Arab Child Literature Awards represent a large part of the attention of Arab publishers and writers alike, as some of them are granted to the writer who creates literature for the child, and others are given to the publisher of this literature. It was obligatory for both sides of the equation to improve their production in form and content to receive one of the Arab child literature awards, whose values are different.
With a panoramic view, we see that the researcher will not be able to fully tackle the topic of Arab children literature awards in a quick discussion and in a number of words mentioned herein. However, a panoramic view on the map of Arab children literature awards is sufficient to define the features of this issue and highlight the importance of delving into its findings by cultural institutions and those concerned with this topic, which prompted a large number of publishers to specialize exclusively in the production of children's literature books in our Arab world, and urged others to publish children's books, in addition to adult books, in which they are specialized.
The geography of Arab child literature awards indicates that these awards are distributed on the map of the great Arab world from its east to west and vary in terms of number, as well as financial and moral value from one country to another, as some of which equal millions of numbers, like Etisalat Award for Arabic Children's Literature, organized by the UAE Council for Young People's Books, and sponsored by Etisalat with a value of One Million and Two Hundred Thousand Emirati Dirham. The value of some awards is estimated by hundreds Emirati Dirham, and we will not mention them, for example, in order to prevent embarrassment for their owners. Some of the awards are granted by Arab governments and Ministries of Culture, including those given by cultural and media institutions, such as Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation for Children's Literature in Jordan. This Foundation is considered as a main part of Arab Bank for cultural and social responsibility. In addition, there is Mustapha Azouz Award for Child Literature, which is organized in partnership between Children's Literature Forum and Arab Bank in Tunisia. Both awards, Shoman and Azouz, publish the winning books, in addition to granting a certain amount to the winners. Some of the awards are given by private institutions in the name of cultural figures for the immortalization of such figures. We can mention awards like Nagi Noman Literary Award in Lebanon, which does not give the winner a cash amount. Instead, Noman Culture House publishes his work within "Culture for Free" Project. Some of the awards are related to a branch within a more comprehensive system, like Sheikh Zayed Book Award / Child Literature Section, and the state's discretionary and encouraging awards in some Arab countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Syria, among which children literature could be one of its sections. Moreover, some of the awards that children's writers compete in Egypt include National Center for Child Culture Award and Egypt Award for Children's Literature, which was known as Suzanne Mubarak Award for Children's Literature.
When we talk about the periodicity of Arab Child Literature Awards, we find that most of them are granted annually, except for some awards such as Kuwait International Competition for writing children's stories presented by General Secretariat of Endowments in Kuwait once every two years, and its topic is dedicated for endowment, charitable and voluntary work. It grants the top three winners a total of 30 thousand US Dollars, in addition to publishing their winning works. The periodicity of some Arab awards is not stable, due to its stumbling and irregular offering.
Considering the targeted groups of the awards, we see that they are directed at children's writers in particular, including what engages a children's book illustrator with the writer. A third category adds the book publisher to the winning team, and perhaps one of the awards that include the targeted group is Arab Children’s Book Publishers Forum Award, which was launched by HH Sheikh Dr. Sultan Al Qassimi in Sharjah in 2008, as HH was in charge of upgrading the publishing profession and caring about the affairs of children book publishers, so that the Arab child book can reach the desired level in form and content. Hence, the award represents a motivation for its members to compete in producing the best book for the Arab child.
Arbitration of Arab children's literature awards, its committees, and standards may represent a controversial issue between its parties that begins and does not end. It ranges between questioning the defect in the standards, and challenging the capabilities of the arbitration committees, their specializations and experiences, the extent to which the award departments interfere with the decisions of the committees, and sometimes the political system control of the culture, etc. thus, it is required to hold workshops, seminars and serious dialogues between the concerned parties to liberate the issue of disagreement and come up with frameworks that would keep the prestige and reputation of the awards, and motivate those targeted people to participate effectively and get involved in the competition safely, so that our Arab awards could reach the level of international awards, such as Hans Christian Andersen Award, Bologna International Fair Award for children's books in Italy, and Astrid Lindgren Award for Literature in Sweden, and others.