Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards 2024

I’m always excited to explore the books nominated in the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Awards every year.

These awards celebrate wonderful new releases in the four categories of:

• books for older readers;
• books for younger readers;
• early childhood;
• picture book;
• new illustrator award;

There is also the Eve Pownall Award which celebrates books which have the prime intention of documenting factual material. These books can be for ages 0-18 years and consideration is given to imaginative presentation, interpretation and variation of style.

I’m a teacher and our wonderful school librarian always orders copies of the short-listed books for us to share with our students.

So let’s have a look at the picture books which were winners in 2024. 

Book of the Year: Early Childhood

Gymnastica Fantastica! is a gorgeous book about discovering and delighting in movement and attempting new physical skills, without worrying about perfection. It perfectly captures the ‘watch this!’ and ‘look at me!’ stage of young children’s development and the lovely way little people put on gorgeously imperfect shows for whoever will watch them.

The book is about a child (gender isn’t mentioned) who puts on a show to demonstrate their new gymnastics skills. The playful, rhyming text is sparse, allowing the bright illustrations to tell most of the story with energy and a great deal of humour.

Recommended ages: 3 – 6 years

The Concrete Garden is a gently post-pandemic story about finding optimism after a dark spell and the nurturing power of community friendships in an urban setting. (COVID is not actually mentioned though a few people are drawn wearing masks).

After a cold, dark winter, apartment doors in a large tower block open and children spill out to play. One child brings some chalk with her and the children cover the concrete with pictures of everything they can think of. Before long, they have created a beautiful and exotic garden spread out across the concrete.

A diverse range of characters is represented in the book, the language is simple and succinct and the watercolour, pencil and pastel illustrations capture moments of connection, artistry and occasional upsets with warmth and humour. 

Recommended ages: 3 – 6 years

Grace and Mr Milligan live near the sea, next door to Mr Milligan and his goat, Charlie. The three are great friends. They go to the beach together and eat strawberries, grapes and apples with a large dollop of cream. But when Charlie get sick and dies of old age, Mr Milligan loses his enthusiasm for life and Grace doesn’t know what to do to help him. Eventually she settles on a picnic where the two share their memories of Charlie. 

Grace and Mr Milligan is a simple, beautiful story about grief, love and the healing power of friendship.

Recommended ages: 3 – 7 years

Bear and Duck are best friends but they are very different. Duck likes to try new things while Bear is more cautious and doesn’t like to try new things. When it’s bring-a-friend day at Duck’s dance class, Bear is initially delighted to be chosen but then his fears take over: what if he doesn’t know what to do? At first things don’t go well but with Duck’s encouragement he discovers that he might just be a very good dancer. ​​

Bear & Duck are Friends is a story about friendship, confidence and overcoming the fear of trying new things. It’s a great springboard for talking to children about fears, challenges and being open to new experiences. The lovely role reversal which shows the bigger, stronger animal as being fearful also presents an opportunity to discuss stereotypes. 

Recommended ages: 3 – 6 years

Book of the Year: Picture Book

Entries in the category of Picture Book of the Year are required to be outstanding books of the picture Book genre in which the author and illustrator achieve artistic and literary unity. If the entry is a wordless picture book, the story, theme or concept should be unified through illustrations. Entries in this category should appeal to – and be suitable for – children aged 0-18 years. Some books may be for mature readers.

Timeless is an unusual picture book. I actually didn’t like it the first time I read it but I’m now a fan and I think it provides lots of opportunities for discussion among all age groups. This is a vibrant picture book all about the concept of time – how we make it, how we lose it and run out of it and how we might subvert the whole concept.

Emit (whose parents turned back time to name him) is surrounded by busyness. Dad is too busy to read stories, Mum is too busy to play games and Emit’s sister and brother are too busy doing nothing to do anything at all. Emit tries everything he can think of to get more time before finally learning the secret: that if you want time, you have to make it. 

This book is rich with all the clichés we tend to throw around about time: time stands still, time is precious, give the gift of time and so on. These are great to discuss with children while also opening up conversations about how they experience time and how it’s talked about in their familes. Children will also love the hilarious endpapers.

Recommended ages: 5 – 8 years

Every Night at Midnight, Felix turns into a wolf. His hands and feet become velvety paws and he grows a long, bushy tail. Felix has the night-time world to himself. There’s no one else like him and he loves being a wolf at night, all alone. Felix isn’t a wolf during the day but he’s alone then, too, because there’s no one else like him. But one night, Felix makes a friend in an unlikely place.

This is an unusual picture book, with engaging illustrations done in a restricted palette of black, white, purple and red which give them a charming, retro feel. At its heart, it’s a story about staying true to one’s identity and finding friendship in an unlikely place.

Recommended ages: 4 – 8 years

Paper-flower Girl feels to me like a beautifully-illustrated poem. The language is poetic and evocative and the author uses a range of literary devices (repetition, rhythm, rhyme) to create mood and atmosphere. The vocabulary is sophisticated, with words like ivory, rust, blush and teal used to describe the rich colours of the petals the girl creates for her flowers. As a teacher, I’m a huge fan of introducing this sort of language even to younger children and I think younger readers, as well as older readers, will enjoy these descriptions. 

