Airport News Japan

“International Environmental Picture Book Contest” Awards Ceremony at Haneda Airport - “Leaf Paintwork” Gets Grand Prize

The cover page design of the picture book “Sakura’s Blue Sky.” Image: ANA

On March 3, the All Nippon Airways (ANA) Group held an awards ceremony for its “My Skies” International Environmental Picture Book Contest in Terminal 2 of Haneda Airport, Ohta Ward, Tokyo.

The contest is organized to impart the children of the next generation with “an attitude that values the environment, nature, living things and natural resources” and to offer “parents the chance to talk with each other about the environment.”

This was the seventh such contest to be held. Picture books with an “environmental” theme were collected from June through September. There were 366 submissions from 20 Japanese prefectures and seven countries outside Japan by people aged 5 to 71. The grand prize went to Kazuo Akasaki of Kumamoto Prefecture for his “leaf paintwork” entitled “Sakura’s Blue Sky,” a work made only with leaves.

At the awards ceremony, C. W. Nicol, the head of the selection committee, presented Mr. Akasaki with an official certificate, a prize of 200,000 yen and a further prize of 50,000 points in the ANA Mileage Club. As he greeted Mr. Akasaki, Mr. Nicol said the work was so wonderful that it was decided as “the [candidate] for the grand prize at first glance.” He praised it as “a picture book of a warm-hearted and lovely plane trip.”

In spring, 50,000 copies of the book will be printed in Japanese and English so that children around the world will be able to read it. It will be available in ANA planes and distributed to daycare centers, pre-schools and elementary schools in Japan and abroad.

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