Diversity – what Children’s Book Awards should we be looking at?

In the words of The Children’s Book Council of Australia themselves, “The Book of the Year Awards…are now the most influential and highly respected in Australia” (CBCA, n.d., para.2).  Do a google search for “awards other than the CBCA” and the following screenshot is what comes up…

As wonderful as the CBCA Book of the Year Awards and other state book awards are, where are the awards celebrating diversity, cultural awareness, eco awareness?

A new google search, “children’s book awards celebrating diversity”, was more helpful.  It led me to an article from the School Library Journal – Children’s Book Awards that Celebrate Diversity (Venkatraman, 2021).  The author, a winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award, presents an outstanding list of awards that “seek out books about or authors from underrepresented and marginalized groups” (Venkatraman, 2021, para.3).  Although the awards are mostly US based it came me hope that there are other awards closer to home.

DANZ – The Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Children’s Book Award – children’s books that celebrate diversity: disability, culture, class, LGBTQI+, race, religion, and marginalised communities.  Books that “push boundaries and challenge stereotypes” (DANZ, 2023, sect.1).  2024 is the inaugural year of the award and it hopes to make it an annual award.  It brings Australia and New Zealand with the UK (The Diverse Book Awards) and the US (The Walter Awards) (DANZ, 2023).

Description of the awards from the Wilderness Society (2024):

Karajia Award for Children’s Literature: promotes themes that honour Connection to Country and tell stories exploring land, community, culture and/or language.

Environment Award for Children’s Literature: encourages a caring attitude towards the natural environment and/or promotes an awareness of environmental issues. 

 These awards have been around since 1994 and I am ashamed to say I had never heard of them.

In 2023 the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards were transferred to Creative Australia as part of the release of National Cultural Policy – Revive: a place for every story, a story for every place (Creative Australia, 2024).  The policy is available here and is well worth the read.  Below is a screenshot of the 2023 winner and shortlist of the Children’s Literature Award (Creative Australia, 2024), worthy additions to any children’s bookshelves be they at home or in a library.

If you click on the logos of the awards above it will take you to the home pages where you can see the shortlists and winners for each award – as a prospective future librarian, I will be adding these to my file of places to look for book recommendations.

This has been an eye-opening two-part journey through the world of diversity and children’s book awards – I was unaware there were alternatives to the CBCA Awards, having been so immersed in them and the associated Book Week through working in schools.  The CBCA Awards have earned their rightful place, now we need to search out and highlight those awards that are celebrating diversity in all its forms.

References

CBCA. (n.d.). About the Children’s Book Council of Australia. The Children’s Book Council of Australia. https://cbca.org.au/about.

Creative Australia. (2024). The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Australian Government. https://creative.gov.au/advocacy-and-research/events/prime-ministers-literary-awards/.

DANZ. (2023). The DANZ Children’s Book Award: diversity is more than a label. https://www.thedanzchildrensbookaward.com/.

Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts: Office for the Arts. (2023, Jan 30). A new National Cultural Policy. Australian Government. https://www.arts.gov.au/what-we-do/new-national-cultural-policy.

Venkatraman, P. (2021, Oct 04). Children’s book awards that celebrate diversity. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/story/childrens-book-awards-that-celebrate-diversity.

Wilderness Society. (2024). Karajia and Environment awards for children’s literature: The Wilderness Society’s annual celebration of the best new nature-themed children’s books. https://www.wilderness.org.au/environment-award-for-childrens-literature#EACL.

 

 

If there was ever a website I would happily send my kids to it would be this one – bright, colourful, educational, and so much content.

I started my search for websites for kids at Save the Children (2024) – they have a page here containing links to all sorts of educational websites and apps for kids, and there are some fabulous ones out there.  I’ll be recommending a few more later.

