Blog Post 2: Book of The Year Awards – Australia

The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) is a non profit organization who have been giving Book of the Year Awards since 1946. The Book of the Year Award is considered the most highly respected children’s book award in Australia. By giving out these awards, CBCA aims to promote quality children’s literature, and help support authors and illustrators of children’s books. There are different categories for this award including old readers, young readers and picture book of the year. In 2018, the picture book of the year was A Walk In The Brush by Gwyn Perkinsl. Flipping through this book I enjoyed the illustrations of the animals and outdoors. I thought there was great composition between the trees, and the placement of characters and animals within the trees. These illustrations often took up an entire page, containing wonderful images of nature in Australia (Perkins,13). This would be a great book to put on shelves in any county, to show the great Australian landscape to children.

In addition, CBCA also holds a book week each year across Australia, allowing libraries, booksellers, authors and illustrators to celebrate children’s literature while also inspiring more readers. I was really impressed by all of the things this nonprofit organization does to promote children’s literature. I was also impressed by the large amount of board members and judges who work to keep this organization running, in addition to the large amount donors who contribute to this great cause.

Citations:

“About the CBCA book of the Year Awards.” https://www.cbca.org.au/about-the-awards. 9 December, 2018.

Perkins, Gwyn. A Walk in the Brush. Affirm Press, 2017.