The longlist for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award has been released. It is the world’s largest prize in children’s literature with a purse worth more than $600,000.

215 authors and illustrators have been nominated from 59 countries around the world for the 2016 award.

   

American nominees include Eric Carle, Neil Gaiman, Maira Kalman, Ursula Le Guin, Lois Lowry, Naomi Shihab Nye, Peter Sis and David Wiesner.

  

United Kingdom nominees include Allan Ahlberg, David Almond, Quentin Blake, Raymond Briggs, Aidan Chambers, Michael Foreman, Morris Gleitzman, Shirley Hughes, Oliver Jeffers, Michael Morpurgo, Patrick Ness, and Marcus Sedgwick.