National Geographic Kids (n.d.) is a site children can safely explore without direct parent supervision when older but is just as fun for children to explore together with an adult.  Positive child-parent relationships are essential to a child’s development and learning, and viewing digital media and discussing content together, as well as playing games together can be a very positive experience (Edwards, S. et al., 2018).

Accessible from the home page are drop down menus for games, videos, animals (fact sheets), and explore more (history, science, space, weird but true!).  You can also access Brain Boosters on the home page with all sorts of craft ideas, recipes, homework help - How to be an expert fact-checker being one of my favourites!

The craft ideas pages are well laid out, e.g. Make a guitar.  There is information on the guitar around the world, a very clear materials list, and detailed instructions with photographs for each step. An explanation of what is happening when you pluck a rubber band, and a focus question round out the page.

Trash Dash (National Geographic Kids, 2018) is one of the weird but true! shorts and is a great introduction to space junk.

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:

PBS Kids (2024) – Educational games and videos.

PBS Kids Design Squad Global (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2024) – Design engineering ideas, building ideas, city building games, fun stories.

The team at PBS Kids recognise that games on digital technology is favoured activity of kids so “make fun educational video games that help kids learn social and emotional learning, problem-solving, and computational thinking skills” (Gratton, 2023, para.2).

Bedtime Math (2024) – A website and an app. Parents read the opening to the child, then solve the math problem together.  Lots of themed topics with links (locked by a maths problem) for parents and kids to discover more interesting facts.

From personal experience working in the school system Scholastic Australia’s Literacy Pro (2019), although favoured by teachers, is not well liked by a lot of children. My children tried to test out to Year 12 level by Year 5/6, so they could read whatever they wanted.  Both Literacy Pro and ABC Reading Eggs require you to pay for a subscription.

I found this search enlightening as my main exposure to educational websites is those that are paid for by the schools.  The websites highlighted above are free, fun, full of educational content, and encourage parents and children to explore together.  Digital technology is here to stay, and it is worth searching out quality resources to encourage parents “to be thoughtful and intentional” (Gratton, 2023, para.4) when looking for websites to explore with their children.

References

ABC Reading Eggs. (2024). Learning to read can be easy and fun. Blake eLearning, 3P Learning. https://readingeggs.com.au/.

Bedtime Math. (2024). Category: Daily math. Bedtime Math Foundation. https://bedtimemath.org/category/daily-math/.

Edwards, S., Straker, L., & Oakley, H. (2018). Statement on young children and digital technologies. Early Childhood Australia. https://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/our-work/submissions-statements/eca-statement-young-children-digital-technologies/.

Gratton, S. (2023). Best benefits of playing video games together. PBS Kids for Parents. https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/benefits-of-playing-video-games-together.

National Geographic Kids. [Nat Geo Kids]. (2018, Aug 9). Trash dash: weird but true! Shorts. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjDuP9UHG5c.

National Geographic Kids. (n.d.). National Geographic Kids. National Geographic. https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/.

PBS Kids. (2024). PBS kids. https://pbskids.org/.

Save the Children. (2024). Free educational websites and apps for kids to learn at home. https://www.savethechildren.org/us/charity-stories/free-websites-and-apps-to-keep-kids-learning.

Scholastic Australia. (2019). Literacy Pro: Measure and stimulate independent reading growth. https://www.scholastic.com.au/education/education-home/literacy/literacy-pro/.

WGBH Educational Foundation. (2024). PBS design squad global. https://pbskids.org/designsquad/.

 Diversity in Australian Children’s Book Awards?

 

Following on from looking at censorship and book bans, what better topic to look at than at cultural diversity – particularly in Children’s Book Awards. 

I found a wonderful article “A Cause for Hope or an Unwitting Conspiracy?”, written by lecturers Helen Adam and Yvonne Urquhart (2023), from Edith Cowan University in Western Australia.  Both have a passion for the importance of “authentically diverse and inclusive literature to break down barriers of prejudice and misunderstanding in society” (Adam & Urquhart, 2023, p.58). 

