Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) 2025 Notables part one

Image source: Instagram CBCA 

Last night I attended the announcement of the CBCA 2025 Notable titles at an event hosted by the CBCA NSW Branch. I posted my predictions yesterday. 

As usual I picked some and missed lots! Oh, and I am sad about some precious titles that missed out - I am going to talk about them again here because sometimes in the flurry of the Notables, and then later next month with the Shortlisted titles, it can be easy to overlook some other truly splendid titles. You do need to know that I am making an assumption that the books that 'missed the cut', and that I loved, were actually submitted. Books for our CBCA annual awards are submitted by their publisher and there is a fee to pay (up to AUS$199) and a requirement to send five copies of the physical book so while we assume every possible book reaches the judges, I can tell you this does not always happen. 

Before I talk about the 2025 Notables, as I said, I do want to mention a few books that I highly recommend - just because these are not Notables all of these should be added to your school library and all need to be shared or promoted to your readers. I am going to call these:

NOT ables
Picture Books

Missed the cut!

In my review I said: This is also an example of a quiet story.

Make a plan to share this gentle story with a young reader today.

In my review I said: EVERY Primary school library should add Tearaway Coach to their library collection ...  It would be great to compare this book with two older books illustrated by 

Andrew McLean - The Riverboat Crew and The Steam Train Crew.

In my review I said: This book is a perfect addition to a library because it looks at a different war - Vietnam and also it is a book that is accessible for very young children aged 6+.

Now to focus on the 2025 Notables. My previous post only focused on three of the five categories and not Older Readers (Young adult titles) or Eve Pownall (Non Fiction titles). You can see the video announcement here. 

In this post (the first of three) I will talk about the two picture book categories - Early Childhood (ages 0-6) and Picture Book which is about the format of the book and covers all ages (0-18). 

Huge thanks to the Teacher-Librarian at Telarah Public School for creating these posters. 

The 2025 CBCA Book of the Year Awards Early Childhood Notables are…

• Amid the Sand Dunes by Andrea Rowe, illustrated by Hannah Sommerville (Little Hare)
• The Big Book of Australian Nursery Rhymes by Frané Lessac (Walker Books Australia)
• Dinosaur in My Pocket by Ashleigh Barton, illustrated by Blithe Fielden (Lothian Children’s Books)
• Don’t Worry, Felix by Yohann Devezy & Katharine Alice, illustrated by Zoe Bennett (New Frontier Publishing)
• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Tooth Fairy (And Some Things You Didn’t) by Briony Stewart Lothian Children’s Books)
• Good Hair by Yvonne Sewankambo, illustrated by Freda Chiu (Walker Books Australia)
• Happy All Over by Emma Quay (ABC Books)
• How to Make a Bedtime by Meg McKinlay, illustrated by Karen Blair (Walker Books Australia)
• How to Move a Zoo by Kate Simpson, illustrated by Owen Swan (A&U Books for Children and Young Adults)
• I am Tree Rex! by Mo Davey (Berbay)
• Just Like You by Natashia Curtin (Walker Books Australia)
• Kittens Do Not Care for Baths by Ali Rutstein, illustrated by Niña Nill (Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing)
• Meerkat Mayhem by Mem Fox, illustrated by Judy Horacek (Penguin Random House Australia)
• The Most Amazing Thing by Ian Hayward Robinson, illustrated by Matt Shanks (A&U Books for Children and Young Adults)
• Night Watch by Jodi Toering, illustrated by Tannya Harricks (Walker Books Australia)
• One Little Dung Beetle by Rhian Williams, illustrated by Heather Potter & Mark Jackson (Wild Dog Books)
• Over or Under? by Pip Harry, illustrated by Hilary Jean Tapper (Lothian Children’s Books)
• Reading to Baby by Margaret Wild, illustrated by Hannah Sommerville (Affirm Press)
• Sky Country by Aunty Patsy Cameron, illustrated by Lisa Kennedy (Magabala Books)
• Spiro by Anna McGregor (Scribble)
• To Stir With Love by Kate Mildenhall, illustrated by Jess Racklyeft (Simon & Schuster Australia)
• Two Turtles by Kiah Thomas, illustrated by Jake Minton (Little Book Press)
• Willow’s Gumboots by Beverly McWilliams, illustrated by Hélène Magisson (MidnightSun Publishing)
• The Wobbly Bike by Darren McCallum, illustrated by Craig Smith (Walker Books Australia)
• Worms Are Our Friends by Toni D’Alia, illustrated by Mica Purnell (Bright Light)

