‘Nevermoor’ wins Book of the Year at 2018 Indie Book Awards

Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Hachette) has been named Book of the Year at the 2018 Indie Book Awards, presented at the Leading Edge Books Conference in Hobart on 26 March.

Nevermoor is the first children’s title to win the overall award in the ten-year history of the Indie Book Awards.

The winning titles in each category are:

Fiction

• The Choke (Sofie Laguna, A&U)

Nonfiction

• Saga Land (Richard Fidler & Kári Gíslason, ABC Books)

Debut fiction

• Wimmera (Mark Brandi, Hachette)

Illustrated nonfiction

• Native: Art & Design with Australian Plants (Kate Herd & Jela Ivankovic-Waters, Thames & Hudson)

Young adult

• Wilder Country (Mark Smith, Text)

Children’s

• Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Jessica Townsend, Hachette)

Townsend said she was ‘utterly dumbfounded to have won Book of the Year’. ‘The support this book has received from independent booksellers all over the country has been truly overwhelming. I am so grateful to every person who has ever hand-sold Nevermoor, to every bookstore that has created a magical Nevermoor display … and to every reader who has embraced Morrigan Crow.’

The Indie Book Awards are chosen by independent booksellers to reward and promote excellence in Australian writing. Panels of judges comprising booksellers and readers chose the winners in the six categories, and the overall Indie Book of the Year was voted on by independent booksellers from Australia, who are also members of Leading Edge Books. This year saw the introduction of a new category—illustrated nonfiction—to mark the tenth anniversary of the awards.

The overall winner receives $1000 and the category winners each receive $1000. The winners were chosen from a shortlist announced in January.

For more information about the awards, visit the website here.

Category: Awards Junior Local news