The total number of entries for the 2014 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards was 476. This includes 430 fiction entries and 46 non-fiction. Australian history dominated the content especially in the Younger and Older Readers categories and more understandably, the Eve Pownall Award. Reasons for this abundance are many, but could be attributed to the advent of the study of History in the Australian Curriculum as well as the upcoming centenary of World War I. The judges noted that many books involved Anzacs. However, it was refreshing to see differing Anzac perspectives and narratives being…
Author: Admin
The National Board of the Children’s Book Council of Australia is reviewing the judging process for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards. We invite CBCA members, authors, illustrators, teacher librarians and anyone with an interest in Australian children’s books to provide information, opinions and comments on the judging of the CBCA Awards by completing an online survey. The survey is a mixture of multiple choice and open ended questions. It should take approximately 10 minutes to complete and closes 8 September. If you have any questions about the survey please contact us.
Tonya Alexandra reveals how childhood shaped her novel Nymph, first book in the Love Oracles series… As a mother, it scares me how childhood moulds a person (am I doing enough for my kids? Am I doing too much?). But as a writer, I’m grateful for it. When I’m asked ‘why Greek mythology? Why a love story?’ my answer has to be: because I had an amazing childhood. I was lucky. My parents are romantics; Dad writes and paints, Mum plays piano and writes poetry. Every day classical music echoed through our house. My grandparents brought Greece alive for me…
ALEXANDER, Tonya Nymph Walker (The Love Oracles: Book 1), 2014 424pp A$19.95 NZ$22.99 pbk ISBN 9781922077240 SCIS 1646939 Merope is a nymph, one of the Pleiads. She refuses the attentions of Orion and is banished to Earth. It is forbidden for goddesses and mortal men to have relationships. This doesn’t prevent her falling in love with a local boy, Lukas, and he with her – with a little help from Eros. Zeus is seriously displeased by this and sends down all sorts of punishments and she is finally returned to Olympia. The interweaving of the ancient Greek myths and mythological…
Debut YA author, Catherine Norton, tells Reading Time where she found the inspiration for her novel Crossing, talks about the profession of writing and gives us a peek at her future plans… It’s the unlikely things in Crossing that are true. Someone in my family grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and a few small, startling details from her childhood – among them the food shortages, the parents’ mysterious absences – formed the imaginative seed of the novel. The story itself came to me after I watched a fascinating documentary about the history of the Berlin Wall. Its evolution, over…
NORTON, Catherine Crossing Omnibus, 2014 181pp $16.99 pbk ISBN 9781742990286 SCIS 1660584 Set in an unspecified time and place, Crossing reveals a world of perpetual food shortages, decaying living conditions and a repressive government with spies everywhere, including within families. Living behind a high wall with watchtowers that separate them from the rest of the world, the population are constantly urged to live by the principles of ‘equality’ and ‘comradeship’ and to report any ‘suspicious acts’. Twelve year old Cara’s parents are government officials and when they are away on secret business she has the chance to escape over the…
GRAY, Ali Plato’s Academy and the Eternal Key Createspace, 2014 131pp $22.40 pbk ISBN 9781495413506 SCIS 1663164 Philosophy can be difficult to comprehend but Gray has produced a time travel fantasy that makes Platonic theories a simple journey. When Charlie’s grandfather, Ted, dies he must find and deliver a scroll back to its original source. Through a secret doorway in the London museum Charlie find himself transported back to ancient Greece but he can’t get back home without the doorkey. Here the young warrior-in-training, Adonia, leads him from Plato’s school to the Delphic Oracle. The Oracle sets three tasks for…
FOLEY, James (illus.) Norman Jorgensen (text) The Last Viking Returns Fremantle Press, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9781925161151 A very humorous account of two worlds colliding: the mortal and the Viking Asgard. Young Josh, alias Knut, must look after his younger twin siblings at the Viking theme park but Odin and the other Viking gods get caught up in the problem that occurs when the twins go berserk. Fortunately Knut sorts out the mess and saves the twins from a fiery death. Not only is the simple story full of action but the full colour animated spreads further make this book…
HOLDEN, Robert & Jane Brummitt May Gibbs More Than a Fairy Tale: An Artistic Life Hardie Grant, 2011 232pp $39.95 ISBN 9781742701509 SCIS 1552408 Older Australians probably grew up on Bib and Bub and the bad Banksia Men but sadly modern young readers may well have not heard of them let alone their creator, May Gibbs. This wonderful production aims to set alight the dim memory of this extraordinary talented Australian illustrator and writer. May Gibbs shone brightly in the first half of the twentieth century not only as an illustrator of children’s books but also adult publications, particularly the…
MASSON, Sophie 1914 Scholastic (Australia’s Great War), 2014 234pp $16.99 pbk ISBN 9781743622476 SCIS 1670995 BROCKER, Susan 1914: Riding into War Scholastic NZ (Kiwis at War), 2014 pbk 211pp NZ$19.00 pbk ISBN 9781775432067 Both these books aimed at readers in mid to late primary school commemorate the contributions of Australians and New Zealanders to a war that devastated Europe and took, eventually, the lives of 8.5 million soldiers, with more than 20 million injured. There never can truly be victors after such a conflict, only the long slow recovery that we know was tainted by bitternesses and resentments that helped…