This agrees with the American Library Association (ALA) Council which states, “A diverse collection should contain content by and about a wide array of people and cultures to authentically reflect a variety of ideas, information, stories, and experiences” (2019, sect.6).

Adam & Urquhart chose to look at literary award shortlists as these are often used by libraries and parents to search out quality books for children.  Ninety picture books were chosen from the shortlists of 2019, 2020 from multiple awards across Australia, as these feature books published and/or written and illustrated in Australia.  The authors examined the illustrations in each book, focussing on the representation of the human characters - skin colour and other visual differences as an indication of race, while acknowledging that they “ascribe to the belief that race is a social construct” (Adam & Urquhart, 2023, p.50).  They noted that 68% of the books with human characters had some cultural or racial diversity, but that “specific ethnicities…were mostly unclear or ambiguous” (Adam & Urquhart, 2023, p.55).  There were concerns over two books that portrayed outdated stereotypes.

The authors did not examine the award criteria or processes but recommended that “consideration of the authenticity of cultural representations” (Adam & Urquhart, 2023, p.55) be included.

In reflecting upon this article, I realised it was not something I had ever thought about, so I looked at the recently released shortlists for the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards 2024, which are available here:

Western Australian Premier's Book Awards 2024.

I was particularly interested in this list, living in Western Australia myself.  Authors must reside in Western Australia for all awards except for The Daisy Utemorrah Award for Unpublished Indigenous Junior and YA Fiction which is open to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writers Australia wide (State Library of Western Australia, 2024b).  You can read about the wonderful manuscripts for this award here at Magabala Books.

The shortlists for the CBCA 2024 awards are available at:

CBCA Book of the Year Award 2024.

My picks showcasing diversity?

Our Country: Where History Happened - Journey through tens of thousands of years of history (Greenwood, M., 2024).

I am the Mau and other stories – stories exploring the duality of Kenyan Life (Glasheen, 2023).

Huda was here – centred around Lebanese Australians and living in a minority group (Hayek, 2023).

The Concrete Garden – community friendships in an urban setting (Graham, 2023).

Tamarra: A story of termites on Gurindji Country - the life of termites through Gurindji storytelling (Wadrill et al., 2023).

This Book Thinks Ya Deadly! A Celebration of Blak Excellence – short form biographies of First Nations People who have done great things (Tutt, C., 2023).

I firmly believe there is definitely hope for cultural diversity in children’s literature.

References

Adam, H., & Urquhart, Y. (2023). A cause for hope or an unwitting complicity? The representation of cultural diversity in award-listed Children’s picturebooks in Australia. Bookbird, 61(2), 48–58. https://doi.org/10.1353/bkb.2023.0023.

American Library Association Council. (2019). Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights. American Library Association. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations.

Glasheen, C. (2023). I am the Mau and other stories. Fremantle Press.

Graham. B. (2023). The concrete garden. (B. Greham, Illus.). Walker Books Australia.

Greenwood, M. (2023). Our country: Where history happened. (F. Lessac, Illus.). Walker Books Australia.

Hayek, H. (2023). Huda was here. A & U Children.

State Library of Western Australia. (2024a). Western Australia Premier’s Book Awards 2024: Shortlist announced. https://slwa.wa.gov.au/whats-on/awards-fellowships/wa-premiers-book-awards/2024-shortlist.

State Library of Western Australia. (2024b). Categories, prizes and guidelines. https://slwa.wa.gov.au/whats-on/awards-fellowships/wa-premiers-book-awards/categories-prizes-and-guidelines.

Tutt, C. (2023). This book thinks ya deadly! A celebration of Blak excellence. (M. Hunt, Illus.). Hardie Grant Explore.

Wadrill, V., Ngarnjal, T.D., Leaman, L., Edwards, C., Algy, C., Meakins, F., Barr, B. & Crocetti, G. (2023). Tamarra: A story of termites on Gurindji Country. Hardie Grant Explore.