Are these three titles below really right for Early Childhood or would they better fit the Eve Pownall award?

I didn't predict One Little Dung Beetle as an Early Childhood selection because I thought it would be in Eve Pownall (Non Fiction). Equally I would most certainly have put How to Move a Zoo in as Non Fiction too. And finally Night Watch to my eye also falls into the Eve Pownall category. These are ALL brilliant books. 

So, of the 25 Early Childhood titles, I predicted (or had read) eight. There are now seventeen titles from this category I need to find and read. 

The 2025 CBCA Book of the Year Awards Picture Book of the Year Notables are…

• Afloat by Freya Blackwood, text by Kirli Saunders (Little Hare)
• Bernie Thinks in Boxes by Zoe Bennett, text by Jess Horn (Affirm Press)
• Dragon Folding by Lucia Masciullo, text by Christopher Cheng (Penguin Random House Australia)
• Footprint by Sally Soweol Han, text by Phil Cummings (A&U Books for Children and Young Adults)
• For 60,000 Years by Rhys Paddick, text by Marlee Silva (Scholastic Australia)
• The Garden of Broken Things by Freya Blackwood (HarperCollins AU)
• General Waste by Michel Streich (Scholastic Australia)
• Grow Big, Little Seed by Sarah Capon, text by Bec Nanayakkara (Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing)
• House by Charlotte Lane, text by Dan Giovannoni (Fremantle Press)
• The Land Recalls You by David Cragg & Noni Cragg, text by Kirli Saunders (Scholastic Australia)
• A Leaf Called Greaf by Kelly Canby (Fremantle Press)
• Listen, Hippo! by Gabriel Evans (Penguin Random House Australia)
• Night Watch by Tannya Harricks, text by Jodi Toering (Walker Books Australia)
• Stickboy by Matt Ottley, text by Rebecca Young (Scholastic Australia)
• The Space Between by Jess McGeachin (Penguin Random House Australia)
• Then and Now by Datsun Tran (Slingshot Books)
• These Long-Loved Things by Ronojoy Ghosh, text by Josh Pyke (Scholastic Australia)
• Three Dresses by Wanda Gibson (University of Queensland Press)
• Tilly in a Tangle by Monty Lee, text by Margrete Lamond (Dirt Lane Press)
• The Truck Cat by Danny Snell, text by Deborah Frenkel (Bright Light)
• Two Turtles by Jake Minton, text by Kiah Thomas (Little Book Press)
• Walking Together by Dub Leffler, text by Coral Vass (Scholastic Australia)
• We Live in a Bus by Dave Petzold (Thames & Hudson Australia)
• Why I Love Christmas by Tom Jellett, text by Michael Wagner (Penguin Random House Australia)
• Words That Taste Like Home by Michelle Pereira, text by Sandhya Parappukkaran (Bright Light)

Of the twenty-five books in the Picture Book category I predicted or mentioned only eight in my previous post. There are now about seventeen books in this section I need to find and read. I already have Stickboy; and Then and Now (and on first glance this one is sure to be short listed - it's a fabulous and very moving book with a quietly understated text). You will notice a couple of books are in both categories - Night Watch and Two Turtles. 

I'm sorry I missed Footprint. I previously talked about this book in a post about picture books that are essentially a poetic or lyrical text and often have no specific narrative. I also overlooked General Waste.

The CBCA reviewing journal is called Reading Time. Here is their page with links to all of their reviews (so far) of the Notable titles. This is a useful resource which you might like to save.