Visually impaired child wins competition

A thirteen year old visually impaired girl has beaten off the opposition to win a special competition to design a Christmas card for National Book Tokens.The competition, which was run by the National Library for the Blind (NLB) in conjunction with National Book Tokens, asked visually impaired children from across the UK to design a 'Reading at Christmas' National Book Token card.Kirsty Hill, 13, from Port Talbot, was chosen as the winner of the competition by Oscar winning animator Jan Pinkava, and was presented with her prize by author Michael Morpurgo at a special event in London last night.

The winning artwork will be used on a Christmas National Book Token card later this year and will be available in over 3,000 book shops with over 100,000 copies produced in total.Kirsty said: "I'm really excited that my drawing will be used on a card and that so many people will be able to buy it. My friends will all be really pleased and I can't wait until Christmas!"Claire Briscoe from the National Library for the Blind said: "We had lots of entries for the competition and our judges had a really difficult time choosing the winner.

We are very excited about Kirsty's design and are sure that it will be a favourite with shoppers next Christmas."She added: "Only 5% of books published in the UK each year ever make it into a format that visually impaired people can read such as Braille, audio or giant print. This is due to the fact that charities such as NLB, who do not receive any regular government funding, are the main producers of books in alternative formats.

We are a small charity so we need all the help we can get to transcribe more books into Braille and be able to loan them to visually impaired people. Support from organisations such as National Book Tokens is vital to enable us to continue our work."The competition is the second collaboration between the National Library for the Blind and National Book Tokens - a special NLB Book Token card is already on sale in book shops.

Alex de Berry from National Book Tokens said: "The standard of entries for the competition was very high and we are really pleased with the winning entry. We are delighted to be working with the National Library for the Blind on this initiative and are very excited about making the winning design into a National Book Token Christmas card."