CBCA Book of the Year Awards announced (2011)

Sonya Hartnett wins Book of the Year at the CBCA* Awards for 'The Midnight Zoo' Children's Book Council of Australia excerpt from my review of 'The Midnight Zoo':

What I mainly have to say about this book is it is simply astonishing, utterly gorgeous and deeply moving. It was a truly sensory experience, being transported to another time and place. [...] Hartnett's spectacular use of magical realism adds a new dimension in taking the story to somewhere truly gasp-worthy. I felt an ache and tremendous satisfaction at the end. It's life-affirming and a tear-jerker and achingly hopeful and a simply brilliant story to spend your time with.

The prestigious Children's Book Council of Australia Awards were announced this morning (LOVE these awards. Completely). I was very much so looking forward to the announcement this morning (and have been discussing it with my local librarians ;)

LOVED The Midnight Zoo: Read my full review (you know, if you're interested)

The Young Adult short-list looked like this:

Older Readers Short List 2011
Author	Title	Publisher
Crowley, Cath	Graffiti Moon	Pan Macmillan Australia
Hartnett, Sonya	The Midnight Zoo	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Horniman, Joanne	About a Girl	Allen & Unwin
MacLeod, Doug	The Life of a Teenage Body-Snatcher	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Marchetta, Melina	The Piper’s Son	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Wood, Fiona	Six Impossible Things	Pan Macmillan Australia
These books are for mature readers

I have only read 4 books from the above list and ALL FOUR of them are BELOVED books of mine 

(I gave all four of these books 5 stars, all four are on my exclusive absolute favourites list <3).

HUGE congratulations to Sonya Hartnett and also to all those on the short-list (and notables).

Aussie YA is a genre producing such extraodinarily brilliant books. It really is a genre full of exceptional talent and incredible books. 

Have you read The Midnight Zoo?

(or plan to?)

Have you read any of the short-list?

And what would be your pick?

The Midnight Zoo is available internationally, with a different cover

International covers = gorgeous

Book blurb: Two gypsy boys are fleeing through a war-ravaged country-side during the night carrying a secret bundle. The boys stumble across a town that has been reduced to smoking rubble, and a zoo that is still intact. When the boys take shelter in the zoo, they discover a menagerie of talking animals. Both the boys and the animals tell their tales and their desire for freedom.  

Like The Silver Donkey and The Ghost’s Child, this is another beautiful fable-like tale that will move you to tears. It’s a story that will appeal to all ages-as with any fi ne book that merges history with fantasy, adults will enjoy reading this as much as children.

Like The Silver Donkey and The Ghost’s Child, this is another beautiful fable-like tale that will move you to tears. It’s a story that will appeal to all ages-as with any fi ne book that merges history with fantasy, adults will enjoy reading this as much as children.

To see the CBCA 2011 notables (full of awesome Aussie YA recs) check out my previous blog post <3

I apologise for bloggers formatting. Which, is slightly out of control and entirely irksome. Ugh.

2011 Inky's Longlist wOOT (!)

I insanely love it when longlists for Aussie awards start appearing ~ and one of my fave awards to follow is 'The Inky's"


click click for: Everything you need to know about The Inky's

The inky's are Australia's only teenage choice book award.

There are two inky's awarded every year:
The Golden Inky goes to the #1 Australian YA title of the year.
The Silver Inky goes to the #1 International YA title of the year.

The longlist was announced on Inside a Dog today


and here it is *drum roll*

GOLD INKY LONG LIST

(Australian titles)

• Pigboy by  JC Burke 
• Good Oil by Laura Buzo 
• Just a Girl by Jane Caro 
• The FitzOsbourne’s in Exile by Michelle Cooper 
• Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley 
• This is Shyness by Leanne Hall 
• Black Painted Fingernails by Steven Herrick 
• Silvermay by James Moloney 
• The Comet Box by Adrian Stirling 
• All I Ever Wanted by Vikki Wakefield 

SILVER INKY LONG LIST

(International titles)

• Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
• Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
• No and Me by Delphine de Vigan
• Where She Went by Gayle Forman
• Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen
• The Agency: The Body in the Tower by YS Lee
• Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
• First Light by Rebecca Stead
• Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork
• Violence 101by  Denis Wright 

The short list will be announced on September 1st with the voting open until October 18th.

oh i am so thrilled with a few of the picks on this list.

for the GOLDEN INKY ~ I am excited to see:

• GOOD OIL and (as always) 
• GRAFFITI MOON <3 
• and the awesome THIS IS SHYNESS (which has a sequel coming out next year (!)

