We are over-the-moon that JdM has two Honour Books and one Shadow Judging Book of the Year Winner, at the 2026 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards!

The Awards were announced on Friday 21 August at an in-person event at the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney. And we are particularly delighted that this year’s accompanying CBCA Book Week theme is ‘Symphony of Stories,’ with illustrations by 2024 Early Childhood winner, Briony Stewart!

We congratulate all shortlisted creators and publishers, most heartily. With especial congratulations to;

Sandy Bigna, whose middle grade verse novel debut Little Bones (UQP) was a Younger Readers Honour Book. Author Jo Dabrowski and our own illustrator Briony Stewart, whose The Thing About Christmas (Little Book Press) is an Early Childhood Honour Book.

And to Margot McGovern, whose YA horror novel This Stays Between Us (Penguin Random House Australia) is the 2026 Shadow Judging Book of the Year Older Readers Winner! The Shadow Judging Book of the Year Awards program is an initiative by the Children’s Book Council of Australia to engage Australian children in quality literature by Australians creators, to encourage reading for pleasure and to create a social and team-building activity around reading. Shadow Judging sees children reading the CBCA Shortlist, judging against official criteria, developing creative work in response to the books, and voting for their own winner.

Huge congratulations to everyone – shortlisted, honoured, and shadow-judged alike!