in the children's book segment. And so the 32-strong children's jury awarded this year's special illustration prize to Josephine Pauluth. She impressed the jury with her drawings for the book "Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun" - the text was written by Christin Bohnke.

But the second and third-placed books also show how difficult it was for the children's jury to decide on a winner this year. The children's judges were almost equally enthusiastic about the book "Kater Chaos - Au Backe, ein Hamster!" by Katja Reider (illustrations: Alexandra Helm) and third place "Wir sind (die) Weltklasse" by author Tanya Lieske (illustrations: Lisa Hänsch).

Jasmin Schröter, founder of the German Children's Book Prize: "Our wish to encourage even more authors and illustrators to give free rein to their creativity has come true. Once again this year, we have seen and read dozens of wonderful new publications. Our team, the adult jury for the pre-selection and the children's jury for the final selection would have liked to have awarded prizes to many, many more books. But the point of awarding prizes is to decide. I would like to congratulate the winners and thank both juries for all the days and weeks they invested in the project. And I would especially like to thank the Children's Book Prize team, who organized everything in the background and prepared the award ceremony in Cologne."

According to the new statutes of what is probably Germany's most highly endowed book prize, the prize money is no longer paid out to a single author - as was the case in the first two years: the winner of the German Children's Book Prize is awarded prize money of 50,000 euros. Second place is endowed with 10,000 euros in prize money, third place with 5,000 euros. Places four to ten each receive prize money of 2,500 euros. This means that anyone who made it onto the shortlist of ten titles for the book prize has automatically won. There is also a special prize for the best illustration, which is endowed with an additional 10,000 euros. The children on the children's jury each receive a book voucher worth 250 euros.  

Anni, the main character in the winning book, is also very familiar with reading. Her parents are taking her on a big trip for the first time, to the Brazilian jungle where they are filming an animal movie. But Anni prefers to experience adventures only between the pages of her books. Before she knows it, she's in the middle of her own big jungle adventure. After an unintentional encounter with a rainbow frog, Anni learns to understand the language of animals. And soon her best friends include a singing cockroach, a cheeky street dog and a bright jaguar child.

The German Children's Book Prize is awarded every year to coincide with the Frankfurt Book Fair and recognizes not only outstanding authors, but also the importance of high-quality children's and young adult literature. The Children's Book Prize is intended to help produce even more books that encourage the imagination and creativity of young readers. More information on the German Children's Book Prize can be found on the website at https://deutscher-kinderbuchpreis.com.