* still desperately want to read BLACK PAINTED FINGERNAILS and ALL I EVER WANTED.

For the SILVER INKY:

• can I say I LOVE seeing NO AND ME (!) (go forth and read it!)
• plus VIOLENCE 10, 
• and (aww) WHERE SHE WENT <3
• and the charming ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS

* and I so want to read MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD and FIRST LIGHT 

I love how the inky lists are always so eclectic (really, something for everyone) 

What are your picks for the short list?

Or your fave for the winner?

Which book are you hanging out to read the most?

and FYI :D

Previous winners:

2010
Golden Inky: Stolen by Lucy Christopher 
Silver Inky: Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater


2009
Golden Inky: Randa Abdel-Fattah - Where the Streets Had A Name
Silver Inky: The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

2008
Golden Inky: James Roy (teen author) - Town
Silver Inky: Before I Die - Jenny Downham

2007 
Golden Inky: Simmone Howell - Notes From the Teenage Underground
Silver Inky: Looking For Alaska - John Green

(oh, Aussie teen readers have fab taste ;)

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley wins...

Last year I picked my favourite read of 2010 

and I am crazy psyched to see it take out the 

NSW Premier's literary award tonight for best YA title...

A HUGE grinning congrats :D

My review of Graffiti Moon

Graffiti Moon @ goodreads

For all you international readers ~ Graffiti Moon will be available internationally... soon :)

Aussie readers, OH MY GOSH, if you haven't read this yet (!) go out and find a copy

Spanish cover

2010 CBCA shortlists have been announced (& Notables)

I ADORE the Children's Book Council of Australia and have ferociously followed them and their recommendations since I was a youngster :)

The awards celebrate the brilliance of Aussie talent and writers and many of my all time fave Aussie YA books were once shortlisted with the CBCA.

And TODAY the shortlists were announced ~ on inkcrush I am only going to post from the Older Readers category but you can check their site for all the other Aussie categories and age groups.

On to the list... a HUGE CONGRATS to all authors who have been nominated!

Older Readers Short List 2011
Author	Title	Publisher
Crowley, Cath	Graffiti Moon	Pan Macmillan Australia
Hartnett, Sonya	The Midnight Zoo	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Horniman, Joanne	About a Girl	Allen & Unwin
MacLeod, Doug	The Life of a Teenage Body-Snatcher	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Marchetta, Melina	The Piper’s Son	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Wood, Fiona	Six Impossible Things	Pan Macmillan Australia
These books are for mature readers

I have only read 4 books from the above list and ALL FOUR of them are BELOVED books of mine.

The six nominated books were narrowed down from the older readers catagory featuring 32 outstanding Australian young adult titles on their Notable Titles list.

Pretty much one of the coolest things about this list is that *most* Aussie libraries automatically add these titles to their catalogues. Including mine ~ so I'll have access to a whole new awesome batch of Aussie YA. If you're in Australia and have not checked in with your local libraries catalogue you really should check it out :)

