The Berlin illustrator Nadia Budde receives the Uwe Lüders Prize for Illustration Art in Children’s and Young Adult Books 2025 for her previous work and in particular for the illustration of The Band Nobody Knows (Die Band, die keiner kennt), Peter Hammer 2024.
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The Jury:
‘Nadia Budde has been shining with anarchic picture book art for over 25 years. It all started with One Two Three Me (Eins zwei drei Tier) (Peter Hammer Verlag 1999) and continued with Sad Tiger Toasting Tomatoes (Trauriger Tiger toastet Tomaten) – since then, the Berlin illustrator has been making one trenchant precision landing after another with rhymes and picture drum rolls of Dadaist proportions. This is also the case with The Band Nobody Knows (Die Band, die keiner kennt). Wacky musicians meet pompous provincials, they are eyed suspiciously, eye contact or rather avoidance of eye contact reflects the mood, eyes become motifs, body language says: ‘We don’t know each other!’. This goes right down to the tips of the hair, because in Budde’s cosmos, hair quiffs are as style-defining as graphic reduction and intense colour. In the end, a fabulous party with ruckus, clamour and racket ensues. The always memorable characters are as flat as the hairstyles, the band moves on, but now the motto is: ‘We know them!’. After all, that’s what it’s all about: openness, curiosity, tolerance. This is stunning reinterpretation art. The picture book: a smash hit with depth, the overall work: once again excellent,’ was the jury’s verdict.