{"id":605299,"date":"2026-04-15T08:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T08:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/605299\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T08:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T08:50:08","slug":"winnipeg-born-author-illustrator-wins-swedish-prize-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/605299\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnipeg-born author-illustrator wins Swedish prize \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canadian picture book author-illustrator Jon Klassen has won the 2026 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, presented annually by the Swedish Arts Council and considered one of the richest literary prizes in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The award \u2014 named after the late Swedish children\u2019s author and is presented to \u201ca person or organization for their outstanding contribution to children\u2019s and young adult literature\u201d \u2014 is worth five million Swedish krona, or about $749,000.<\/p>\n<p>Klassen was born in Winnipeg, grew up in Niagara Falls, Ont., and now lives in Los Angeles and is the bestselling author\/illustrator of I Want My Hat Back, This Is Not My Hat, The Skull, The Rock From the Sky and others. He has previously won the Caldecott and Kate Greenaway medals, and in 2018 was appointed to the Order of Canada.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4138988_web1_20708165_AR-BK-PAX-JON-KLASSEN.JPG\" data-pswp- data-pswp-width=\"1125\" data-pswp-height=\"1433\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4138988_web1_20708165_AR-BK-PAX-JON-KLASSEN.JPG\" alt=\"Supplied&#10;                                Jon Klassen\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Supplied<\/p>\n<p>Jon Klassen<\/p>\n<p>The Swedish-based administrators of the prize and organizers of Italy\u2019s Bologna Children\u2019s Book Fair announced Klassen as the winner of the prize on April 14. Klassen will receive the award from Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden at a ceremony in Stockholm on May 25.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 staff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadian picture book author-illustrator Jon Klassen has won the 2026 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, presented annually by the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-605299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}