Here's the notables list straight from the site

Author	Title	Publisher
Abdel-Fattah, Randa	Noah’s Law	Pan Macmillan Australia
Bavati, Robyn	Dancing in the Dark	Penguin Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Blain, Georgia	Dark Water	Random House Australia
Braxton-Smith, Ananda	Merrow	Black Dog Books
Bursztynski, Sue	Wolfborn	Woolshed Press, Random House Australia
Burton, Rebecca	Beyond Evie	Angus & Robertson, HarperCollins Publisher
Buzo, Laura	Good Oil	Allen & Unwin
Cooper, Michelle	The FitzOsbornes in Exile	Random House Australia
Cornish, DM	Monster Blood Tattoo Book 3: Factotum	Omnibus Books, Scholastic Books AustraliaCrowl
Crowley, Cath	Graffiti Moon	Pan Macmillan Australia
Eaton, Anthony	Daywards	University of Queensland Press
Fitzpatrick, Deb	90 Packets of Instant Noodles	Freemantle Press
Flanagan, John	Ranger’s Apprentice: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja	Random House Australia
French, Jackie	Oracle	Angus & Robertson, HarperCollins Publishers
French, Jackie	A Waltz for Matilda	Angus & Robertson, HarperCollins Publishers
Gardner, Scot	Happy as Larry	Allen & Unwin
Golds, Cassandra	The Three Loves of Persimmon	Penguin Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Hall, Leanne	This is Shyness	The Text Publishing Company
Hartnett, Sonya	The Midnight Zoo	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Hawke, Rosanne	Marrying Ameera	Angus & Robertson, HarperCollins Publishers
Herrick, Steven	Slice: Juicy Moments from my Impossible Life!	Woolshed Press, Random House Australia
Hilton, Nette	The Innocents	Woolshed Press, Random House Australia
Horniman, Joanne	About a Girl	Allen & Unwin
MacLeod, Doug	The Life of a Teenage Body-Snatcher	Penguin Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Marchetta, Melina	The Piper’s Son	Penguin Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Matthews, Penny	A Girl Like Me	Penguin Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Murray, Kirsty	India Dark	Allen & Unwin
Plüss, Nicole	Scout	Penguin Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Pryor, Michael	The Laws of Magic: Moment of Truth	Random House Australia
Roy, James	Anonymity Jones	Woolshed Press, Random House Australia
Westerfeld, Scott Ill. Keith Thompson	Behemoth	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)
Wood, Fiona	Six Impossible Things	Pan Macmillan Australia

I have only read 12 of the above titles (out of 23) and am really looking forward to checking out a bunch of ones I haven't yet read.

What favourites of your made it on here?

Which books on here haven't you read that you're really wanting to?

(I was thrilled to see both SLICE and GOOD OIL on there ~ two other recent faves of mine)

Congrats to Melina Marchetta!

I am SO INCREDIBLY THRILLED to hear that Melina Marchetta is on the long list for the MILES FRANKLIN award with the most achingly, funny, BRILLIANT novel The Piper's Son (!!!) 

The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize for the best Australian ‘published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases’. It is also one of Australia's MOST prestigious and honoured awards.


Here's the titles on this years long list. The shortlist for this year's award will be announced on 19 April in Sydney, with the winner announced at a special event at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne on 22 June.


Here's a list of previous winners (since 1957)
And previous short-listed and long-listed titles


I am really PUMPED and pleased as The Piper's Son is one of my all-time favourite books ~ on my BELOVED shelf.  I *just* got my copy back from my mother in law who said it kept her up WAY too late and had her both in stitches (laughing) and in tears. 


The Piper's Son is now available internationally (yay!)


I ABSOLUTELY 100% recommend it :)

2011 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Shortlist

Today the short lists were announced (I am a literary awards junkie :)

Let's talk about the YA ones, yeah?

The Ethel Turner Prize ($30,000), named in honour of the acclaimed author of the children's classic Seven Little Australians, is offered for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry written for young people of secondary school level.

Previous winners of the Ethel Turner Prize include Mem Fox and Julie Vivas, Markus Zusak, Ursula Dubosarsky and James Roy (from site)

2011 shortlisted writers are...

