Tongue-twisters charm

New Zealand children’s author Margaret Mahy has won a best picture book award for Bubble Trouble at the 2009 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards for excellence in children’s and young adult literature announced June 2. Mahy, winner of the 2006 Hans Christian Andersen Award and a two-time recipient of Boston Globe–Horn Book Award honour book citations, marks her second collaboration with English illustrator Polly Dunbar in Bubble Trouble, a tongue-twisting tale about an airborne baby. The Washington Post describes the picture book as “mixing acrobatic language and tongue-tangling rhymes to a lighter-than-air offering” and a “launchpad for laughter.” The award ceremony will be held in the United States on October 2 at the Boston Athenaeum in Boston. Acceptance speeches of the award winners will be published in the January/February 2010 issue of The Horn Book Magazine. Mahy has published over 200 titles.