Affirm focuses on children’s/YA manuscripts in 2019 mentorship award
This year’s Affirm Press Mentorship Award will focus exclusively on young adult and middle-grade fiction submissions, says the publisher. Writers of the three winning submissions will receive a week-long residency...
Readings Children’s Book Prize 2019 shortlist announced
The shortlist for the Readings Children’s Book Prize for 2019 has been announced. The shortlisted titles are: Ice Wolves: Elementals Book One (Amie Kaufman, HarperCollins) The Orchard Underground (Mat Larkin, Hardie...
PRH offers $100k funding for kids’ booksellers amid Puffin brand revival
Penguin Random House (PRH) Australia has announced it will offer a total of $100,000 in funding to booksellers that run children’s reading programs. Australian bookstores with a dedicated children’s book...
New short story prize launched for adults writing for children
Australian children’s literature electronic magazine Buzz Words has launched a new short story prize for adults writing for children. The Buzz Words Short Story Prize ‘celebrates excellence in short story writing...
SWF 2016 schools program announced
The Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) has announced the authors and illustrators participating in its 2016 Primary and Secondary School Days programs, to be held from 16 to 20 May. Writer...
Spiral of absurdity: Lee Battersby on ‘Magrit’
Lee Battersby’s first book for children is set in an abandoned cemetery and has ‘echoes of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and The Graveyard Book’. Reviewer Tehani Wessely spoke to the author....
ALA Youth Media Awards 2016: Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, Stonewall
In the US, the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), has announced the winners of its Youth Media Awards, including the...
Surreal deal: Leanne Hall on ‘Iris and the Tiger’
Leanne Hall’s new novel for younger readers Iris and the Tiger is infused with ‘a kind of magical realism that is unusual in children’s and YA fantasy’, writes reviewer Jarrah Moore....
Picture this: Market growth for illustrated children’s nonfiction
A renewed interest in books as beautiful objects has boosted the market for illustrated children’s nonfiction, writes Carody Culver. While most people tend to think of picture books in terms of fiction,...
Micro Michael: Michael Wagner on ‘Pig Dude’
Michael Wagner’s new children’s book Pig Dude is the first book to be released from his micro-publishing company Billy Goat Books. He spoke to Brad Jefferies.What has been your experience...
Return to Deltora: Emily Rodda on ‘Shadows of the Master’
Emily Rodda returns to the world of Deltora with a new heroine in Shadows of the Master (Scholastic), the first book of her new series. She spoke to Junior.Shadows of...
Tan shortlisted for 2015 Kate Greenaway medal
Shaun Tan’s Rules of Summer (Lothian) is one of eight titles shortlisted for this year’s Kate Greenaway Medal for distinguished illustration in children’s books.The shortlists for the Kate Greenaway Medal...
Keeping up with the kids: Chris Kunz on the Kidscreen conference
Chris Kunz, freelance editor and writer and former children’s publisher at Random House, attended the Kidscreen conference for children’s entertainment professionals in Miami in February. She reports on partnerships between...
Reading your greens: Eco-friendly children’s books
Mason Engelander explores how eco-friendly children’s books have evolved with the rise of the green movement.Some of the earliest ‘green books’ for kids did not carry an explicit environmental theme....
No more ‘nice’ books: Jackie French’s Colin Simpson Memorial Lecture
In her 2014 Colin Simpson Memorial Lecture, Australian Children’s Laureate Jackie French argues that children are turning away from reading because they are bored by many of the books on offer....
WAYRBA 2014 winners announced
The winners of the 2014 West Australian Young Readers’ Book Awards (WAYRBA) have been announced.The winning books are:Picture books The Three Bears (Sort of) (Yvonne Morrison, illus by Donovan Bixley, Scholastic...
Fox, Griffiths and Marsden top Australian children’s bestsellers charts 2013-14
For the fourth year in a row, books by Mem Fox, Andy Griffiths and John Marsden have topped the Australian picture book, children’s fiction and YA bestsellers charts, according to...
Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Awards winners announced
UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has announced the winners of the first Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Awards, reports the Bookseller. That’s Not My Piglet (Fiona Watt, illus by Rachel Wells, Usborne) was the...
Gleitzman, Tan on UK cultural diversity list
Books by Morris Gleitzman and Shaun Tan have been included in a list of ‘50 of the best children’s books celebrating cultural diversity in the UK’.The inaugural ‘Diverse Voices’ list...
Independent booksellers’ children’s catalogue launched
The Australian Independent Bookseller’s Children’s Catalogue for 2014 has been launched.Great Books for Kids features 34 Australian children’s and YA titles, among 87 recommended titles or series, and also features...