RELEASE: The Secretary of State for Education presents the SM El Barco de Vapor and Gran Angular 2023 Awards

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· Braver than Napoleon by Mónica Rodríguez and The Summer in which the Wolves Came by Patricia García-Rojo, the winning works of the SM El Barco de Vapor and Gran Angular 2023 Awards, respectively

· The authors were accompanied by the Secretary of State for Education of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, José Manuel Bar Cendón, and by Rocío Albert López-Ibor, Deputy Minister of Educational Policy of the Community of Madrid, among other prominent authorities from the world of culture and education

· The event, presented by the journalist and writer María Gómez, at the Real Casa de Correos in Madrid, celebrated the festival of culture, creativity and knowledge, hallmarks of these Awards

· The SM Foundation created these awards in 1978, the most important for Children's and Youth Literature in Spanish, to promote literary creation aimed at children and young people. A total of 302 manuscripts have been received in this edition.

Madrid, May 17, 2023.- The SM Foundation has today presented the SM El Barco de Vapor Award for children's literature to Mónica Rodríguez (Oviedo, 1969) for the book Braver than Napoleon, and the SM Gran Angular Award for literature youth to Patricia García-Rojo (Jaén, 1984) for The summer in which the wolves arrived, during a ceremony held at the Real Casa de Correos in Madrid. They received the award from the Secretary of State for Education of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, José Manuel Bar Cendón, in the company of Rocío Albert López-Ibor, Deputy Minister of Educational Policy of the Community of Madrid and the president of SM, José Manuel City.

During this ceremony for the forty-fifth edition of the SM Foundation's El Barco de Vapor and Gran Angular Awards, Cidad highlighted that Braver than Napoleon and The Summer in which the Wolves Came, "two stories of great literary quality that address issues as important as diversity, friendship or perseverance, encourage us to have the courage to take risks and get out of our comfort zone, but also to have the courage to remain, vindicating the importance of being true to oneself" in these moments in which "we need courage to face challenges and good literature to build a better society". He recalled that both authors take over from Juan Muñoz, author of Fray Perico and his donkey, who died last February, who received the Barco de Vapor Award for this work in 1980, in the second edition of these awards, "and who has left us an example of attitude towards life and commitment to his readers". He thanked both winners for sharing that same personal commitment to the SM Foundation, which, "in addition to granting these literature prizes and other illustration prizes and carrying out many other programs with the benefits of SM's editorial activity, is determined that no boy and girl are left behind and reading is essential learning for life.

The Secretary of State for Education, José Manuel Bar Cendón, underlined the importance of the bridges between literature and an education "capable of providing tools to those who* tomorrow will be in charge of changing the world".* That is why he valued that , through the winning works, "readers are invited to explore, understand and value the diversity that surrounds us. They show us different realities, teach us to accept and celebrate our differences.* In a world where diversity is It is an undeniable reality that children's and young people's literature plays a fundamental role in education and in the construction of an inclusive society."*

During her speech, the Deputy Minister for Educational Policy of the Community of Madrid, Rocío Albert López-Ibor, observed that "with technology and social networks, we consume a large number of images in a way that is certainly fast, dizzying, and adolescents In particular, they are exposed to a large number of images, all the time, every second." For this reason, she added, "it is very enriching that they can see that you can also create photos with your imagination, and that you can travel with a book without leaving home or posting it on TikTok or Instagram."

The event, presented by María Gómez, was held at the Real Casa de Correos in Madrid, with the presence of prominent institutional representatives, authors and illustrators, clients* and the media who, with their support for literature, in one way or another In another way, they are inspirational and storytellers.

SM El Barco de Vapor and Wide Angle Awards

The jury of the 2023 SM El Barco de Vapor Award has chosen Mónica Rodríguez's Braver Than Napoleon as the best work of children's literature for being "a book that excites from the beginning and is read with the tension with which a tightrope walker walks a tightrope ; a parade of extraordinary characters that steal your heart. The author juggles language and endows it with a brilliance capable of recreating the greatest spectacle in the world. It is a hymn to life, freedom and the search for happiness that vindicates bravery in all its senses".

For its part, the jury's decision to award the 2023 SM Gran Angular Award to the youth literature El verano en que llegó los lobos by Patricia García-Rojo, is based on the fact that "it casts a poetic look at the conflicts of a community ; It fosters an interesting reflection on differences and prejudices, and creates a narrative artifact that combines fantasy, love and mystery".

After the event, the call for the 46th edition of the SM El Barco de Vapor and Gran Angular Awards was open, whose winners will be announced in 2024.

These awards, endowed with 35,000 euros each, are the most important in the world in the field of children's and young people's literature in Spanish, which contributes to the reception of a large number of originals from all over Spain and various countries in the Americas. Latina.

About the SM Foundation

SM, through the SM Foundation, annually allocates more than 200,000 euros to the SM Literature and Illustration Awards.

The SM Foundation has been committed for more than forty years to the promotion of reading as a source of learning and development of girls, boys and young people. It maintains its commitment to quality literature that is attractive and entertaining, while at the same time transmitting human, social and cultural values. It focuses all its initiatives on improving educational equity and quality in the Latin American countries in which it is present. So that no girl or boy is left behind.

Transmitter:*

www.grupo-sm.com/es

For more information:

Communication SM Spain

comunicacionsm@info.grupo-sm.com*

Carmen Palomino - (34) 649 45 46 80

Goretti Redondo - (34) 664 779 481