Walker acquires Neridah McMullin picture book
16 September 2019
Walker Books Australia has acquired world rights to a new picture book by Neridah McMullin called The Drover. Based a true story, the book follows a young female drover as...
Love wins 2019 Klaus Flugge Prize
12 September 2019
In the UK, Jessica Love has won the £5000 (A$8990) Klaus Flugge Prize for most promising newcomer to children’s picture book illustration for Julian is a Mermaid (Walker Books), reports...
The Children’s Bookshop to close in November
11 September 2019
The Children’s Bookshop in the Sydney suburb of Beecroft will close at the end of November. The shop opened in 1971 and has been owned by Paul Macdonald for the...
Walker to distribute new UK children’s publisher in ANZ
11 September 2019
A new UK-based independent children’s publisher will launch in 2020, with Walker Books Australia to handle local distribution. Australian ex-pat Rachel Williams and colleague Jenny Broom will launch Magic Cat...
Hardie Grant Egmont to release new Billie B Brown books to celebrate 10 years
10 September 2019
Hardie Grant Egmont (HGE) will publish three new Billie B Brown books (Sally Rippin, illus by Aki Fukuoka) in April 2020, to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the bestselling series....
Scaling new heights: H M Waugh on ‘The Lost Stone of SkyCity’
5 September 2019
H M Waugh’s middle-grade fantasy The Lost Stone of SkyCity (Fremantle Press, October) is set in the mountainous worlds of the Dirt and the Ice. Reviewer Catherine Moller spoke to...
Noni, Black win 2019 Inky Awards
4 September 2019
Lynette Noni and Holly Black have won the 2019 Inky Awards, presented by State Library Victoria (SLV). Noni’s dystopian YA novel Whisper (Pantera) won the Gold Inky Award for an...
Place of exchange: Jane Stratton on Lost in Books
4 September 2019
Lost in Books is a multilingual children’s bookshop in Fairfield, Sydney. A project of the Think+Do Tank Foundation, the shop’s mission is to celebrate and support multilingual literacy and creativity....
‘My Pet Star’ named Sainsbury’s Children’s Book of the Year 2019
30 August 2019
UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has announced the winners of its 2019 Children’s Book Awards. The overall prize for children’s book of the year was awarded to My Pet Star (Rosalind...
Fremantle sells ‘Antarctica’ picture book to US
28 August 2019
Fremantle Press has sold US rights to Moira Court’s forthcoming picture book Antarctica to Massachusetts-based children’s publisher Charlesbridge. ‘Charlesbridge’s roots are in nature nonfiction, which is what attracted them to...
Puffin grants in New Zealand
28 August 2019
As part of Puffin’s upcoming 80th anniversary, the publisher offered grants valuing up to NZ$5000 each to bookstores to fund initiatives to get kids reading. Brad Jefferies chatted to three...
‘The Secret Runners of New York’ tops July YA bestsellers chart
23 August 2019
Matthew Reilly’s dystopian time-travel thriller The Secret Runners of New York leads the Australian YA bestsellers chart for July, unseating the film tie-in edition of Storm Boy, which has dropped to...
Scribble sells Bell and Colpoys picture books in first German deal
22 August 2019
Scribe’s children’s imprint, Scribble, has sold German-language rights to Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys’ picture books All the Ways to be Smart and The Underwater Fancy-Dress Parade to Suhrkamp. The...
Hardie Grant Egmont sells ‘Welcome to Your Period’ to four territories
21 August 2019
Hardie Grant Egmont has sold rights in four territories to Welcome to Your Period (Yumi Stynes and Melissa Kang). North American rights were sold to Walker Books/Candlewick Press in a...
Australian Children’s Laureate Foundation, Amazon partner to donate books to school libraries
21 August 2019
Amazon Australia has partnered with the Australian Children’s Laureate Foundation (ACLF) and children’s laureate Morris Gleitzman to donate $20,000 worth of books to 40 Australian primary school libraries. Each school...
Twelfth Planet Press launches ‘inclusive’ new imprint for pre-teens
19 August 2019
Independent genre publisher Twelfth Planet Press has launched a new imprint for pre-teen readers. The Titania imprint will specialise in ‘diverse stories for children in the 3–13 age range, with...
Moloney wins 2019 CBCA Nan Chauncy Award
16 August 2019
The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has presented James Moloney with the 2019 CBCA Nan Chauncy Award for his contribution to Australian children’s literature. Moloney is the author of...
CBCA Awards 2019 winners announced
16 August 2019
The winners of this year’s Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards have been announced. The winning titles in each of the categories are: Older readers...
Storylines launches te reo Māori manuscript award
16 August 2019
Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust has announced a new award for an unpublished manuscript written in te reo Māori, reports Booksellers NZ. The new award is named in honour of...
Affirm appoints Bell kids commissioning editor, Whelan editor
15 August 2019
Affirm Press has appointed senior editor Davina Bell as the new commissioning editor for its kids list. Assistant editor Meg Whelan has also been promoted to editor of the kids...
Rosenbloom selected for Shanghai Visiting International Publishers program
14 August 2019
Scribble publisher Miriam Rosenbloom has been awarded a Shanghai Visiting International Publishers fellowship to attend a specialist program alongside the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair in November this year. The...
UQP appoints Hume as commissioning editor for children’s and YA
14 August 2019
The University of Queensland Press (UQP) has appointed Clair Hume as commissioning editor for children’s and young adult books. Hume, who joined Affirm Press in 2016 to launch the Melbourne-based...
Environment Award for Children’s Literature 2019 shortlist announced
14 August 2019
The Wilderness Society has announced the shortlist for the 2019 Environment Award for Children’s Literature. The shortlisted books in each category are: Picture fiction: More and More and More (Ian...
‘The Bomb’ named book of the year at 2019 NZ Book Awards for Children and YA
8 August 2019
The Bomb by author Sacha Cotter and illustrator Josh Morgan (Huia Publishers) has won the Margaret Mahy book of the year award, as well as the picture book award, at...
Taking control of your TBR pile: Mischa Parkee’s top picks for forthcoming children’s titles
31 July 2019
Mischa Parkee, primary school teacher and children’s specialist at Sydney’s Better Read Than Dead, shares her top picks for forthcoming children’s titles. There comes a time when any reader must...
All hands on deck: Inside The Little Bookroom with Michael Earp
31 July 2019
Situated in Melbourne’s inner north, The Little Bookroom is Australia’s oldest dedicated children’s bookshop. In his bookseller’s diary, children’s literature specialist Michael Earp reveals how a combination of experience, new ideas...
Lindfield Bookshop & Children’s Bookshop to close
30 July 2019
Lindfield Bookshop & Children’s Bookshop in Sydney’s North Shore will close at the end of August after 46 years of operation. Owner Scott Whitmont said it’s with ‘considerable sadness’ that...
Berbay to expand publishing program in 2020
29 July 2019
Melbourne-based children’s publisher Berbay Books will double its publishing list from eight to 16 titles in 2020, as well as publishing its first graphic novel, chapter book and junior fiction...
Holiday book haul: Junior Christmas 2019 preview
24 July 2019
Kelsey Oldham rounds up some local highlights from publishers’ 2019 Christmas lists. (See our adult fiction and nonfiction highlights here.) Aussie favourites Some of our most celebrated Australian children’s authors...
‘Stone Girl’ wins 2019 Readings YA book prize
23 July 2019
Eleni Hale has won the 2019 Readings Young Adult Book Prize for her novel Stone Girl (Penguin). Hale’s novel was chosen from a shortlist of six for the $3000 prize,...
