It's official - Melbourne is a City of Literature! Announced today by Unesco, we are the second city in the world after Edinburgh to get this honour. There will be a Centre for Books and Ideas built at the State Library next year, and lots of support from the Victorian Government will flow from this. We hope that there will many great flow effects for children's literature...
Here is the story from The Age
The Qld Premier's Literary Awards Shortlist is now available and it includes two categories for children: The Children's Book Award and the Young Adult Award. Congratulations to the following authors and texts.
Children's Book Award Peter Carnavas Jessica's Box (New Frontier Publishing) Li Cunxin and Anne Spudvilas The Peasant Prince (Penguin Group Australia) Kylie Dunstan Collecting Colour (Lothian Children's Books an imprint of Hachette Livre Australia) Ambelin Kwaymullina Crow and The Waterhole (Fremantle Press) Marianne Musgrove The Worry Tree (Random House)
Young Adult Book Award
Matt Ottley Requiem for a Beast (Lothian Children's Books an imprint of Hachette Livre Australia) John Heffernan Marty's Shadow (Omnibus Books) Julia Lawrinson The Push (Penguin Group Australia) James Roy Town (University of Queensland Press) Celeste Walters At Seventeen (University of Queensland Press)
On the same day as the Winners of the CBCA Book of the Year Awards was announced, the Crichton Award Winner was also announced. Congratulations to first time illustrator, Anna Walker who collaborated with Maria Farrar to create the picture book, Santa's Aussie Holiday.
The insideadog website has put up their long list of 10 International and 10 Australian YA texts. Check it out. This will be reduced to 3 international and 3 Australian, and then readers are asked to cast their votes. Congratulations to all the authors.
These awards were announced on June 26 and Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve and Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears by Emily Gravett were the winners. More information can be found here.
While Sonya Hartnett has been in Sweden this past week for the presentation of the Astrid Lindgren Award, Queensland author Michael Gerard Bauer will be in Germany to accept his award for the Catholic Children's and Youth Award for 2008 (Katholischer Kinder~und Jugendbuchtreis). The Running Man was selected from 219 other international titles. There is this translated-from-the-German Website, but the English is not perfect.
The winners of the NSW Premier's Literary Awards were announced on May 30, and James Roy won the Ethel Turner Prize and Li Cunxin and Anne Spudvilas won the Patricia Wrightson Prize. The complete list of winners can be found here. An article on The Peasant Prince in The Sydney Morning Herald is here.
Congratulations.
Margaret Wild was announced as the recipient of the 2008 Nan Chauncy Award at the CBCA National Conference on Sunday May 4th. For more information, read the citation here.
We congratulate National President and Conference Convenor, Bronwen Bennett and her tireless committee on the rewarding and challenging conference that has just been held over the last 3 days. Highlights included keynote addresses by Professor Jack Zipes, Wendy Cooling, Shaun Tan and Neil Gaiman. It would be impossible to list all the sessions, the discussions, or the networking that were held, but the overwhelming feeling was one of excitment for the future of children's books. A discussion thread has been started over at the forum, so please add your comments.
Lollie Barr The Mag Hags Random House David Metzenthen Black Water Penguin Group Robert Newton The Black Dog Gang Penguin Group James Roy Town University of Queensland Press David Spillman & Lisa Wilyuka Us Mob Walawurru Magabala Books Lizzie Wilcock GriEVE Scholastic
Aaron Blabey Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley Penguin Group Martin Chatterton The Brain Finds a Leg Little Hare Books Li Cunxin & Anne Spudvilas (illus) The Peasant Prince Penguin Group Liz Lofthouse & Robert Ingpen (illus) Ziba Came on a Boat Penguin Group Emily Rodda The Key to Rondo Omnibus Books Carole Wilkinson Dragon Moon Black Dog Books
Here you will find a list of all the different categories announced on April 16th
This year's winner, announced on March 12, is Australian Sonya Hartnett. The ceremony will be held on May 28 in Stockholm. We congratulate Sonya on her body of work being recognised with this illustrious award.
The ALMA website
We are thrilled to announce that Sonya has agreed to officially open the CBCA National Conference in Melbourne on Friday 2nd May. This means that as a children's and YA literature community we will be able, as a group, to celebrate Sonya's success. If you have not yet registered, now is the time... Conference Registrations close 15 April. Details available at www.iceaustralia.com/cbca2008 or phone 03-9681-6288.
