{"id":69257,"date":"2025-08-15T03:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T03:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/69257\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T03:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T03:32:10","slug":"cbca-book-of-the-year-award-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/69257\/","title":{"rendered":"CBCA Book of the Year Award winners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tFriday, 15 August 2025 \u00a0 Books+Publishing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/booksandpublishing\/\" class=\"entry-social\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> @booksandpublishing<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Children\u2019s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has announced the winners for the 2025 CBCA Book of the Year Awards.<\/p>\n<p>The CBCA shadow judging winners \u2013 titles chosen by 400 groups of children voting on their top choices from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/articles\/2025\/03\/26\/268981\/cbca-2025-shortlists-announced\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shortlists announced in March<\/a> \u2013 were also announced simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p>The winners, honour books and shadow judging winners in each category are:<\/p>\n<p>Book of the year: Older readers<\/p>\n<p>Honour books<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/articles\/2023\/11\/28\/240808\/birdy-sharon-kernot-text\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Birdy<\/a> (Sharon Kernot, Text)<br \/>\nInto the Mouth of the Wolf (Erin Gough, HGCP)<\/p>\n<p>Shadow judging<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/articles\/2023\/11\/28\/240808\/birdy-sharon-kernot-text\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Birdy<\/a> (Sharon Kernot, Text)<\/p>\n<p>Book of the year: Younger readers<\/p>\n<p>Laughter Is the Best Ending (Maryam Master, illus by Astred Hicks, Pan)<\/p>\n<p>Honour books<\/p>\n<p>Aggie Flea Steals the Show!\u00a0(Tania Ingram, illus by Anne Yi, Scholastic)<br \/>\nFluff: Mess Up!\u00a0(Matt Stanton, ABC Books)<\/p>\n<p>Shadow judging<\/p>\n<p>Laughter Is the Best Ending (Maryam Master, illus by Astred Hicks, Pan)<\/p>\n<p>Book of the year: Early childhood<\/p>\n<p>The Wobbly Bike (Darren McCallum, illus by Craig Smith, Walker)<\/p>\n<p>Honour books<\/p>\n<p>How to Move a Zoo\u00a0(Kate Simpson, illus by Owen Swan, A&amp;U Children\u2019s)<br \/>\nOne Little Dung Beetle\u00a0(Rhian Williams, illus by Heather Potter &amp; Mark Jackson, Wild Dog)<\/p>\n<p>Shadow judging<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/articles\/2024\/04\/30\/250574\/spiro-anna-mcgregor-scribble\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spiro<\/a> (Anna McGregor, Scribble)<\/p>\n<p>Picture book of the year<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/articles\/2024\/10\/31\/261318\/the-truck-cat-selected-for-nss-2025\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Truck Cat<\/a> (Deborah Frenkel, illus by Danny Snell, Bright Light)<\/p>\n<p>Honour books<\/p>\n<p>Afloat\u00a0(Kirli Saunders, illus by Freya Blackwood, Little Hare)<br \/>\nThese Long-Loved Things\u00a0(Josh Pyke, illus by Ronojoy Ghosh, Scholastic)<\/p>\n<p>Shadow judging<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/articles\/2024\/10\/31\/261318\/the-truck-cat-selected-for-nss-2025\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Truck Cat<\/a> (Deborah Frenkel, illus by Danny Snell, Bright Light)<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_elementToProof\">Eve Pownall Award<\/p>\n<p>Honour books<\/p>\n<p>Making the Shrine: Stories from Victoria\u2019s War Memorial\u00a0(Laura J Carroll, The Crossley Press)<br \/>\nSouth with the Seabirds\u00a0(Jess McGeachin, A&amp;U Children\u2019s)<\/p>\n<p>Shadow judging<\/p>\n<p>Flora: Australia\u2019s Most Curious Plants\u00a0(Tania McCartney, NLA)<br \/>\nSouth with the Seabirds\u00a0(Jess McGeachin, A&amp;U Children\u2019s)<\/p>\n<p>CBCA Award for New Illustrator<\/p>\n<p>Grow Big, Little Seed (Sarah Capon, written by Bec Nanayakkara, Bright Light).<\/p>\n<p>CBCA board chair Jo Panckridge said, \u2018The Children\u2019s Book Council of Australia\u2019s Book of the Year Awards continues to voice the transformative power of stories for young Australians. Our 2025 shortlist, and our winning and honour books, showcase the breadth and diversity of our rich storytelling culture and highlight the extraordinary talent of Australian authors and illustrators. Embracing themes that resonate and connect to young lives, inspire critical and creative thinking, and drive debate, the books in this year\u2019s Shortlist will be treasured for years to come by children across Australia.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>More information about the awards is available on <a href=\"https:\/\/store.cbca.org.au\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the CBCA website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"catlist\">Category: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/?category_name=awards-news\" class=\"catitem\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Awards<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/?category_name=local-news\" class=\"catitem\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Local\u00a0news<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday, 15 August 2025 \u00a0 Books+Publishing @booksandpublishing The Children\u2019s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has announced the winners&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[77,64,63,11192,11195,11189,3952,457,11194,3331,134,11191,1736,11193,11190],"class_list":["post-69257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-asia-pacific","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-author-interviews","tag-book-awards","tag-book-news","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-bookseller-jobs","tag-ebooks","tag-entertainment","tag-library-news","tag-new-zealand","tag-publishing-jobs","tag-publishing-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}