Showcasing Australian children’s books following cancelled Bologna fair
Thursday, 19 March 2020
With the Bologna Children’s Book Fair cancelled in the wake of the worldwide coronavirus outbreak, the focus for publishers will inevitably shift to online rights-selling and networking opportunities. After all,...
‘The 117-Storey Treehouse’ tops 2019 Australian children’s chart
Thursday, 19 March 2020
The 117-Storey Treehouse, the ninth book in Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton’s internationally published junior fiction series, was the bestselling Australian children’s book in 2019. It managed to hold off...
Affirm acquires new picture book from Godwin, Lester
Thursday, 19 March 2020
Children’s/YA acquisitions Affirm Press has acquired the rights to Sing Me the Summer (November), a new picture book from bestselling children’s book creators Jane Godwin and Alison Lester (pictured), which...
Mammoth (Chris Flynn, UQP)
Friday, 28 February 2020
Chris Flynn’s third novel is an ambitious adventure back in time that recounts the folly of humanity—as told by the fossil of a 13,000-year-old mammoth. It sounds like it could...
Where is Claris in Paris!
Wednesday, 12 February 2020
A brand-new search-and-find series starring Claris, the chicest mouse in Paris! With a quarter of a million Claris books in print, readers can’t get enough of this stylish little mouse!...
Oil Under Troubled Water
Wednesday, 12 February 2020
In May 2018 Bernard Collaery, a former Attorney-General of the Australian Capital Territory and long-term legal counsel to the government of East Timor, was charged by the Australian Commonwealth Director...
The Powerbroker: Mark Leibler, an Australian Jewish Life
Wednesday, 12 February 2020
From the ashes of the darkest event in human history, Australian Jews built a thriving community, one with proportionally more Holocaust survivors than anywhere else in the world bar Israel....
Popular Art and the Avant-Garde: Vincent van Gogh’s Collection of Newspaper and Magazine Prints
Wednesday, 12 February 2020
When Vincent van Gogh picked up his pencil and set out on his artistic career, it was not with the intention of becoming a leader of the avant-garde art world....
Uplit and practical climate change titles predicted for 2020
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
When Books+Publishing asked Australian publishers, booksellers and industry leaders to share their predictions for 2020, uplifting fiction and nonfiction were widely predicted, as well as titles that offer practical solutions...
Lead titles for LBF from Australian publishers & agents
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
A number of Australian publishers and literary agents will be heading to this year’s London Book Fair in March, with some taking their own stands, others joining their parent company...
Christos Tsiolkas’ ‘Damascus’ wins best fiction at VPLAs
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
The winners of the prestigious Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards have been announced. Christos Tsiolkas’ Damascus (Allen & Unwin) picked up the prize for fiction, Sea People: The puzzle of Polynesia...
The Fatal Lure of Politics: The Life and Thought of Vere Gordon Childe
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
A new and radically different biography of the Australian-born archaeologist and prehistorian, Vere Gordon Childe (1892-1957). In Britain, with the publication of The Dawn of European Civilisation (1925), Childe began a...
Dunera Lives: Profiles
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
The story of the ‘Dunera Boys’ is an intrinsic part of the history of Australia in the Second World War and in its aftermath. The injustice these 2000 men suffered...
‘Boy Swallows Universe’ and ‘The Barefoot Investor’ top 2019 Australian charts
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
Trent Dalton’s multi-award-winning debut novel Boy Swallows Universe and Scott Pape’s 2016 guide to household finance The Barefoot Investor have topped the Australian fiction and nonfiction charts for 2019—the third...
Marchetta’s Printz-winning YA novel to be adapted for TV
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
Melina Marchetta’s 2006 YA novel On the Jellicoe Road (Penguin Australia)—which was published in the US by HarperCollins and awarded a Printz Award for excellence in YA literature—is being adapted...
Debut novel sold into multiple territories; children’s guide to changing the world snapped up
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
Fiction sales International rights to Pip Williams’ forthcoming debut novel The Dictionary of Lost Words (Affirm, April) have sold in multiple territories, including UK and Commonwealth rights (ex ANZ) to...