• Michelle Cooper - The FitzOsbornes in Exile: The Montmaray Journals - 2
• Cath Crowley - Graffiti Moon
• Kirsty Eagar - Saltwater Vampires
• Belinda Jeffrey - Big River, Little Fish
• Melina Marchetta - The Piper's Son
• Jaclyn Moriarty - Dreaming of Amelia (Ghosts of Ashbury High ~ in the US)

ARGH!! I am SO THRILLED with this list! All SIX of them are female Aussie YA writers and FOUR of them are on my all time fave BELOVED authors list. 

I've read FIVE of these and recently acquired A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper ~ which is the first book in the series (#2 has been nominated)

This time I REALLY can't call my fave to win. Anyone who has hung out here for a while knows how much I ADORE Jaclyn Moriarty, Kirsty Eagar, Cath Crowley and Melina Marchetta. I was also BLOWN AWAY by Belinda Jeffrey's debut.

Good Luck to all six authors ~ I am feeling incredibly PROUD, hey :D

(Especially of Jaclyn Moriarty. I have SUCH a soft spot for her, haha)

Have you read any of these? 

Planning to read any?

What's your pick?

The winners of this years Inky Awards...

The winners of this years Inky Awards were announced today - wahoo!

The Gold Inky (Australian title) went to Lucy Christopher's Stolen

And the Silver Inky (International title)  went to Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver

A HUGE congrats to both :) 

and also to all 20 short-listed titles...

Previous posts regarding the Inky's:
The 2010 Inky Longlist (and previous winners 2007 - 2009)
The 2010 Inky Shortlist (and my picks)

Winner of the Young Adult 2010 Prime Minister's Literary Awards

For a refresher, here's the list of books nominated for the award:

Young adult fiction

• Stolen by Lucy Christopher
• The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke
• Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God by Bill Condon
• The Museum of Mary Child by Cassandra Golds
• Swerve by Phillip Gwynne
• Jarvis 24 by David Metzenthen
• Beatle meets Destiny by Gabrielle Williams

It's the first year there has been a Young Adult prize, so no previous winners :) 




It's a really tough competition with the standard of the short lists being so high. 

• My personal favourite on this list is Beatle Meets Destiny
• I thought Stolen was exceptional
• Jarvis 24 and Swerve are two brilliant male POV's (Jarvis 24 won the CBCA for older readers this year)
• I've read all except for two: The Museum of Mary Child by Cassandra Gold, and Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God by Bill Condon.

Anyways, on to the winner (which includes a 100k tax free cash prize)

Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God by Bill Condon

I have this annoying problem that gives me a lot of trouble: a conscience. 

Neil Bridges attends a Catholic boys’ school in which teachers rule with iron fists and thick leather straps. Some crumble under the pressure but Neil toughs it out, just as his Vietnam-bound older brother has done before him. He has to be a man, after all. But at sixteen, how can he be sure of himself when he’s not sure of anything else? 

He loses a friend and finds another, falls in love and unwittingly treads a path that leads to revenge and possibly murder . . . (from goodreads)

And the judge's comments:

Judges’ comments

Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God is a poignant, funny and deeply insightful rite of passage novel. Set in 1967, the author makes it seem contemporary, skilfully employing a nuanced first-person narration. Neil Bridges attends a Catholic boys’ school where classmate Ray (Zom) is accused by a Brother of stealing a wallet and is expelled after a fight with his accuser. Neil knows who stole the wallet, but refuses to tell. Ray’s father is so ashamed that Ray is cut off from his family – save for his older sister Sylvana. Neil falls in love with Sylvana, but, implicated in Ray’s disgrace, his loyalties and motives are deeply conflicted. The pain of first love, and the morality attached to individual life choices, is evoked with real empathy. Confessionsof a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God also portrays the strength of ordinary families and the love even between warring brothers. There’s a poignant hint too, of more loss ahead, in Neil’s brother Kevin’s conscription for the Vietnam War. Condon declines to indulge in historical revisionism, while the economical prose attains a rhythm that is almost poetry. The short, chiselled chapters ensure that not a word is wasted. Condon is a writer of considerable craft who eschews the flamboyant in search of deeper truths.

Congrats to Bill Condon and to all authors short-listed :)