BILBY Awards
Bilby is an acronym for books
I love best yearly
It is a
children’s choice award
It is
held annually throughout Queensland. The awards are drawn from a list of books,
which are recommended by children; the list is generally made available to many
libraries and online magazines(Children's Book Council of Australia). Some of which are La Trobe University and Goodreads
and Good Reading Magazine. The BILBY
awards were first instituted in 1990.
Format
Children
of Queensland are invited each year to nominate their favourite title amongst
the books they have read in the previous year.
There
are three categories: -
Early readers
Books
for readers under eight
Younger readers
Books
for readers between eight and twelve years
Older readers
Books
for readers over twelve years
Each
category is awarded for an individual book and past winners from the last two
years are not eligible for the next year of awards. The eligible books maybe
print, audio or digital format and can be read aloud to children.
There
are two phases for the BILBY awards, nomination and voting
Nomination
Children
are invited to nominate their favourite book for their readership category, a
title they have read in the previous twelve months. Generally the nominations
are made online and must adhere to certain conditions. Conditions in this case
are as previously stated are books read in the last twelve months, an
individual book not part of a series, must be named by the known title and
previous winners from the last two years are ineligible for this year’s award.
Voting
Children
are encouraged to read all titles that have been shortlisted for their
category, and then they are invited to vote using the dedicated online system.
Previous
winners of the BILBY awards from 2012 are: -
Early
readers
The Cat
in the Hat
Dr Seuss
Young
readers
Diary of
a Wimpy Kid: Book 1
Jeff
Kinney
Older
reader
The
Hunger Games
Suzanne
Collins
General Reflection
In
general, Australian literary awards are given to a wide range of genres namely
poetry, plays, short stories, plays children books, history, science fiction
etc, crime writing and nonfiction. Within each award, there is a criterion that
is fulfilled before the award is given. Generally most awards have different
categories which are awarded(Wikipedia,
2013).
Literary
awards are given so writers and publisher houses can thrive(Australian Government)and the, authors can receive recognition and financial aide to
continue writing. The awards bring publicity to the author and greatly assist
the task of selling books(Australian Government, 2011). In the case of the NSW Premier Literary Awards
it has a proud history of celebrating achievement by Australian writers and
helping to establish values and standards in Australian literature. The awards
provide an opportunity to highlight the importance of literacy and to encourage
everyone to enjoy and learn from the work of our writers. Notable past winners
of this award are Thomas Keneally AO and Elizabeth Jolley are just two examples(Australian Government, 2011).
References
Australian
Government. (2011). The Miles Franklin literary award. from http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/miles-franklin-literary-award
Children's
Book Council of Australia.). Our activities. from http://qld.cbca.org.au/qldactivities.htm
Wikipedia.
(2013). List of Australian literary awards. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_literary_awards
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