The Winners and Honours of the 2025 CBCA Book of the Year Awards have been announced! The awards include categories for picture books, junior, middle grade, and young adult fiction. As well as a winner and two Honour Books in each category, CBCA have also invited young readers to participate and act as Shadow Judges through the Sun Project.
Established in 1946, the annual CBCA Book of the Year Awards aim to promote quality literature for young Australians by Australians, and celebrate contributions to Australian children’s literature.
Book of the year: Older readers
I'm Not Really Here
Gary Lonesborough
Footsteps approach behind me. I turn and see an Aboriginal boy arriving at the doorway. He's tall, taller than me. He's got curly hair. His body is fit. His chest is chiselled and bare and he's wearing only football shorts.
When 17-year-old Jonah arrives in a new town – Patience – with his dad and younger brothers, it feels like a foreign place. A new town means he needs to make new friends - which isn't always easy. Especially when he's wrestling with his body image, and his memories of his mother.
When he joins the local footy team so he can spend more time with his new crush, Harley, he feels like he's moving closer to something good. But even though he knows what he wants, it doesn't mean he's ready.
Emotionally compelling, honest and featuring warm and authentically vulnerable characters, I'm Not Really Here is a beautiful novel from an internationally acclaimed, bestselling author about navigating family and friendships, and finding a way through grief towards love.
✨ The Shadow Judges selected Birdy by Sharon Kernot!
📚 Also honoured were Into the Mouth of the Wolf by Erin Gough and Birdy by Sharon Kernot.
Book of the year: Younger readers
Laughter is the Best Ending
Maryam Master, illustrated by Astrid Hicks
Zee is a loner. She likes to read Oscar Wilde and watch documentaries all day which, according to her parents, is not normal for 13 year olds. So they decide to send her on a five-day holiday camp, hoping she'll make 'at least one friend'. Now, Zee would rather take a bath in Tabasco sauce than attend a camp called Youth Fusion.
But with influencer Tiffanee and super-nerds Jonah and Moses, she soon finds herself in the middle of a hair-rising mystery, hurling her into some fierce detective work and bringing her face to face with the notorious Old Bat Viv.
✨ The Shadow Judges also selected Laughter is the Best Ending by Maryam Master, illustrated by Astrid Hicks!
📚 Also honoured were: Aggie Flea Steals the Show! by Tania Ingram, illustrated by Anne Yi and Fluff: Mess Up! by Matt Stanton.
Book of the year: Early childhood
The Wobbly Bike
Darren McCallum, illustrated by Craig Smith
The wonderful wobbles of learning to ride a bike, set amidst the vibrant colour and culture of Australia's 'top end'.
How do you fix a wobbly bike? Could it be the tyres, the terrain, or maybe it might be a new rider? A joyful, multi-layered story, celebrating the unique culture of Australia’s urban 'top end', the precious roles of grandparents in families, the fact that kindness and encouragement, combined with practice, are the key to success, bound together with gentle humour… because laughter is always the best medicine.
✨ The Shadow Judges selected Spiro by Anna McGregor!
📚 Also honoured were: How to Move a Zoo by Kate Simpson, illustrated by Owen Swan and One Little Dung Beetle by Rhian Williams, illustrated by Heather Potter & Mark Jackson.
Picture Book of the Year
The Truck Cat
Deborah Frenkel, illustrated by Danny Snell
Some cats are house cats. Some are apartment cats.
But Tinka is a truck cat. Tinka lives everywhere.
Along with his human, Yacoub, Tinka travels roads wide and narrow, near and distant. But no matter how much they travel, home feels very far away – for both of them.
Yacoub drives his truck to make a living, learning the landscape of a new country along the way, and longing for connection. When Tinka and Yacoub are unexpectedly separated, they are determined to find their way back to each other – and, in doing so, might find more than they expected.
✨ The Shadow Judges also selected The Truck Cat by Deborah Frenkel, illustrated by Danny Snell!
📚 Also honoured were: Afloat by Kirli Saunders, illustrated by Freya Blackwood and These Long-Loved Things by Josh Pyke, illustrated by Ronojoy Ghosh.
Eve Pownall Award
Always Was, Always Will Be
Aunty Fay Muir & Sue Lawson
‘Each protest has been a stepping stone to the next battle...’
From the very first protest of January 26th as a Day of Mourning in 1938, to the Pilbara Strike of 1946, to the struggle for the right to vote and be counted; the fight for justice for First Nations people takes many forms.
Always Was, Always Will Be takes a closer look at some of the iconic First Peoples protest movements of the last 200 years, celebrating the strength, wisdom, and bravery of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people defending their land and asserting their right to self-determination through history.
✨ The Shadow Judges selected Flora: Australia’s Most Curious Plants by Tania McCartney and South with the Seabirds by Jess McGeachin!
📚 Also honoured were: Making the Shrine: Stories from Victoria’s War Memorial by Laura J. Carroll and South with the Seabirds by Jess McGeachin.
CBCA Award for New Illustrator
Sarah Capon won this category for
Grow Big, Little Seed
Bec Nanayakkara
Exciting things were happening in Nina’s home.
'While we wait,’ said Mum, ‘let’s plant a seed and watch it grow.’
When Nina plants a pumpkin seed, she imagines herself and a little sister playing in the leaves of a large pumpkin plant. Nina’s mum is pregnant and it seems that Nina’s dreams may soon come true. But despite Nina’s loving care, her seedling stops growing as her mother’s pregnancy ends early.
As time goes by, her mother is pregnant again, and Nina finds the courage to plant another seed. This time, Nina’s seedling grows and grows, and her family embraces a joyful surprise with not one but two rainbow babies.
Read more about the 2025 awards here.
