Can you believe it’s finally here? We swear we can heard the distant sounds of parades and page turning!

We are so thrilled that it’s finally Book Week, which is our favourite time of the year. With so many of our speakers out and about across the country, it’s one of our biggest yet!

We’ve been working hard all year to make Book Week a success for thousands of schools across Australia, and are so thrilled to be representing a group of highly-talented, passionate and organised speakers.

To all the teachers who have been so incredibly helpful in orchestrating each booking at their school, we say an endless thank you.

Here’s to a fantastic Book Week in 2019, full of celebrating the wonderful books and authors who have changed us for the better!

On Saturday, 10th August, it was Love Your Bookshop Day!

As a team of huge readers, we have a big place in our hearts for bookshops. As places of sanctuary, places to meet up, and places to discover a new favourite, bookshops well and truly have it all, and we love them for it.

Booked Out supports local independent booksellers – some of our favourite independent booksellers include The Little Bookroom, The Sun Bookshop, Pictures and Pages, Eltham Bookshop, Collins Moonee Ponds, and of course, Readings in Carlton.

We hope that on Saturday you were able to visit your favourite bookshop and join in on the fun.

A daring escape. A school lockdown. A thrilling chase.

What would you risk to save a life?

Our hearts are racing for the new book trailer for Tristan Bancks‘ newest release, DETENTION. Released in July 2019, Tristan’s fast-paced page-turner is both thought-provoking and electrifying.

“Sima and her family are pressed to the rough, cold ground among fifty others. They lie next to the tall fence designed to keep them in. The wires are cut one by one.

When they make their escape, a guard raises the alarm. Shouting, smoke bombs, people tackled to the ground. In the chaos Sima loses her parents.

Dad told her to run, so she does, hiding in a school and triggering a lockdown. A boy, Dan, finds her hiding in the toilet block.

What should he do? Help her? Dob her in? She’s breaking the law, but is it right to lock kids up? And if he helps, should Sima trust him? Or run?

This moment, these decisions, will change their lives.“

Click on the video above to watch the short book trailer.

It’s always brilliant seeing authors and illustrators within the Booked Out stable flourishing, and the lovely Lucinda Gifford is doing just that. We are very excited that Lucinda’s next book – which is not even published until November – Whitney and Britney Chicken Divas, (Scholastic) has already been selected by ALIA for National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS) 2020!

Marking 20 years of NSS, the 2020 event will take place on Wednesday, 27 May as part of Library and Information Week, which runs from 25–29 May. We are hoping the 2020 National Simultaneous Storytime will break this year’s record which had more  than 1.1 million people participating across more than 11,000 locations (including readers in New Zealand, Thailand, UK, Canada, Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong, and had 1 in 28 people in Australia reading simultaneously.

Are your students doing the Premiers’ Reading Challenge this year?

The 2019 Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is now open! This is a fantastic initiative to get kids reading. Since the challenge first began in 2005, more than 2.8 million students have read nearly 48 million books!

See some of our fantastic Booked Out authors – Adrian Beck, Felice Arena, and Gabrielle Wang answer a few ‘would you rather’ questions in the video below, and to register in the reading challenge, click here.

Booked Out is very excited to be representing acclaimed poet, author and performer Steven Herrick for school visits Australia wide in 2020 and beyond.

Steven Herrick is one of Australia’s most popular poets for children and teenagers. His books have twice won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award and have been shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year Award on eight occasions. His verse-novel ‘the simple gift’ has sold over 150,000 copies worldwide and is regularly set as a text in high schools.

In 2020, Steven is touring Victoria in Term One; Queensland in Term Two; and NSW in Term Three. He is also available for school bookings in Sydney at any time throughout the year. Please enquire now for further information about booking a tour date in 2020.

Recently, Steven’s latest novel The Bogan Mondrian was shortlisted in the Children’s Book Council (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards – read more here.

While he’ll always be a household name in Australia, Steven is also highly acclaimed internationally  – in fact, his verse novel for young adults, by the river, has just won the Catholic Book of the Year in Germany. by the river has also been shortlisted for the German Youth Literature Prize for 2019.

Tour dates will be in hot demand, so please call us now on 03 9824 0177 to ensure your school secures your place!

Today, the 2019 Davitt Awards shortlist have been released, celebrating the best Australian crime fiction written by women. With 127 books assessed in total, the shortlist reflects an exciting and varied number of crime titles out today.

We are so happy for our speakers who are represented across the Young Adult, Non-fiction and Children’s categories. What an incredible array of engrossing, mysterious and tense titles!

Young Adult Crime Novels

• Fleur Ferris, Found.
• Ellie Marney, White Night.
• Lili Wilkinson, After The Lights Go Out.

Children’s Crime Novels

• Rebecca Lim, The Relic of the Blue Dragon.
• R.A. Spratt, The Mystery of the Squashed Cockroach.

Non-fiction Crime Books and Debut Books

• Bri Lee, Eggshell Skull.

To read the full press release please click here.

We are so pleased that NAIDOC Week has finally arrived. We are firm believers in elevating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples voices, building towards a future of recognition, reform and respect.

NAIDOC Week is a critical time to acknowledge and work towards significant and permanent change, encouraging social action, law reform and always increasing first peoples education within schools and libraries.

Our nightstands are currently playing host to indigenous speakers and titles, including Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia (ed. Anita Heiss), Nona and Me (Clare Atkins), and Calypso Summer (Jared Thomas).

Sovereignty has never been ceded.

One illustrator on our minds this afternoon is the breathtaking Elise Hurst, whose CBCA shortlisted title Girl On Wire addresses resilience, bravery and doing what needs to be done. Elise still has availability left in Book Week, and her illustration workshops for primary and junior secondary perfect building blocks for students keen to know how to pair illustrations and text.

Booked Out speakers R.A. Spratt and Oliver Phommavanh have been featured in the Sydney Morning Herald after appearing at the Children’s Book Council of Australia conference on the weekend.

In the feature article, R.A. and Oliver explain how they got into writing kids’ books, how and why they use humour in their stories, and why funny books are perfect for connecting kids to reading and writing.

Read more over at the Sydney Morning Herald, and you can enquire about booking R.A. Spratt or Oliver Phommavanh to visit your school or library here.