History as well as a valuable statement as to the direction of children's literature has been made with the announcement of this year's Children's Books Ireland Bisto Book of the Year award.
For the first time in the award's 13-year history, the overall prize, now worth €10,000, has been shared between two books, with Kate Thompson's superb period quest adventure, The Alchemist's Apprentice, and Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick's witty tale, You, Me and the Big Blue Sea emerging as joint winners.
Kate Thompson also made Bisto history by yesterday winning the top award for the second successive year, while writer/illustrator Fitzpatrick compounds her position as an original.
The judges made a strong statement of their belief in the enduring power of traditional storytelling at its finest.
Ms Celia Keenan, the non-voting chairwoman of the five-member judging panel of primary teachers and university lecturers, told The Irish Times: "The judges wanted to highlight the diversity of books being published for children. They felt that they were looking at two books of equal merit and that it would be unfair if the prize had gone to one of them."
Far more disturbingly, however, Ms Kennan, announcing the winners, also expressed concern at the falling number of children's books by Irish writers. "There is," she said, "a crisis in Irish publishing for children", and she also referred to the cuts in Arts Council funding in this area.
Among the most severely hit has been O'Brien Press, a pioneering influence in the publishing of children's books in Ireland.
The Press, which had three contenders among nine shortlisted titles and took two prizes, including the Eilis Dillon Award for the best first novel with Grace Wells's Gyrfalcon, has seen its funding cut from €38,000 a year to nothing.
Children's Books Ireland (CBI), the national organisation with a specific role in the promotion of children's books and reading, has also seen its modest €184,000 funding reduced by 2 per cent.
"We are extremely concerned," said Ms Claire Ransom, executive director of CBI, "that next year could see greater cuts. Other literary organisations suffered 25 per cent funding losses. If CBI were to experience such a cut next year our programme would be drastically diminished."
Another serious issue has been the debate about the increasingly sexualised nature of books aimed at the developing teenage market.
It is significant to note that all of yesterday's winners shared a common storytelling emphasis. Teen fiction, which had a definite presence on the short list, is a recent and increasingly disturbing phenomenon, blurring the lines between children's and adult fiction.
According Kate Thompson, born in Yorkshire but based in Co Galway: "Children are not less intelligent than adults, they are just not experienced."