Winners and winners

Awards season has begun with the 2025 CBCA Notables

Mar 04, 2025

This year, the CBCA (Children’s Book Council of Australia) is celebrating it’s 80th year (cue: parade) and last week, the CBCA kicked off Awards Season 2025 in the children’s publishing world with the announcement of the 2025 CBCA Notables.

The Notables make up the longlists for the Children’s Book Of The Year announcement, which will take place on Friday 15 August.

In other words, it’s big news and the lists themselves always provoke a lot of discussion and debate – which is, after all, half the point!

For Team YKNR, the Notables lists are all about Winners (hooray, you made the list) and Winners (hooray, you published a terrific book in 2024 and did not happen to make the list this time around).

We were thrilled to see many of the author and illustrator members of our Facebook community represented on the Notables lists, and we were equally thrilled to see many of the books that Megan and Allison have discussed and championed on the podcast there as well.

There were books we loved that did not get a guernsey this time around – but we love them no less than we did when we first read them.

We hope that you will have a look at the CBCA Notables lists to discover a range of brilliant reads for your kids. And we also hope that you will use them as a jumping off point to wade around in the wonderful world of Australian Children’s Literature.

If you’d like to learn a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes when literary awards are judged, you might enjoy this episode of the podcast where Megan and Allison lift the curtain.

And if you’d like to get to know some of the 2025 CBCA Notables a bit better, you can listen to these episodes of our First Chapters Summer Series, which feature the first chapter of each book read by its author.

Find First Chapters here

UPDATES FROM TEAM YKNR

HELLO FROM MEGAN DALEY

Megan is an award-winning teacher-librarian working in Brisbane, the author of Raising Readers: How to nurture a child’s love of books, and co-host of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast. Her debut picture book THE BEEHIVE is out now! More about Megan here.

I’ve been head down in programming for Somerset Storyfest and absolutely loving it! Being announced recently as their new artistic director was a bit of a ‘kidlit bucketlist’ item for me and I’m thrilled to be working with the powerhouse that is CEO Andrea Lewis and the entire team behind this festival.

For those who asked, yes I’m actually still working as a teacher librarian, authoring, podcasting and parenting – I mean look – lets see how the year pans out but at the moment I’m feeling like this tightly balanced professional/personal thing I have going on is going to be just fine. Until someone gets sick!

On the home front, Year Twelve for the eldest is ‘a process’, signing the boys up to cricket was a Poor Decision and the teen is loving musical theatre (I am so done with Hairspray and Mama Mia). The Beekeeper is in PEAK beekeeping season and very busy but it’s a beautiful season and the honey is flowing.

MEGAN’S BOOKMARK REVIEWS

Each month, I share full reviews of two outstanding books that have crossed my desk. Bookmark these for your young readers.

‘My Big Secret’ by Felice Arena

Everyone in my family goes for the RED team. My dad goes for the RED team. My mum goes for the RED team... EVERYONE goes for the RED team. But ... I go for the BLUE team!

Will this little pig ever have the courage to tell everyone his big secret?

And will that be okay?

A story about love and acceptance, no matter what team your heart belongs to.

Just like the author himself, this a witty and super fun picture book. The bold illustrations (also by Felice) have lots of great visual literacy to unpack which gets a seal of approval from me. The position and stance of characters on the page and the size, colour and boldness of the text help young viewers to predict how each character feels and there is a limited palette so that the focus is firmly on the colours red and blue. While at a basic level this is a book about sporting teams, even the youngest readers will get the idea that being ‘on a team’ can apply in so many different/all aspects of life.

‘My Big Secret’ is a well-executed book, with great messaging done well.

‘Little Bones' by Sandy Bigna

‘Little Bones’, a debut verse novel for Sandy Bigna, is set to be one of my top reads for 2025.

Did you know

that if you wish aloud for something

in the stealthy shadows of your bedroom,

if you whisper the words

soft as the brush of a moth’s wing,

if you feel the words rush through your blood,

your wish might come true?

Since the accident, eleven-year-old Bones spends her time drawing animal skeletons and scavenging for dead things to add to her collection. She’s drifted away from her friends and doesn’t want to make new ones. One night, Bones wishes on a full moon and unintentionally resurrects the skeleton of a baby bird. Bird wants to return to his natural (dead) state, so Bones agrees to reverse the curse – not that she knows how.

My 13 year old and I read ‘Little Bones’ together and it’s been an outstanding book to read and discuss. It captured us both, drew us in and held us gently in this space of pure beauty - the descriptions of the natural world, of grief, of friendship, of family were just so beautifully crafted.

