The 2021 CBCA Books of the Year have just been announced, with this year marking the 75th anniversary of the awards!
The winners announcement was organised by the South Australian branch of the CBCA, with presenters including Julia Gillard, Peter Combe, Dr Richard Harris and more.
Check out the winners below before Book Week kicks off tomorrow, running until the 27th of August with the theme Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds!
Book of the Year: Older Readers
The End of the World is Bigger than Love by Davina Bell (Text Publishing)
Identical twin sisters Summer and Winter live alone on a remote island, sheltered from a destroyed world. They survive on rations stockpiled by their father and spend their days deep in their mother’s collection of classic literature – until a mysterious stranger upends their carefully constructed reality. At first, Edward is a welcome distraction. But who is he really, and why has he come? As love blooms and the world stops spinning, the secrets of the girls’ past begin to unravel and escape becomes the only option.
Buy it here
Honour Books
Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Moore (Text Publishing)
Where We Begin by Christie Nieman (Pan Macmillan Australia)
Book of the Year: Younger Readers
Aster’s Good, Right Things by Kate Gordon (Riveted Press)
Aster attends a school for gifted kids, but she doesn’t think she’s special at all. If she was, her mother wouldn’t have left. And if she isn’t careful, everyone else will leave her too. Each day Aster must do a good, right thing – a challenge she sets herself, to make someone else’s life better. Nobody can know about her ‘things’, because then they won’t count. And if she doesn’t do them, she knows everything will go wrong. Then she meets Xavier. He wears princess pyjamas and has his own kind of special missions to make life better …
Buy it here
Honour Books
The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst by Jaclyn Moriarty and illustrated by Kelly Canby (Allen & Unwin)
Worse Things by Sally Murphy and illustrated by Sarah Davis (Walker Books Australia)
Book of the Year: Early Childhood
No! Never! by Libby Hathorn & Lisa Hathorn-Jarman and illustrated by Mel Pearce (Hachette Australia)
Georgie is a sweet little girl who always makes her parents happy… until she discovers one powerful phrase: No! Never!
It suddenly becomes her answer to every request, from tidying up her toys to going to bed. Her parents are at their wits end, but what happens when they decide to try saying No! Never! themselves?
Buy it here
Honour Books
Anemone is not the Enemy by Anna McGregor (Scribble Kids’ Books)
We Love You, Magoo by Briony Stewart (Penguin Random House Australia)
Picture Book of the Year
How to Make a Bird by Meg McKinlay and illustrated by Matt Ottley (Walker Books Australia)
From award-winning author Meg McKinlay and celebrated artist Matt Ottley comes a moving and visually stunning picture book that celebrates the transformative power of the creative process from inception through recognition to celebration and releasing into the world. We shadow the protagonist as she contemplates the blue print of an idea, collects the things that inspire from the natural world to shape a bird. And breathes life into it before letting it fly free. It shows how small things, combined with a little imagination and a steady heart, can transform into works of magic.
Buy it here
Honour Books
Not Cute by Philip Bunting (Scholastic Australia)
Your Birthday Was the BEST! by Felicita Sala and Maggie Hutchings (Affirm Press)
Eve Pownall Award
Dry to Dry: The Seasons of Kakadu by Pamela Freeman and Liz Anelli (Walker Books Australia)
In the tropical wetlands and escarpments of Kakadu National Park, the seasons move from dry to wet to dry again. Those seasons have shaped the astonishing variety of plants, animals, birds, insects … migratory birds by the thousands, grasshoppers and owls, lizards and turtles, fruit bats and spear grass. And, gliding past them all in the rivers and waterholes, the long, sinuous shapes of crocodiles …
Buy it here
Honour Books
Strangers on Country by David Hartley, Kirsty Murray and Dub Leffler (National Library of Australia)
The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Dangerous Animals by Sami Bayly (Hachette Australia)
CBCA Award for New Illustrator
Zeno Sworder for This Small Blue Dot (Thames & Hudson Australia)
With a strong message of interconnectedness, hope and empowerment, This Small Blue Dot follows a little girl exploring the big and small things in life. From contemplating our place on this ‘blue dot’ to the best Italian, Chinese and Indian desserts, the book provides a broader, more inclusive view of who we are, where we come from and where our dreams may take us.
Buy it here
Congratulations to all of the authors and illustrators of the 2021 CBCA Books of the Year!
Find out more about the Children’s Book Council of Australia here
2021 CBCA
About the Contributor
Olivia Fricot
Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.
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