Another win for a graphic novel as Jillian Tamaki won canada’s Governor General Award : for This One Summer in the Children’s Literature Illustrations category. This is a prestigious Canadian literary award, and its the first win for a graphic novel, although cousin Mariko Tamaki was nominated for their previous collaboration, Skim, and Mariko was nominated in the Children’s Literature category this year. Jillian gets the hometown hero treatment from the Edmonton Journal (she’s a native of Calgary.)
It’s the first Governor General nomination for Jillian Tamaki but, strangely, not the first time her work has been nominated. There was controversy back in 2008 when Skim, the first book she created with her cousin, was nominated in the text category but not for illustrations. Tamaki argues that separating illustration and story into two categories for comics does not make a lot of sense, suggesting that it may be time for a separate category for graphic novels.
“It’s the same strange divorce of text and image for this one as well,” Tamaki says. “I think we are both creators of the book. You can’t read a comic without either component, it won’t make sense. It’s something I will always be addressing when talking about the award. But I am completely flattered by the honour and will be sharing the prize with my cousin.”
The National Book Awards ceremony is tonight where Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant is a finalist. Fingers crossed!
