2024 Children’s Book Week

Did you know that Book Week was started in America in 1913 by Franklin K. Matthews who was the librarian of the Boy Scouts of America and he began touring the country to promote higher standards in children’s books. He proposed creating a Children’s Book Week, which would be supported by all interested groups: publishers, booksellers, and librarians.

In 1945 Lena Ruppert and Mary Townes Nyland, stationed in Australia with the U.S. Information Library, encouraged local teachers, librarians, booksellers and publishers to create a Children’s Book Week in Australia, modelled on the annual event celebrated in America.  That year, Children’s Book Week was held across Australia for the first time, with the theme of “United Through Books”.

The Children’s Book Council of Australia was founded in 1945 and the first Australian Children’s Book of the Year Award was presented in 1946.

At that time and until 1952, there was a single award category (now the CBCA Book of the Year: Olders Readers Award). The winning book was
The Story of Karrawingi The Emu.

In 1952 a category for the Picture Books was created, a Younger Readers category in 1982, the Eve Pownall Award for Non-Fiction in 1993, and the Early Childhood Award category was created in 2001, bringing the total number of categories to five. In 2019 the New Illustrator Award was added.