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Karajia and Environment Award for Children’s Literature shortlists announced

Thursday, 13 June 2024   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

The Wilderness Society has announced the shortlists for the 2024 Environment Award for Children’s Literature and the Karajia Award for First Nations children’s storytelling.

Shortlisted titles in each category include:

Environment Award for Children’s Literature

Fiction

  • The Littlest Penguin and the Phillip Island Penguin Parade (The Penguin Foundation & Jedda Robaard, Puffin)
  • Ruby and the Pen (David Lawrence & Cherie Dignam, EK Books)

Nonfiction

  • Australian Animals: From beach to bush (Brentos, Affirm)
  • The Frog Book: Nature’s alarm (Sue Lawson & Guy Holt, Wild Dog)
  • How We Came to Be: Creatures of camouflage and mimicry (Sami Bayly, Lothian)
  • Life in a Hollow (David Gullan & Suzanne Houghton, CSIRO)
  • The Trees (Victor Steffensen & Sandra Steffensen, HG Explore)

Picture fiction

  • Desert Jungle (Jeannie Baker, Walker Books)
  • The Forgotten Song (Coral Vass & Jess Racklyeft, CSIRO)
  • Hope Is the Thing (Johanna Bell & Erica Wagner, A&U Children’s)
  • The Turtle and the Flood (Jackie French & Danny Snell, HarperCollins)
  • Wollemi (Samantha Tidy & Rachel Gyan, CSIRO)

Karajia Award for Children’s Literature

Nonfiction

  • Ask Aunty: Seasons (Aunty Munya Andrews & Charmaine Ledden-Lewis, HG Explore)
  • Gurawul the Whale (Max Dulumunmun Harrison & Laura La Rosa, Magabala)
  • In My Blood It Runs (Dujuan Hoosan, Margaret Anderson, Carol Turner & Blak Douglas, Macmillan)
  • Tamarra (Violet Wadrill, Topsy Dodd Ngarnjal, Leah Leaman, Felicity Meakins, Briony Barr, Gregory Crocetti, Cecelia Edwards & Cassandra Algy, HG Explore)
  • The Trees (Victor Steffensen & Sandra Steffensen, HG Explore)

Picture fiction

  • Gurril, Storm Bird (Trevor Fourmile & Jingalu, Magabala)
  • Nedingar: Ancestors (Isobel Bevis & Leanne Zilm, Fremantle Press).

Established thirty years ago, the Environment Award for Children’s Literature ‘shines a light on books written for children that promote a love of and care for nature’, while the Karajia Award was established in 2022 to recognise ‘a book that celebrates a connection to Country and stories exploring land, community, culture and language by a First Nations author or illustrator’.

Judges this year for the Environment Award include Australian conservation biologist Kylie Soanes, actor and Playschool presenter Zindzi Okenyo, and 2023 Environment Award for Children’s Literature winner Jess McGeachin; while previously shortlisted author Jasmine Seymour, educator Danae Coots, and academic and author Amy Thunig form the judging panel for the 2024 Karajia Award.

More information about the awards is available on the Wilderness Society website.

 

Category: Awards Local news