Hardie Grant, UQP acquire books from Indigenous experts
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
Nonfiction acquisitions Hardie Grant Travel has acquired world rights to Fire Country, a memoir from Indigenous fire practitioner Victor Steffensen, and has fast-tracked publication for mid-February 2020. Steffensen said, ‘With...
The Vanishing Deep (Astrid Scholte, A&U)
Thursday, 6 February 2020
Tempest ekes out a living scavenging the sunken cities of a future flooded world, alone now after the death of her sister Elysea. But death is no longer the end....
Beautiful Eggs (Alice Lindstrom, Scribble)
Wednesday, 22 January 2020
In this board book, Melbourne-based artist and illustrator Alice Lindstrom uses her stunning cut-paper style of illustration to introduce the tradition of egg decoration across a number of cultures around...
Anti-bullying picture book wins Children’s Peace Literature Award
Thursday, 21 November 2019
Sue deGennaro’s picture book Missing Marvin (Scholastic) has won the Children’s Peace Literature Award, presented to a book that ‘encourages the peaceful resolution of conflict’ or ‘promotes peace at the...
‘The Baddest Day Ever’ tops Australian children’s fiction bestsellers chart
Thursday, 21 November 2019
Last year, Allen & Unwin acquired ANZ rights to three new children’s series by Anh Do, author of the bestselling middle-grade series ‘WeirDo’, ‘Hotdog!’ and ‘Ninja Kid’ (all Scholastic). Two...
‘All of the Factors of Why I Love Tractors’ sold to US, Canada
Thursday, 21 November 2019
Hardie Grant Egmont has sold US and Canadian rights to the picture book All of the Factors of Why I Love Tractors (Davina Bell, illus by Jenny Løvlie) to HarperCollins...
Children’s book awards shine a spotlight on small presses
Thursday, 21 November 2019
A number of Australian and international children’s book awards have been announced over the past month, and it’s interesting to see how many of the winning titles have been published...
‘The Glad Shout’ wins Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction
Thursday, 14 November 2019
Alice Robinson’s second novel The Glad Shout (Affirm Press)—‘an exhilarating novel that raises urgent questions about how we will experience the near future of our climate crisis’—has won the Readings...
Australians at Frankfurt report interest in climate change, MBS
Thursday, 14 November 2019
Australian publishers who attended this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair have reported strong interest in books on climate change and Mind Body Spirit (MBS). ‘Climate change was the big theme of...
Sara Foster’s suspense thrillers sold into US, UK
Thursday, 14 November 2019
Curtis Brown Australia has sold North American and UK and Commonwealth rights (ex ANZ and Canada) to two novels by bestselling psychological suspense author Sara Foster—The Hidden Hours and her...
‘Khaki Town’ and ‘488 Rules for Life’ top Australian charts
Thursday, 14 November 2019
The Australian fiction and nonfiction bestsellers charts have two new chart-toppers: Judy Nunn’s WWII novel Khaki Town, set in northern Australia on the brink of Japanese invasion, and comedian Kitty...
Beetle and Boo (Caitlin Murray, Puffin)
Friday, 8 November 2019
Beetle is not scared of anything. Monsters? Ghosts? Bad dreams? Wild storms and cracking thunder and lightning? Nope. Uh-uh. Not ever. Caitlin Murray’s Beetle and Boo is a story of...
Euphoria Kids (Alison Evans, Echo)
Friday, 8 November 2019
Euphoria Kids is a tender, contemporary fairytale about magic, friendship and gender identity. A departure from the horror elements of Alison Evans’ previous novels, this book focuses on the wonder...
Windy Hollow makes first North American sale
Thursday, 17 October 2019
Independent children’s publisher Windy Hollow has sold North American rights to the picture book Ivy Bird (Tania McCartney, illus by Jess Racklyeft) to Blue Dot Books. Ivy Bird introduces younger...
