Australian Family Therapists’ Award for Children’s Literature 2016 winners announced

The winners of the 2016 Australian Family Therapists’ Awards for Children’s Literature have been announced.

Risk by Fleur Ferries (Random House) has won the $1500 Older Readers Award. The book was cited as a ‘contemporary expose about the risks and deception of engaging in online chat rooms and predatory behaviour’ and a ‘very topical story about the lure of the internet’.

My Happy Sad Mummy (Michelle Vailiu, illus by Lucia Masciullo, JoJo Publishing) has won the $1500 Young Readers/Picture Book Award. The book is described as ‘an engaging and sensitive picture book’ that ‘fills a major gap: explaining to a young child the impact on a parent of a major mental illness such as bipolar disorder’.

The judges also recommended Being Agatha (Anna Pignataro, Five Mile Press), Dropping In (Geoff Havel, Fremantle Press), Fly-In, Fly-Out Dad (Sally Murphy, illus by Janine Dawson, Five Mile Press), Just the Way We Are (Jessica Shirvington, illus by Claire Robertson, HarperCollins) and New Boy (Nick Earls, Puffin) as books that may ‘enhance therapists’ insights into specific problem areas’.

The Australian Family Therapists’ Awards for Children’s Literature are presented by the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy (ANZJFT). See last year’s winners here. More information about the awards can be found on the ANZJFT website.

Category: Junior Local news