India, May 15 -- The aim with board books, says Jon Klassen, is to create worlds in which nothing happens. "Babies don't need stories. They need a reason to turn the page."

Well, something has happened.

Klassen's body of literary work - eight titles aimed at readers aged three to nine - has won the Swedish government's $500,000 Astrid Lindgren prize for children's literature.

"I had felt like I was hiding out a little in these books," says Klassen, 44, a Canadian writer and illustrator now living in Los Angeles. "I wonder what made the jury choose me over the other writers in the running?"

The citation more than answers that question. "Through his subtle and evocative storytelling. Klassen opens new perspectives on our place in the un...