Called the Sun Project: Shadower’s Choice Award this year’s winners were announced on 26 August 2022.
The CBCA Book of the Year Awards connect young people to great literature. During CBCA Book Week we celebrate reading for pleasure and applaud our awarded books.
Our Sun Project: Shadow Judging is an exciting addition to our annual calendar. We invite young voices from groups across Australia to join the conversation about our annual Shortlist and choose their own winners. They will be announced at the end of CBCA Book Week at the first ever Shadowers’ Choice Awards (26 August). CBCA Sun Project: Shadow Judging – Young voices welcome here
Older Readers
Sugar Town Queens by Malla Nunn
When Amandla wakes up on her fifteenth birthday, she knows it’s going to be one of her mother’s difficult days. Her mother has had another vision. If Amandla wears a blue sheet her mother has loosely stitched as a dress and styles her normally braided hair in a halo around her head, Amandla’s father will come home. Amandla’s mother, Annalisa, always speaks of her father as if he was the prince of a fairytale, but in truth he’s been gone since before Amandla was born and even Annalisa’s memory of him is hazy. In fact many of Annalisa’s memories from before Amandla was born are hazy. It’s just one of the many reasons people in Sugar Town give Annalisa and Amandla strange looks — that and the fact her mother is white and Amandla is brown. But when Amandla finds a mysterious address in the bottom of her mother’s handbag along with a large amount of cash, she decides it’s finally time to get answers about her mother’s life. But what she discovers will change the shape and size of her family forever.
Younger Readers
Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief by Katrina Nannestad
It’s spring, 1942. The sky is blue, the air is warm and sweet. And then everything is gone. The flowers, the proud geese, the pretty wooden houses, the friendly neighbours. Only Sasha remains. But one small boy, alone in war-torn Russia, cannot survive. One small boy without a family cannot survive. One small boy without his home cannot survive. What that small boy needs is an army. A story of a young boy who becomes a soldier at six, fighting in the only way he can — with love. But is love ever enough when the world is at war?
Early Childhood
Walk of the Whales by Nick Bland
When all of the whales in the ocean leave their home to walk around on land, people don’t quite know what to think. But soon shopkeepers go out of business, farms are flooded with water and salt, and people shout horrible, anti-whale words. That is, until, a smart little girl decides to ask the whales what everyone can do to help.
I really agree with this, I’ve been spruiking this at all my events this week as the one I thought should have won. I love it soooooo much.
Picture Book
Stellarphant by James Foley
Stella wants to be an astronaut. There is only one problem: Stella is an elephant. Every time she applies to Space Command, they come up with a new reason she can’t join. But where there’s a will, there’s a way and Stella is determined to reach for the stars.
VINDICATION! Mel and I have been lamenting this not winning all week – I’ve been reading this everywhere too 🙂
Eve Pownall Award for Information Books
The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Peculiar Pairs in Nature by Sami Bayly
Discover 60 of the most peculiar pairs in nature and learn how plant and animal species rely on each other for their survival. Whether it be a rare tick living in the fur of a pygmy possum, a stick insect feasting and hiding out amongst the Melaleuca or a handfish laying its eggs on a sea tulip, incredible natural relationships deserve to be explored and celebrated. Investigating all types of relationships, from symbiotic to parasitic, this is an eye-opening guide to the natural world. Many species steer clear of those who are different, but the animals and plants in this book have evolved to form relationships with some of the most unlikely partners, and they couldn’t live without them.
