Blog Post 1: Children’s Book Awards in Australia

As I was researching book awards in different countries, I came across the Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards, which is an awards program started by the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) in 1946. The CBCA is non-profit organization that is ran by volunteers with one goal in mind: “to engage the community with literature for young Australians” (“CBCA”). The Book of the Year Awards program was started by the organization to recognize books of literary excellence and for their remarkable contribution to Australian children’s literature. The program started with only one category in 1946, the “CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers”. Since then, the program has expanded to five categories, with the addition of: “CBCA Book of the Year: Younger Readers”, “CBCA Book of the Year: Early Childhood”, “CBCA Book of the Year: Picture Book”, and “Eve Pownall Award for Information Books”. In 1995, a proposal was adopted to establish an Awards Foundation within the organization. The prizes for the recipients of the CBCA Book of the Year Awards are funded solely from the interest earned by the investments made by the Awards Foundation.

Since we are focusing on children’s literature specifically, I wanted to discuss two of the awards: “CBCA Book of the Year: Early Childhood” and “CBCA Book of the Year: Picture Book”. The Early Childhood Book of the Year Award is an annually presented award that commenced in 2001. This award “will be made to outstanding books of fiction, drama, poetry or concept books for children who are at pre-reading or early stages of reading. They may be picture books, picture storybooks or texts in which illustrations play a substantial part in the storytelling or concept development” (“GUIDELINES FOR PUBLISHERS”). The first recipients of this award were author Catherine Jinks and illustrator Andrew McLean, with their book You’ll Wake the Baby!, published by Penguin Books. The Picture Book of the Year Award is an occasionally presented award that commenced in 1955. This award “will be made to outstanding books of the Picture Book genre in which the author and illustrator achieve artistic and literary unity, or, in wordless picture books, where the story, theme or concept is unified through illustrations” (“GUIDELINES FOR PUBLISHERS”). The first recipients of this award were author Peggy Barnard and illustrator Sheila Hawkins, with their book Wish and the Magic Nut, published by John Sands.

References

“CBCA.” CBCA, cbca.org.au/.

“GUIDELINES FOR PUBLISHERS.” The Children’s Book Council of Australia, web.archive.org/web/20120220033953/http://cbca.org.au/docs/publisher guidelines.pdf.