NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults winners announced

The winners of the 2023 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults have been announced, with each category winner receiving NZ$7500 and the best first book award winner receiving a NZ$2500 prize.

The Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award and nonfiction award were presented to Mat Tait (Ngāti Apa ki te rātō) for Te Wehenga: The separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku (A&U) at a ceremony held at Wellington’s Pipitea Marae.

Te Wehenga’s bilingual design presents the Māori creation pūrākau, which explains the beginning of the world, in a way that incorporates universal elements recognised across iwi.

‘The way that te reo Māori and te reo Pākehā are brought together closely feels like a metaphorical representation of the increasing bilingualism in Aotearoa,’ said convenor of judges Nicola Daly, who praised the book’s highly innovative approach to integrating both languages into the illustrations themselves.

The winners in each category are:

Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award

• Te Wehenga: The Separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku (Mat Tait, A&U)

Picture book award

• Duck Goes Meow (Juliette MacIver, illus by Carla Martell, Scholastic NZ)

Esther Glen award for junior fiction 

• Below (David Hill, Puffin)

Young adult award

• Iris and Me (Philippa Werry, Ahoy, The Cuba Press)

Elsie Lock award for nonfiction

• Te Wehenga: The Separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku (Mat Tait, A&U)

Russell Clark award for illustration

• A Portrait of Leonardo (Donovan Bixley, Upstart)

Award for books written entirely in te reo Māori

• Kua Whetūrangitia a Koro (Brianne Te Paa, illus by Story Hemi-Morehouse, Huia)

Best first book 

• The Lighthouse Princess (Susan Wardell, illus Rose Northey, Puffin).

The awards aim to encourage a love of reading in New Zealand’s tamariki and rangitahi by building connections between books and young people. This year, primary, intermediate and secondary schools from across the motu were recruited to offer feedback to the judges on the titles submitted for the awards. Schools also had the opportunity to join a Back-a-Book challenge, with over 40 signing up to receive a copy of a finalist title for which they then created a promotional trailer.

For more information about the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, see the NZ Book Awards Trust website.

Picture: Margaret Mahy Book of the Year winner Mat Tait with his book Te Wehenga. Credit: Book Awards Trust

Category: Awards Local news