Children's Book Week 2023

Read. Grow. Inspire.

It’s Children’s Book Week, 19-25 August 2023.

Since 1945 the Children’s Book Council of Australia has been celebrating the work of Australian children’s authors and illustrators by awarding an annual prize for Book of the Year in each of the following categories:

• Older readers – books for young people between the ages of 13-18 years
• Younger readers – books for children from 7-12 years
• Early childhood – books for pre and beginning readers, 0-6 years
• Picture book of the year – books for readers from 0-18 where the illustrations enhance and unify the text
• Eve Pownall Award – books documenting factual material for readers 0-18 years
• Award for new illustrator – books illustrated by emerging illustrators or those new to the field of children’s book illustrations, for readers 0-18.

We’ve put together a collection of all the short-listed books and winners (when announced) for 2023.

Visit the Children's Book Week 2023 collection

Hear some of the books read aloud by visiting Story Box Library.

And while you are in the mood for children’s literature, you might like our Nolan Historical Children’s Literature Collection. Housed at our Melbourne campus library, the Nolan Collection has over 5000 items dating from the 1840s to the 1990s and continues to grow thanks to John and Grace Nolan.

Coming soon to the Nolan Collection is the Missionary Collection with over 1000 children’s books, pamphlets and other items of interest focusing on Christian missionary endeavours.

The Culican Children’s Book Collection, also housed at our Melbourne campus library, has over 1500 items from the 1800s to the 1940s collected by Dinny Culican Ward during her time as Head of the Department of English Literature and Language between 1971 and 1984 at Christ College, one of ACU’s predecessor institutions.

Applications for the ACU Historical Children’s Book Collections Fellowship 2023 are now open. Visit the fellowship webpage for more information and details of the application process.