Gregg overall winner at New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults
In Aotearoa New Zealand, Stacy Gregg (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Pūkeko, Ngāti Maru Hauraki) has won the overall Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award at the 2024 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults for the junior novel Nine Girls (Penguin).
Gregg also won the Esther Glen junior fiction award for the novel. Maia Bennett, the 2024 convenor of judges, said the award judges came to a unanimous decision for the overall award, choosing ‘a book that not only exemplifies the highest standards, but that we believe will make a lasting contribution to Aotearoa’s national literature for children and young adults; and as such, deserves the accolade of supreme winner’.
The winners in each category of the 2024 awards, chosen from finalists announced in June, are:
Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award ($8500)
- Nine Girls (Stacy Gregg [Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Pūkeko, Ngāti Maru Hauraki], Penguin)
Picture book award ($8500)
- Paku Manu Ariki Whakatakapōkai (Michaela Keeble, illus by Tokerau Brown, Gecko)
Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction ($8500)
- Nine Girls (Stacy Gregg [Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Pūkeko, Ngāti Maru Hauraki], Penguin)
Young adult fiction award ($8500)
- Catch a Falling Star (Eileen Merriman, Penguin)
Elsie Locke Award for Nonfiction ($8500)
- Ultrawild: An audacious plan to rewild every city on Earth (Steve Mushin, A&U)
Russell Clark Award for Illustration ($8500)
- Patu: The New Zealand wars (illus by Gavin Bishop [Tainui, Ngāti Awa], Puffin)
Te Kura Pounamu Award for te reo Māori ($8500)
- Nani Jo me ngā Mokopuna Porohīanga (Moira Wairama, illus by Margaret Tolland, Baggage Books)
Best first book ($2500)
- Tsunami (Ned Wenlock, Earth’s End Publishing).
The winners were announced in Wellington on 14 August. More information is available on the award website.
Category: Awards Local news
