Lots of interested children, inspiring guests and an eagerly awaited announcement of the winners – the award ceremony for this year’s Lese-Kicker was synonymous with a very successful conclusion to our nationwide reading promotion project.
The award ceremony took place on Tuesday afternoon, December 6, 2022, at the Evangelische Akademie in Frankfurt.
The prize for the best children’s football book went to Birgit Hasselbusch (“Hallo, hej und Marhaba – Freundschaftsspiel mit Doppelpass”, Thienemann-Esslinger Verlag), while Sven Voss (“Fußball-Stars: 40 Idole und ihre Geschichten”, EMF Verlag) was delighted to receive the prize for the best youth football book.
In addition to this year’s nominated authors, 60 children from the participating schools were also present at the award ceremony.
The pupils proudly announced their award winners on behalf of the Lese-Kicker children’s jury.
Birgit Hasselbusch’s winning book “Hallo, hej und Marhaba – Freundschaftsspiel mit Doppelpass” is a story about the integrative power of soccer and how it brings children from different backgrounds together.
In “Football stars: 40 idols and their stories” by Sven Voss, the author conveys special and inspiring life stories of great soccer stars in an age-appropriate way.
Sven Voss himself was unable to attend work due to the World Cup, but was able to join in live from Qatar to the delight of all participants.
With Lese-Kicker 2022, we have reached over 2,000 children who have engaged intensively with the 10 nominated children’s and soccer books with the help of teaching materials tailored to the book content.
Once again, we would like to thank everyone involved, especially our partners, participating schools, nominated authors and publishers.
Together, they have made a great contribution to the fact that reading is not as boring as some children might have initially thought – especially when the topic of soccer plays a role.
© LitCam/Witters
The trophy for the best soccer children’s book and soccer youth book was presented with prize money of €1,500 at the official awards ceremony.
New soccer publications (spring 2020 to spring 2022) from the fields of fiction and non-fiction for children aged 8 to 12 and young people aged 12 to 16 were nominated.
The winning authors were ultimately decided by a jury consisting of:
- 100 school classes nationwide
- Ridle Baku, professional footballer and ambassador for “Fußball trifft Kultur”
- Nia Künzer, soccer world champion
- Tim Gailus, TV presenter “Timster”
- Olliver Tietz, Managing Director of the DFB Cultural Foundation
- Claudia Pecher, German Academy for Children’s and Youth Literature e.V.
- Matthias Thoma, Managing Director of Eintracht Frankfurt Museum GmbH
- Kaspar Pflaum, German Publishers and Booksellers Association
- Norbert Niclauß, Advisor to the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media
- Karin Plötz, Director of LitCam
The Lese-Kicker is awarded to the most appealing children’s and youth book in terms of idea, linguistic implementation and graphic design that best succeeds in inspiring people to read about soccer. As part of a Germany-wide reading promotion campaign that accompanies the Lese-Kicker, the books are also judged by 100 school classes from all over Germany.
This means that the Lese-Kicker is not just an award ceremony, but a nationwide reading promotion project in which the children of the participating schools are encouraged to read and engage intensively with the books with the help of teaching materials tailored to the books.
You can find out more about Lese-Kicker 2022 and this year’s highlights from the project here.
