KOALAs 2016 winners announced

The 2016 winners of New South Wales’ annual children’s choice awards, the Kids Own Australian Literature Awards (KOALAs), have been announced.

The winners and honour books in each category are:

Picture Book

• Pig the Fibber (Aaron Blabey, Scholastic)

Honour books

• The Stone Lion (Margaret Wild, illus by Ritva Voutila, Little Hare)
• Thelma the Unicorn (Aaron Blabey, Scholastic)

Fiction for younger readers

• The Bad Guys: Episode One (Aaron Blabey, Scholastic)

Honour books

• You Choose: Alien Invaders from Beyond the Stars (George Ivanoff, Random House)
• Alice-Miranda at Camp (Jacqueline Harvey, Random House)

Fiction for older readers

• The 65-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Pan)

Honour books

• Ugly (Robert Hoge, Hachette)
• WeirDo 5: Totally Weird! (Anh Do, illus by Jules Faber, Scholastic)

Fiction for years 7-9

• Soon (Morris Gleitzman, Viking)

Honour books

• My Life as an Alphabet (Barry Jonsberg, A&U)
• 13: The Last Thirteen Book One (James Phelan, Scholastic).

The awards, which marked its 30th anniversary this year, were announced at Blackheath Public School in the Blue Mountains on 3 November. Winners are 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: Junior Local news