CBCA Book of the Year Award 2024 Winners
The Winners and Honours of the 2024 CBCA Book of the Year Awards have been announced! The awards include categories for picture books, junior, middle grade, and young adult fiction. As well as a winner and two Honour Books in each category, CBCA have also invited young readers to participate and act as Shadow Judges through the Sun Project.
Established in 1946, the annual CBCA Book of the Year Awards aim to promote quality literature for young Australians by Australians, and celebrate contributions to Australian children’s literature.
Book of the Year: Older Readers
For fiction, drama or poetry, for ages 13-18.
Grace Notes by Karen Comer
Grace Notes is a debut contemporary young adult verse novel, set in the most locked-down city in the world – Melbourne, 2020. It’s a love story, at its heart, but it’s also a book about young people using art to make sense of the world around them, and to shape it too.
Grace Dalfinch is a talented violinist who longs to play contemporary music in bars but whose mother forbids her. James Crux is an aspiring street artist who promised his dad that he wouldn’t paint in public until he’s eighteen and legal.
When Crux witnesses Grace’s secret performance in a viral video, he’s inspired to paint her and her violin on a not-so-legal wall, and when Grace stumbles across her portrait in a Melbourne alley by an anonymous street artist, she sets out to find its creator.
The Shadow Judges selected Inkflower by Suzy Zail as the winner for this category; also honoured were A Hunger of Thorns by Lili Wilkinson and Let's Never Speak of This Again by Megan Williams.
Book of the Year: Younger Readers
For fiction, drama or poetry, for ages 7-12.
Scar Town by Tristan Bancks
A missing father. A drowned town. A buried secret. Three friends on a dangerous mission to uncover the truth.
Seven years after Old Scarborough was drowned, a house is emerging from the water. Will and his friends Dar and Juno dare each other to explore it.
But when they find bones - and a stash of cash - they realise they're not the only ones interested in its secrets.
Now they're fighting for their lives against the men who want what they found. Will can't leave the mystery alone, though. What if the bones belong to his missing dad?
The Shadow Judges also selected Scar Town for this category; also honoured were Huda Was Here by H. Hayek and Real Pigeons Flap Out by Andrew McDonald, illustrated by Ben Wood.
Book of the Year: Early Childhood
For fiction, drama or poetry, for ages 0-6.
Gymnastica Fantastica! by Briony Stewart
Gymnastica Fantastica! is a joyful and exuberant picture book about a child discovering and attempting new physical skills and putting on wonderfully imperfect shows for whoever will watch them.
Join Gymnastica, a small person with big energy, as they bend and balance, bounce and roll, attempt a cartwheel and a spectacular trapeze flip-out finale. Written in playful rhyming text and with brightly energetic and appealing illustrations, this is a book that kids and parents alike will find irresistible to read aloud and delight in its energy and humour.
The Shadow Judges chose The Concrete Garden by Bob Graham as the winner for this category; also honoured were Grace and Mr Milligan by Caz Goodwin, illustrated by Pip Kruger, and Bear & Duck are Friends by Sue DeGennaro.
Picture Book of the Year
For outstanding books of the Picture Book genre, for all ages.
Timeless by Kelly Canby
This vibrant new picture book by award-winning author and illustrator Kelly Canby is all about time – making it, losing it and subverting the whole darn concept.
Emit (whose parents turned back time to name him) is surrounded by busyness. Dad is too busy to read stories, Mum is too busy to play games and Emit’s brother and sister are simply too busy doing nothing to do anything, at all. Emit tries everything he can think of to get more time, he tries to catch it, wait for it, but it’s not until Emit tries to buy some time that he learns the secret which is, if you want time, you have to make it.
The Shadow Judges chose Every Night at Midnight by Peter Cheong as the winner for this category; also honoured were Paper-flower Girl by Margrete Lamond, illustrated by Mateja Jager, and That Bird Has Arms by Kate Temple & Jol Temple, illustrated by Ronojoy Ghosh & Niharika Hukku.
Eve Pownall Award
For nonfiction books that provide information in an imaginative and engaging way, suitable for all ages.
Country Town by Isolde Martyn & Robyn Ridgeway, illustrated by Louise Hogan
Happy times, sad times, boom times and gloom times! From the First Peoples camp at the river crossing in the 1820s, through to Carols by Candlelight at the showground in today's world, this is a decade by decade wonderfully illustrated story of a small country community.
The Shadow Judges selected Australia: Country of Colour by Jess Racklyeft as the winner for this category, which was also selected as an honour book, alongside Our Country: Where History Happened by Mark Greenwood, illustrated by Frané Lessac.
CBCA Award for New Illustrator
This Award aims to recognise and encourage new talent in the field of Australian children's book illustration.
Erica Wagner won this category for Hope is the Thing by Johanna Bell.
Let your imagination soar in this joyful ode to the world of birds and the healing power of nature.
Sparked by the Emily Dickinson poem 'Hope is the thing with feathers', this lyrical text accompanied by glorious mixed media collages reflects and celebrates the diversity, ingenuity and wonder of birds.
