My Father the Great Pirate, Davide Cali and Maurizio Quarello’s stirring tale of a young boy’s search for the truth about his father, has been nominated for Germany’s most prestigious children’s book prize.

The book, which we published in English for the first time in late 2014, has been nominated in the children’s book category of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, the German Youth Literature Award.

The award is the equivalent of Australia’s Children’s Book of the Year Awards and is open to children’s books published in Germany. The creators do not have to be German, however.

As well as some euros, winners of the Deutscher Literaturepreis receive a ‘Momo’, a 30 cm-high bronze statue inspired by the eponymous character of Michael Ende’s celebrated 1973 novel.

My Father the Great Pirate is inspired by the lives of migrant mine workers and their families and is set against the background of one of Europe’s worst mining disasters.

The four category winners of the prize will be announced at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair in October. We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for Davide and Maurizio and their German publisher, Jacoby & Stuart.