Down on the plain, the Paper-flower Girl happily creates elaborate and beautiful flowers out of paper, although she has few customers. One day, the Giant from the Hill brings her to his tower to work for him, ultimately forcing the Paper-flower Girl to create things she no longer recognises as flowers. When the exasperated Giant throws her from the Hill, the Paper-flower Girl takes his scarf with her and incorporates the scarf into the flowers she continues to make. In his tower, the Giant is left unhappy while down on the plain, the girl happily makes her flowers again.

Recommended ages: 4 -12 years

That Bird Has Arms! is a quirky, engaging story which practically oozes originality. The story is about Roy, an ordinary bird in every way except that he has arms. Initially Roy thinks that all birds have arms until he hears the other birds talking about how ridiculous arms are on humans and realises he is different. From that day on, he hides his arms from all the other birds, although he does enjoy using them in private. Then, one day, a pair of myna birds sees him using his arms to eat and they spread the word. All the other birds make fun of Roy until the days he uses his arms to rescue a friend when every other attempt has failed …

This hilarious book embraces elements of popular culture, such as social media and popularity contests and cleverly explores themes of identity and accepting difference through Roy’s experiences. 

Recommended ages:  3 – 8 years

Book of the Year: Eve Pownall Award

I love non-fiction picture books and these are brilliant. Entries in this category are books which have the prime intention of documenting factual material with consideration given to imaginative presentation, interpretation and variation of style. They can be written for children aged 0-18 years.

Some books in this category can be designed for mature readers and some may deal with particularly challenging themes. That’s not the case with the 2024 entries, however.

I love history so Country Town is a book that’s right up my alley. It’s a really beautiful – and important – text-rich, non-fiction resource which tells the story of many Australian country towns from the time the land was inhabited by First Nations clans through to the present day. I really love the way the authors have done this. The authors have created a fictional Australian country town and they tell the story decade-by-decade. Both text and illustrations encourage interaction, with readers being asked to find particular details in the intricate illustrations and to consider some of the issues raised by the authors. The book takes readers on a fascinating journey which begins at the camp of a First Nations clan and concludes on the same land in 2018. Major themes and significant issues including land rights, immigration, climate change and the shortage of doctors in rural areas are woven into the narrative. Primary sources, including first-hand accounts, bring history to life and encourage further research. The endpapers are lovely and a timeline at the end of the book provides a useful summary of major historical developments in the town.

Recommended ages: 10 years – adult

Australia: Country of Colour is a wonderful non-fiction text which celebrates Australian animals, plants and landscapes through the lens of the colour wheel.

The book begins with a brief introduction to colour: how colours can affect our emotions and the different ideas and feelings we typically associate with various colours. Australia is a country of extraordinary colours, from the vivid red dirt of the outback and our wide, seemingly-endless blue skies to the green of our wild bushland and our golden sandy beaches and this book celebrates this colour, with vibrant illustrations and short, engaging descriptions of each one.

Each colour is discussed separately in more detail as the reader moves through the book, with illustrations of all the birds, animals and flora which exhibit each colour included on several fascinating double-page spreads.

Recommended ages: 7 years – adult

Where History Happened is another brilliant picture book about Australia’s history which I’ve been using with great success in the classroom. The book tells the story of Australia’s history in a series of colourful and clever double-page spreads, each of which focuses on a different aspect of our story. Beginning with ancient rock art, the story progresses through the Myall Creek Massacre, the Eureka Stockade and the siege at Glenrowan and on to Federation Day and the bombing of Darwin. I love that the book includes a strong focus on First Nations history and on wider aspects of Australian culture, identity and history, including references to Dutch (Dirk Hartog), Chinese and female history. The front and back endpapers illustrate a timeline of important historical events, with each location also including the names of the traditional owners of the land.

Recommended ages: 8 – 12 years

Book of the Year: New Illustrator Award

Hope is the Thing is a gentle picture book wherein hope is given the characteristics of a variety of birds. The lyrical rhyming text is accompanied by some truly glorious mixed-media collages of birds, celebrating their diversity and ingenuity, as seen through the eyes of a child:

Hope is the bowerbird
hunting for blue
Hope is a red-tailed black cockatoo.

A picture is painted of hope being deeply linked to nature and being within our grasp if we will only notice the simple things in life.

Recommended age: 7 – 12 years

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I hope you’ve enjoyed exploring these wonderful new CBCA-award-winning books with me. If you’re on Instagram, please do come and share your favourites and tag me @thebookbasketco so I can see!

* This blog post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you). All the books I link to are quality texts I've read and enjoyed. In most cases I also use them in the classroom.

Over to you

Do you make it a point to seek out the books that have won CBCA awards each year?

Which ones were your favourites in 2024?

I’d love to hear what you think so drop me a line in the comments.