This year's NZCYA Awards coverage kicks off with the Russell Clark Award for Illustration Award finalists! We have some exclusive insights into the process of illustrating each book, including working sketches, storyboards, decadent interior spreads, and even a photograph of some real life inspo – scroll down to see! Thanks to the Book Awards Trust for the book descriptions. Dozer is a characterful and very recognisably cat-like cat — with his fluffy-footed stalking of prey,

Fresh off the ceremony at Te Papa Tongarewa, the results are in and your New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults winners are... Spread from of The Bomb, by Sacha Cotter & Josh Morgan The Margaret Mahy Book of the Year and the Picture Book Award The Bomb Written by Sacha Cotter & illustrated by Josh Morgan Published by Huia RRP $23.00 Buy Now Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction The Dog Runner Written by Bren MacDibble Published by Allen

It's the final instalment of our NZCYA finalist coverage for 2019! Our final category is the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for Te Reo Māori. When she's not busy being a Sapling editor or a bookseller at Little Unity, Briar Lawry is also an enthusiastic akonga i te reo Māori. So for this category, she took matters into her own hands and assessed Te Hīnga Ake A Māui I Te Ika Whenua, Te Haka A Tānerore and Ngā Whetū Matariki I Whānakotia – with some help from he

The Young Adult finalists in the NZCYA Awards encompass a variety of approaches to fantasy, a touch of dystopia, political intrigue and coming of age storytelling. The Young Adult category also happens to be one where the target demographic is full of some super talented writers. So we asked a couple of Toitoi Journal-ists – alumnae of the celebrated children's literary journal – to provide us with their reviews. Here's what Stella Weston and Tasmyn Kibblewhite shared with us

This year's NZCYA Awards coverage kicks off with the Best First Book finalists! We asked them to tell us, in their own words and with their own spin, about a book that was integral to their childhoods. Here's what they shared with us. James T. Guthrie, finalist for Bullseye Bella (Scholastic) The earliest book I can think of that made a deep and lasting impression on me, which changed the way I thought about books and reading and shaped the choices I would make in my reading

How does an author not only get their book published, but get their book shortlisted for the Best First Book award? We asked each of this year's finalists how they went from unpublished amateur to finalist. Eileen Merriman, finalist for Pieces of You (Penguin Random House) Everyone always asks how I can possibly find time to write, but for me it’s a compulsion. I stopped writing when I went to university and didn’t start again until almost twenty years and several exams later

You know their words, you know their pictures ... but do you know their faces? We were very privileged to be at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults last week, and here are a few of the familiar faces we met there. All photography by and copyright Lindsay Keats. All bad photo-shopping by Sarah Forster. The sponsor of this page, Time Out Bookstore, was announced Nielsen Bookshop of the Year for 2017 last Saturday. Congratulations to Wendy Tighe-Umbers, Jen