“A Guide to Rocks” named Book of the Year at 2026 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults
The winners of the 2026 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults have been announced, with author Sacha Cotter and illustrator Josh Morgan (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata) winning the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award for A Guide to Rocks.
A Guide to Rocks, which judges described as “storytelling at its finest”, also won the BookHub Picture Book Award, while its te reo Māori edition, He Taonga te Toka, translated by Kawata Teepa (Tūhoe, Te Whakatōhea), received the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for a Book Translated into Te Reo Māori.
Award organisers said the judges praised the book for its quintessentially Aotearoa New Zealand text and painterly illustrations, describing it as a book that “teaches, entertains and empowers”. They said the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award recognises a category winner that achieves outstanding overall excellence – a sincere, standout work that offers exceptional writing, illustration and design, and has the lasting quality to endure in Aotearoa beyond the awards.
Cotter and Morgan also won the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award in 2019 for The Bomb.
The winners in each category, chosen from shortlists announced in June from 159 entries, are:
The Margaret Mahy Book of the Year (NZ$8,500)
- A Guide to Rocks (Sacha Cotter, illustrated by Josh Morgan [Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata], Huia Publishers)
BookHub Picture Book Award (NZ$8,500)
- A Guide to Rocks (Sacha Cotter, illustrated by Josh Morgan [Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata], Huia Publishers)
Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction (NZ$8,500)
- Dreamslinger (Graci Kim, Penguin Random House New Zealand)
Wheelers Books Award for Young Adult Fiction (NZ$8,500)
- The Lost Saint (Rachael Craw, Allen & Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand)
Elsie Locke Award for Nonfiction (NZ$8,500)
- Whenua: Māori Pūrākau of Aotearoa (Isobel Joy Te Aho-White [Ngāti Kahungunu, Kāi Tahu], Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand)
Russell Clark Award for Illustration (NZ$8,500)
- Kupe and the Great Octopus of Muturangi (Mat Tait [Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau], Allen & Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand)
Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for a Book Originally Written in Te Reo Māori (NZ$8,500)
- Kupe me te Wheke nui a Muturangi (Mat Tait [Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau], Allen & Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand)
Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for a Book Translated into Te Reo Māori (NZ$8,500)
- He Taonga te Toka (Sacha Cotter, illustrated by Josh Morgan [Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata], translated by Kawata Teepa [Tūhoe, Te Whakatōhea ], Huia Publishers)
NZSA Best First Book Award (NZ$2,500)
- Te Onehaumako (Zeb Tamihana Nicklin [Pāhauwera, Ruapani, Tūhoe, Tāmanuhiri], Huia Publishers).
The 2026 awards ceremony is part of the inaugural New Zealand Children’s Book Week (15 to 21 August), which award organisers described as “a nationwide celebration that has seen schools, libraries, bookshops and communities across Aotearoa come together for storytimes, author events, workshops, the country’s first National Read Along and other activities, culminating in Book Parade Day on Friday 21 August”.
Category: Local news
