As part of our coverage of this year's NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, we asked the five Wright Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction finalists four questions about their book and characters. The finalists are: Lyla, by Fleur Beale (A & U); The Thunderbolt Pony, by Stacy Gregg (HarperCollins); How to Bee, by Bren McDibble (A & U); How NOT to stop a kidnap plot, by Suzanne Main (Scholastic); and Dawn Raid by Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith (Scholastic). 1. Wha

Freshly announced at the Awards Ceremony in Wellington, the winners of the 2017 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are ... The Margaret Mahy Book of the Year and the Russell Clark Award for Illustration SNARK Illustrated and written (after Lewis Carroll) by David Elliot Published by Otago University Press RRP $59.99 (hardback) The Picture Book Award That's Not a Hippopotamus By Juliette MacIver Illustrated by Sarah Davis Published by Gecko Press RRP $29.99 (hardbac

For the final part of our finalist coverage of this year's NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, we have quite the treat for you: excerpts of the five Picture Book Award finalists! Here are the first few pages of each book, along with descriptions from the Book Awards Trust. Who'll be the winner? We find out on Monday, 14 August ... An uplifting story about imagination, and a rather wonderful caterpillar. It has magic and charm, evocative language and rhyme which echo

As part of our coverage of this year's NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, we asked the Elsie Locke Award for Non-fiction finalist authors five quick questions about their books and how they wrote them, and asked for some reading recommendations. 1. Describe your finalist book in exactly five sentences. Gillian Candler: From Moa to Dinosaurs starts 1,000 years ago, before people arrived in New Zealand, when moa roamed the land and the giant Haast's eagle ruled the s

As part of our coverage of this year's NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, we asked the five shortlisted authors of the Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction to explain the story behind their story. Here's how, and why, these books were written. It is said that wisdom is life experience, well digested. That seems self-evident truth. Life experience is something we all have in common. It is, however, the digestion part that gets me. What about those bits of life exper

As part of our coverage of this year's NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, we've asked the publishers of the YA finalists to explain why, and how, they published the books. Their responses are compelling and passionate, and you may need to get your wallet ready ... Coming Home to Roost was one of those rare books that won me over in the first chapter. It was the very first scene, in which Elliot accuses his parents of punishing him for dropping out of school to be w

Kristin Smith reviews the five Te Kura Pounamu finalists in this year's NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. He kōrero Māori koe? He kōrero pukapuka koe?* If you love reading te reo Māori, and you love reading fiction, you pretty much better love children’s books, or you’re gonna run out of reading material in te reo pretty quickly. Luckily, children’s books in te reo can be especially clever, insightful, funny and surprising. I’ll never forget discovering Te Ātea by

As part of our coverage of this year's NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, we asked the five finalists of the Russell Clark Award for Illustration to interview each other. Here's Kieran Rynhart, David Elliot, Toby Morris, Jenny Cooper and Donovan Bixley on beginnings, plottings and beating loneliness. From If I Was a Banana by Alexander Tylee, illustrated by Kieran Rynhart (Gecko Press) Kieran Rynhart: At what point in your life did you realise you wanted to do illu

The NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are a unique celebration of the contribution New Zealand’s children’s authors and illustrators make to building national identity and cultural heritage. Awards in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are made in six categories. All awards carry prize money of $7,500. In addition, the judges may decide to award a best first book prize of $2,000 to a previously unpublished author or illustrator. The overall p