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These awards 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: Picture Book, Junior Fiction (the Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award), Young Adult Fiction, Non-Fiction (the Elsie Locke Award), Illustration (the Russell Clark Award) and te reo Māori (the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award).

Up to five finalists are selected for each category, and from these a category winner is selected. All awards carry prize money of $8,500. In addition, the judges will award a Best First Book prize of $2,500 to a previously unpublished author or illustrator. The overall prize, the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award, carries a prize of $8,500.

The awards are judged by a panel of five. Te Kura Pounamu is judged by a separate panel of judges.

At the same time, a major nationwide Reading Challenge, sponsored by HELL Pizza, encourages children to read.

A shortlist is announced in June each year, and the awards event is held in August of the same year. The 2023 winners were announced at a ceremony held at Pipitea Marae, Wellington, on Thursday 10 August 2023.

The New Zealand Book Awards Trust is calling for entries for the 2024 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, for New Zealand books published between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024.

Please note that there are two submission deadlines. You are asked to send your entries in these two tranches for ease of sending to the judges.

For books published between 1 April 2023 and 30 November 2023, submissions open on Thursday 16 November, and will close at 5pm on Wednesday 13 December 2023.For books published between 1 December 2023 and 31 March 2024, submissions open on Thursday 14 December and will close at 5pm on Friday 9 February 2024.

For books in the second tranche, page proofs will be accepted where books are not yet printed; finished books must arrive with the Awards Administrator by 5pm on Friday 8 March 2024.

Find out more HERE

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