MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY) will give the grand prize award of the 2020 PBBY-Alcala Prize to illustrator Victoria Melissa R. Tadiar during the 37th National Children’s Book Day (NCBD) celebration on July 21, 2020.
Tadiar won for her illustrations based on Boon Kristoffer Lauw’s chapter book, Team Abangers at ang Estilong Trumpo. Lauw won the grand prize at the 2020 PBBY-Salanga Prize, the first time the competition was opened to chapter books.
A full-time IT professional who works on comics and illustrations in her free time, Tadiar won the Komiket Best Komiks Award in 2017 for her Filipiniana fantasy comic SAGALA, which was released as a self-published graphic novel in 2019. Her current project, Twinkle, Twinkle, is an Official Selection finalist at the First Philippine International Comics Festival (PICOF). She is also a new member of Ang InK (Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan), the only professional organization of children’s illustrators.
The 2020 PBBY-Alcala Prize and PBBY-Salanga Prize winners will also receive cash prizes amounting to 25,000 pesos each (subject to tax). The aforementioned cash prizes will be given by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) as an expression of its support to visual and literary artists for children in the Philippines.
The CCP and the Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY) celebrate NCBD every third Tuesday of July to commemorate the anniversary of the publication of Jose Rizal’s rendition of the folk tale The Monkey and the Turtle in the July 1889 issue of Trubner’s Oriental Record in London. Former CCP President and National Artist, Lucresia Kasilag was one of the founders of PBBY.
