The first of the "Jim Button" novels was published in 1960. About a year later, on the morning of the announcement that his novel, "Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver", had won the German Prize for Children's Fiction, Ende was being sued by his landlady for seven months' rent backpayment. With the prize money of five thousand marks, Michael Ende's financial situation improved substantially and his writing career began in earnest. After the awards ceremony, he embarked on his first reading tour, and within a year, the first "Jim Knopf" book was also nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and received the Berlin Literary Prize for Youth Fiction.