The Boy From the Mish (Gary Lonesborough, A&U)
25 November 2020
Jackson is an Aboriginal teen who lives with his mum and little brother; he has a girlfriend, good mates and the local men’s group. Then his aunty from the city...
CBCA restructures board, confirms 2021 Book Week theme
24 November 2020
The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has appointed Wendy Rapee as its new chair, and restructured its board, reducing its size from 12 directors to eight. The restructure of...
Book it in: 2021 children’s and YA preview
18 November 2020
Alongside a slate of new books by established children’s authors, next year looks to be a year of firsts, featuring books by debut authors, established authors trying their hands at...
Beneath the Trees (Cristy Burne, Fremantle Press)
18 November 2020
Cam and her little sister Sophie have travelled halfway across Australia to see some platypuses in the wild, and even their mum forcing them to wear bright yellow emergency ponchos...
Iceberg (Claire Saxby, illus by Jess Racklyeft, A&U)
18 November 2020
There is no absolutely question as to why Claire Saxby and Jess Racklyeft are both multi-award-winning creators, and this book is a perfect partnership, eliciting the very best from both...
S&S to publish Kerr children’s series and World Cup diary
18 November 2020
Simon & Schuster Australia (S&S) has acquired world rights to a new children’s series by Sam Kerr, captain of the Australian national women’s soccer team the Matildas, in a six-book...
Gay YA rom-com wins 2020 Ampersand Prize
11 November 2020
Hardie Grant Children's Publishing (HGCP) has announced that Auckland teacher and writer Helen Valley has won the 2020 Ampersand Prize for her YA novel Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean...
Float or Sink? (Kylie Covark, illus by Andrew Plant, Ford St)
5 November 2020
Kylie Covark’s Float or Sink? quickly develops (after an opening that doesn’t quite nail the meter/rhyme structure to come) into a lively, playful story and preschool children will undoubtedly relish...
Tiger Daughter (Rebecca Lim, A&U)
5 November 2020
From Rebecca Lim, author and co-editor of the Meet Me at the Intersection YA anthology, this coming-of-age tale is about finding your own voice as a young girl in a...
Wakefield announces YA horror anthology winning submissions
29 October 2020
Wakefield Press has announced the winning submissions to its national callout for contributions to its YA fiction anthology Hometown Haunts: #LoveOzYA Horror Tales. The four winning stories are: An 'intense,...
Little Gem (Anna Zobel, Puffin)
28 October 2020
Little Gem is a witch-in-training who has the best intentions but doesn’t always get things quite right. When a travelling spell goes wrong Gem finds herself in the unusual village...
Ampersand Prize 2020 shortlist announced
21 October 2020
Hardie Grant Children's Publishing (HGCP) has announced the shortlist for its 2020 Ampersand Prize for unpublished young adult and middle-grade fiction. The five shortlisted authors and their works are: Conan...
McLean receives inaugural $10k Albert Ullin Award
21 October 2020
Andrew McLean is the winner of the inaugural Albert Ullin Award. The $10,000 biennial award, created with a bequest from the late The Little Book Room co-founder Albert Ullin, is...
Let’s Go, Little Roo (Renée Treml, Puffin)
21 October 2020
Prolific author Renée Treml says she wrote Let's Go, Little Roo from experience with her own shy child, and Little Roo’s stubborn emotions and thought processes are certainly recognisable. (Though...
The Carbon-Neutral Adventures of the Indefatigable EnviroTeens (First Dog on the Moon, A&U)
21 October 2020
Political cartoonist First Dog on the Moon’s debut book for children is a delightfully absurd metatextual picture book/graphic novel hybrid starring a genius wombat inventor, a superhero social media celebrity...
Book Links announces new children’s historical fiction award
19 October 2020
Book Links, the Centre for Children’s Literature in Queensland, has announced a new biennial award, the Book Links Award for Children's Historical Fiction. A prize of $1000 will be awarded...
Study finds CBCA early childhood category shortlisted books overwhelmingly white
15 October 2020
A study of books shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year Award in the early childhood category since 2001 has found that only 12% of human main characters in...
New $10k Albert Ullin Award for children’s book creators
14 October 2020
The Victorian branch of the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) will administer a new $10,000 award for children's book creators, established with a bequest from the late Albert Ullin,...
An Amazing Australian Road Trip (Jackie Hosking, illus by Lesley Vamos, Walker Books)
14 October 2020
This cheerful picture book employs a lively rhyming narrative alongside factual snippets, creating a unique reading experience that is sure to appeal to fans of both fiction and nonfiction. The...
Hachette acquires Wilson picture book series
7 October 2020
Hachette Australia has acquired ANZ rights to a ‘funny and heartfelt’ picture book series by Australian comic actress Rebel Wilson. The ‘Bella the Brave’ series, to be published in hardback...
The Odds (Matt Stanton, ABC Books)
7 October 2020
The lack of locally produced graphic novels for young Australians has been noted for some time now, but middle-grade and children’s author Matt Stanton has a new book to appease...
Give Me Some Space! (Philip Bunting, Omnibus)
7 October 2020
Una is a singular girl on a mission: leave boring old Earth behind for greener pastures—or in this case, planets. Smart, determined and ingenious, she crafts herself a homespun spacesuit...
I Want to be a Superhero (Breanna Humes, illus by Ambelin Kwaymullina, Magabala)
30 September 2020
A little girl in a homemade blanket cape wants to be a superhero, and not just any superhero, she wants to fly! Breanna, the girl in question, is a younger...
Affirm acquires Bontempelli picture book
30 September 2020
Affirm Press has acquired world rights to a children’s picture book by Western Bulldogs AFL player Marcus Bontempelli, via Tom Petroro of TLA. To be co-authored with Fiona Harris, the...
Little Pink Dog Books announces Authorstrator Prize
29 September 2020
Independent children's publisher Little Pink Dog Books has announced a new annual prize for picture book author/illustrators. The Authorstrator Prize recognises picture book creators who 'work their magic with both...
Dog (Shaun Tan, A&U)
23 September 2020
This is Shaun Tan doing what he does best. Carrying an elegant tension between joy and sadness, Dog left me in a puddle of emotion. The prose poetry traces the...
Fend for yourselves: Katrina Nannestad on ‘We Are Wolves’
23 September 2020
Katrina Nannestad's new middle-grade novel is based on the real-life Wolfskinder, East Prussian children who were left to survive on their own in the aftermath of World War II. We Are...
We Are Wolves (Katrina Nannestad, ABC Books)
23 September 2020
In We Are Wolves, middle-grade author Katrina Nannestad, creator of the 'Olive of Groves' and 'Girl, the Dog and the Writer' series, moves confidently into more sombre territory with the...
Affirm acquires middle-grade fantasy series
23 September 2020
Affirm Press has acquired world rights to a four-book middle-grade fantasy series by Samantha-Ellen Bound, via Danielle Binks and Jacinta di Mase of Jacinta di Mase Management. The publisher describes...
NZ Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize winner announced
18 September 2020
Hachette NZ and the Margaret Mahy estate have announced Nelson-based artist Lily Emo as the winner of the 2020 Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize for unpublished illustrators. Unpublished New Zealand artists...
