Australian children’s and YA award winners

Read on for recent Australian award winners in children’s and young adult literature.

Illustrated children’s titles

For the first time in the history of the prestigious Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, a children’s book has taken out the overall prize. Nukgal Wurra author-artist Wanda Gibson took out the $100,000 overall prize for her picture book Three Dresses (UQP), which also won the $25,000 children’s literature prize.

To Stir with Love (Kate Mildenhall, illus by Jess Racklyeft, S&S) is shortlisted for the yet to be announced 2025 Indie Book Awards, while Wurrtoo: The Wombat Who Fell in Love with the Sky (Tylissa Elisara, illus by Dylan Finney, Lothian) won the children’s category of the 2024 Readings Prize, presented by independent bookseller Readings. Hope Is the Thing (Johanna Bell & Erica Wagner, A&U Children’s) was named the winner of the picture fiction category of the Wilderness Society’s 2024 Environment Award for Children’s Literature, with Nedingar: Ancestors (Isobel Bevis & Leanne Zilm, Fremantle Press) taking out the picture fiction category for the Karajia Award for First Nations children’s storytelling in the same awards ceremony. Also recognised in the Wilderness Society’s awards was The Littlest Penguin and the Phillip Island Penguin Parade (The Penguin Foundation & Jedda Robaard, Puffin), which took out the fiction category.

In the Royal Zoological Society of NSW’s 2024 Whitley Awards, The Black Cockatoo with One Feather Blue (Jodie McLeod, illus by Eloise Short, Wollemi Press) won best children’s book. Meanwhile in Australia’s Northern Territory, the 2024 Chief Minister’s NT Book Awards recognised picture book Tangki Tjuta—Donkeys (Tjanpi Desert Weavers, A&U Children’s) as the winner in the children’s/YA category.

Meanwhile, in the 2024 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards, the following illustrated works were recognised: Let’s Play (Karen Tyrrell, illus by Maddi Gray, Play Matters) (winner of the birth–3 years age category), Almost a Fish (Julianne Negri, illus by Evie Barrow, Little Book Press) (winner of the 3–5 years age category) and Harriet Hound (Kate Foster, illus by Sophie Beer, Walker Books) (winner of the 5–8 years category).

And middle-grade illustrated title Spies in the Sky (Beverley McWilliams, illus by Martina Heiduczek, Pantera) has been shortlisted for the Historical Novel Society Australasia’s 2024 ARA Historical Novel Prize.

Junior and middle-grade fiction

Michael Debenham’s middle-grade novel Drowning for Beginners won the 2024 Ampersand Prize for children’s and YA debut fiction; the award is for an unpublished manuscript, with Debenham’s debut scheduled to be published by Hardie Grant in 2026.

Middle-grade works Secret Sparrow (Jackie French, HarperCollins) and Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky (Rebecca Lim, A&U Children’s) have been shortlisted for the Historical Novel Society Australasia’s 2024 ARA Historical Novel Prize, while All the Beautiful Things (Katrina Nannestad, ABC Books), The Midwatch (Judith Rossell, HGCP), and The 113th Assistant Librarian (Stuart Wilson, Penguin) are all shortlisted in the children’s category of the 2025 Indie Book Awards.

At the 2024 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards, Being Jimmy Baxter (Fiona Lloyd, Puffin) won in the 8–10 years age category, while the Fox Kid chapter book series (Adrian Beck, Learning Logic) won the award for a decodable book series.

Young Adult 

At the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, Anomaly (Emma Lord, Affirm) won the $25,000 prize for writing for young adults.

We Didn’t Think It Through (Gary Lonesborough, A&U) won the YA category of the 2024 Readings Prize, awarded by Australian independent bookselling chain Readings. Lonesborough’s book was shortlisted alongside five others, including A Way Home (Emily Brewin, MidnightSun), which was chosen as the winner of the Gab Williams Prize, an award judged by the Readings Teen Advisory Board from the YA shortlist.

Also in YA, The Sinister Booksellers of Bath (Garth Nix, A&U) took out the best novel prize in the 2024 Ditmar Awards, which were announced as part of the Australian national science fiction convention Conflux 18, while Comes the Night (Isobelle Carmody, A&U Children’s), Eleanor Jones Can’t Keep a Secret (Amy Doak, Penguin), My Family and Other Suspects (Kate Emery, A&U Children’s), and Immortal Dark (Tigest Girma, Lothian) have all been shortlisted in the YA category of the Indie Book Awards.

Nonfiction

The Trees (Victor Steffensen & Sandra Steffensen, HG Explore) won the nonfiction category of the Wilderness Society’s Environment Award for Children’s Literature, while In My Blood It Runs (Dujuan Hoosan, Margaret Anderson, Carol Turner & Blak Douglas, Macmillan) took out the organisation’s Karajia Award for Children’s Literature in the nonfiction category. Both titles are also longlisted in the 2025 DANZ (Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand) Children’s Book Awards, alongside many other titles from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Meanwhile, Mammals of the South-west Pacific (Tyrone Lavery & Tim Flannery, CSIRO Publishing) won the Whitley Medal at the Royal Zoological Society of NSW’s 2024 Whitley Awards, presented for outstanding publications that profile the unique wildlife of the Australasian region. Also in nonfiction, Our Flag, Our Story: The Torres Strait Islander Flag (Thomas Mayo & Bernard Namok Jnr, illus by Tori-Jay Mordey, Magabala) won the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Book Award at the 2024 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards.

Body of work

Recognised for their bodies of work are proud Bundjalung Woman, author and artist Bronwyn Bancroft, the recipient of the 2024 Lady Cutler Award, a biennial award presented by the New South Wales branch of the Children’s Book Council of Australia for distinguished service to children’s literature; Ann James, recipient of the Australian Society of Authors 2024 ASA Medal, awarded annually to an Australian author or illustrator who has made an outstanding contribution to Australian culture, both as a creator and an advocate; author and illustrator Judith Rossell, the recipient of the 2024 Albert Ullin Award, which recognises a ‘body of work by an author or illustrator of children’s books who has made a significant and ongoing contribution to children’s literature in Australia’; and Alice Pung, whose body of work includes memoir and nonfiction as well as children’s, middle-grade and YA fiction, and who was recognised with the Alice Literary Award, presented by the Society of Women Writers in Australia. (Pung is the first ‘Alice’ to win the award.)

Category: Think Australian awards