‘Little Bones’ is a little bit gothic, terribly real and has a sprinkle of magic – it’s utterly divine and I cannot recommend it more highly.

HELLO FROM ALLISON RUSHBY

The award-winning, bestselling author of many, many books for children and adults, Allison Rushby’s novels are firm favourites in the Your Kid’s Next Read community. Her latest illustrated junior fiction series, The Wish Sisters, is fast gaining fans. More about Allison R here.

I write this not from my study, but from the couch as, alas, I can’t currently sit on my chair in my study, my knees being too bruised up from my first day back at ice skating (you may remember my synchronised ice skating team’s amazing journey to Nationals last year!).

The first day back is always skills day, where all the teams (of varying ability) come together to practise some skills. Well, as my knees can attest, I have none! Or very few. At least I was in good company, for someone else had a knock to the head and there were several other falls besides mine. Things can only get better from here? I hope?!

Things fare far better in writing land, where I am having cover reveals and trade announcements and all sorts of exciting things I can’t talk about (things you can’t talk about are always super-fun for authors). One small problem – I have some out of control characters in the manuscript I’m working on. Over the course of thirty-two books, this has only happened to me once before, so I’m not quite sure what to do with them. If I’m taken hostage, I’ll let you know. Or they will. Maybe.

THREAD OF THE MONTH

Every so often, we’ll have a YKNReader post within the group asking for recommendations for young readers who are finding reading difficult for one reason or another. Sometimes our member will add something along the lines of, ‘I know this group is mostly for good readers’ or similar.

This is not one of those threads, but it is a thread that reminded me to let our members know we are here for ALL readers and that our membership is full of people who will have amazing recommendations for you – from teachers and teacher librarians, to parents and guardians and academics and writers and illustrators and all sorts!

Between the lot of us, we’ve seen just about every kind of reader and we’re here to help. We pride ourselves on being a truly inclusive reading community and this thread proves what sort of great suggestions we’re capable of when we all work together!

See the full thread here

HELLO FROM ALLISON TAIT

Writing as A. L. Tait, Allison is the internationally published, bestselling author of three middle-grade series: The Mapmaker Chronicles, The Ateban Cipher and the Maven & Reeve Mysteries. She is an in-demand speaker, a writing teacher for kids and adults, and co-host of the YKNR podcast. Her latest novel THE FIRST SUMMER OF CALLIE McGEE is out now. More about Allison here.

In case you missed it, the cover for my next middle-grade book WILLOW BRIGHT’S SECRET PLOT has been revealed – and pre-orders are open!

‘I feel her in the breeze that makes the dahlias bob, and in the scent of the roses ...’

After moving to the city from the country, Willow Bright feels like she’s lost her mum all over again―and landed on another planet. Her clothes are wrong, her taste in music is wrong, and even the food she eats is wrong.

But when Willow spots a pattern in a series of puzzling accidents and mishaps, she forms an unlikely friendship―and finds new purpose.

Can Willow solve the mystery and find room to be herself along the way? Or will her plot to run home to the wide-open spaces and memories of her mum land Willow in even more trouble?

A middle-grade story about growing up, grief, finding your place in the world and the restorative benefits of nature.

If you or your young reader loved THE FIRST SUMMER OF CALLIE MCGEE, I think you'll find a lot to love about this book, too.

Willow is a plucky, determined, capable 12-year-old country kid, who finds herself transplanted to the inner city for reasons outside her control. She also finds herself in the middle of a mystery and in trying to solve it, Willow finds her place.

I’ll share more about the inspiration for the book next month, but for now I'm happy to just stare at the gorgeous cover.

Pre-Order Willow Bright's Secret Plot

MARCH BOOKMAIL WINNER

Each month, we give away a prize pack consisting of some of the brilliant bookmail sent to us for the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast. One winner** is chosen from our full subscriber list by random draw and announced here!

There are SIX books in the MARCH prize pack.

The MARCH bookmail giveaway winner is … Alison Cole, WA.

Congrats! We’ll be in touch by email.

Want a chance to win next month? All you have to do is subscribe.

The weather might be (technically) cooling down, but it feels as though everything’s heating up at Your Kid’s Next Read. We hope you’re finding some reading time at your place!

Allison T, Allison R and Megan

Thank you for reading Your Kid's Next Read . This post is public so feel free to share it.

**Australian mailing addresses only. Prize consists of one copy of each book pictured, sent as a pack to the winner by Australia Post. Winner will be contacted by email and prize must be claimed within 14 days or a redraw will take place. You must be subscribed to the YKNR newsletter by midnight (AEDST) the night before publication each month to be eligible to win. No correspondence will be entered into.