 Hi everyone, Steffi from Little Bookish Teacher. I thought that today I would do a bit of a reaction to the winners of the CBA shortlist. I know I didn't get the middle grade books read before the winners were announced, and that's okay. I have read most of them. There's only one that I haven't read, so I can definitely talk to what is up there. But yeah, I thought it would be fun to go through with you guys and talk about, you know, what won and my thoughts or feelings on any of them. And yeah, so we're going to bring up the CBCA website here. So we might look at it this way. We're going to the winners for 2023. Now the only category that I didn't read or I didn't attempt to read all of the books from was the older readers category. But I am tempted to read the winner. Here we have the Book of the Year for the older readers. So the winner was Neverlanders, which is a graphic novel. And I think this is the first time a graphic novel has won the Book of the Year for older readers. I do actually have a copy of it and I'm really hoping to read it this weekend and do a review for you because I'm excited that a graphic novel won. And I haven't read the other two, so I haven't read completely normal and other lies or the other side of tomorrow. Then we have the Book of the Year for younger readers, which is the middle grade category. So the winner was Runt, and I am not surprised by that at all. As soon as I saw it was on the list, I figured it was going to win because it's got that very classic middle school feel to it. It's very much Charlotte's Web meets Babe meets great humor and enjoyable storylines. And it was just very fun. I recently read Evie and Rhino, and I really enjoyed this. This is a historical set in 1891, I think in Victoria. And it is about a shipwreck that sees animals that were headed to the Melbourne Zoo at the time washing up on the shore and a young girl called Evie who finds the Rhino and they become good friends. And then the Raven song by Zana Freiland and Bren McDibble is very much a post pandemic, almost post apocalyptic in its feeling sort of world story that is very intriguing. Then we have the Book of the Year Early childhood category. And the winner for this was Where the Lie Bird Lives by Vicki Connolly. And I have to say this this winner surprised me because this was probably not my favorite book out of the six shortlisted titles. Not that it wasn't good because it totally was. But yeah, I just felt like there were other books in this category that might have hit the mark more. But then again, we're looking at stories for children who are between zero and six years of age. Yeah, so this one surprised me a lot that this was the winner. The honor books were Bev and Kev, which I loved and Snap, which is just adorable and glorious and just a really fun read. I also love the illustrations and Snap a whole lot. Then we have the Picture Book of the Year and the winner was My Strange Drinking Parents by Zena Sorter. Again, I was not surprised by this because it's very much a story that seems like it would win an award. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I just think that it's written in that way. It does deal with immigration and the love of parents for the children and what they give up for them. So it does sort of really hit a lot of that literary merit that you would expect to see in the Picture Book of the Year. I'm glad that Dirt by Sea is an honor book because this is a graphic novel and I'm glad to say that it's up there. We actually had Michael Wagner at our school recently and he was a wonderful, his great presenter and he was talking about his writing process. And I really love Dirt by Sea. And Paradise Sands, A Story of Enchantment by Levy Penfold. Also doesn't surprise me because this one is very much a literary text. I think it probably goes over the head of most primary school age students. So it's very much for older readers. So it doesn't surprise me that it was an honor book. I suppose if I was going to be perfectly honest, I'm surprised that Dirt by Sea got an honor book. I'm very happy that it did. But considering these two titles, it surprises me that that's in here because this is far more lighthearted. Then we have the Eve Poundall Award, which was nonfiction and Deep by Jess McGeach in one, which is great. I think this was a really cool, very interesting nonfiction text. It goes into lots of different topics and centered around this idea of deep things, things that are really hard for us to see. It's very beautifully illustrated. The text is really easy to access. It's not overwhelming on each page either. And I think it's a good jumping off point if you are just starting to dive into trying to figure out what your interests are in terms of nonfiction. I'm glad that Come Together was an honor book. This is by Zyphi Brace. It's one of my favourite First Nations books that I have. It is an incredible book to look at. And I'm glad to say that it's up there. And Wild Australian Life by Leonard Cronin as well is just a really cool book about Australian wildlife. And this one is more text heavy. So it's probably a little bit less accessible to younger readers, but it is very visually appealing. And then the CBCA Award for New Illustrator is just one winner. And that is Tiny Wonders by Sally Solhahn. And this does just have a very beautiful, whimsical, illustrative style. So that doesn't surprise me that it did end up winning. So yes, this was just a really quick video to sort of go through my reactions to the winners. As I said, the only one that I'm a little bit disappointed by is the early childhood books. I think there were some other titles in that category that I enjoyed more. But again, I'm also not the target audience. So I will take that with a grain of salt. But yeah, I think there was some great books on the list this year. I'm glad I got to read as many of them as I did. And as I said, I will be reading Neverlanders really soon. So expect to see a review of that coming out. I'm excited about that. You guys know how I like my kids graphic novel. So that's coming. In the comments, I'd love to know your thoughts on the winners. Were any of them surprises to you? Were there any that you thought should have placed higher than they did? Or are you really happy with the results? Feel free to have a chat to me about them in the comments below. Otherwise, if you just want to let me know that you're here, but you don't want to leave a comment, feel free to leave a book stack emoji. I hope that wherever you are in the world, you're staying safe and healthy. And I will see you in my next video. Bye, everyone.