KOALAs 2015 winners announced

10 November 2015 Books+Publishing

The winners of the 2015 Kids Own Australian Literature Awards (KOALAs), New South Wales’ annual children’s choice awards, have been announced.

The winning titles and honour books in each category are:

Picture storybooks

Pig the Pug (Aaron Blabey, Scholastic)

Honour books

The Fearsome Frightening Ferocious Box (Frances Watts, illus by David Legge, ABC Books)
The Terrible Plop (Ursula Dubosarsky, illus by Andrew Joyner, Puffin)

Fiction for younger readers

Billie B Brown: The Bully Buster (Sally Rippin, illus by Aki Fukuoka, Hardie Grant Egmont)

Honour books

EJ12: Time to Shine (Susannah McFarlane, Lemonfizz Media)
Pizza Cake (Morris Gleitzman, Puffin)

Fiction for older readers

The 52-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Pan)

Honour books

New City (Deborah Abela, Random House)
WeirDo: Extra Weird (Anh Do, illus by Jules Faber, Scholastic)

Fiction for years 7-9

Two Wolves (Tristan Bancks, Random House)

Honour books

Through My Eyes: Naveed (John Heffernan & Lynette White, A&U)
Wildlife (Fiona Wood, Pan).

The KOALA Hall of Fame award for 2015 went to author Oliver Phommavanh for Con-Nerd and Thai-Riffic (both Puffin). The Hall of Fame award is presented to books that have never won a KOALA but have been shortlisted five times in 10 years, demonstrating ‘enduring popularity with young readers in New South Wales’.

The awards were announced on 5 November at Newington College, Sydney. The winners of this year’s awards were selected from the Reading & Enjoying Australian Literature (REAL) Awards shortlist, which also acts as a shortlist for the children’s choice awards in the Australian Capital Territory (COOL Awards), Victoria (YABBAs) and the Northern Territory (KROC Awards).

For more information about the KOALAs, visit the website here.

Category: Local news