We are thrilled to congratulate all the hard working authors who have taken out the top spots at the prestigious 2017 CBCA Book of the Year Awards!

Congratulations are in order for the wonderful Trace Balla, winner of the Book of The Year: Younger Readers Award for Rockhopping, and Claire Zorn, author of One Would Think the Deep, winner of Book of the Year: Older Years Award.

Congratulations also to the authors whose books were named 2017 Honour Books:

Cath Crowley – Words in Deep Blue
Zana Fraillon – The Bone Sparrow
Wendy Orr – Dragonfly Song
Kate and Jol Temple – Captain Jimmy Cook Discovers Third Grade
Lance Balchin – Mechanica

We would like to extend our congratulations to the CBCA team, the judges and people behind the scenes who bring the Book of the Year awards to us, as well as all the talented authors and illustrators who were acknowledged by the CBCA this year.

To view the full list of winning books, visit the CBCA website . 

Booked Out is proud to announce that Claire Zorn, Zana Fraillon and Cath Crowley have made the shortlist for the 2017 Gold Inky Award. The Inky Award’s shortlist includes five Australian titles was selected by an expert panel of teenage judges. It’s now time for other teens to have their say, with voting open until the 17th of September via the State Library of Victoria’s Inside a Dog page. The winners will be announced on October the 2nd. Congrats, girls!

Don’t have enough danger in your life? Well, thankfully Jack Heath has some for us – 500 minutes of it in fact.

Designed for younger readers, 500 Minutes of Danger follows 10 brave kids as they find themselves in 10 very dangerous situations. They all have 50 minutes to escape, and you, the reader can follow their story IN REAL TIME….

Bobby wakes up somewhere dark, cold, and enclosed. Has he been buried alive, or is something else going on?

Ella’s trapped in quicksand, and sinking fast. Will she escape, or will one of the predators roaming the jungle find her first?

Kelsey has infiltrated a top-secret science lab, where a giant remote-control crocodile is being prepared to attack the city…

These nail-bitingly dangerous short stories will fascinate and terrify for the full 50-minute countdown.

500 Minutes of Danger is out with Scholastic Australia.

Zana Fraillon’s The Bone Sparrow has been garnering acclaim with young and old readers alike, and now it has been recognized again, by the Readings Young Adult Book Prize.

The Bone Sparrow is the story of Subhi, whose imagination is as big as the ocean and wide as the sky. But his world is much smaller: he’s spent his whole life in an immigration detention centre.

One of the judges, Lili Wilkinson, writes of the book;  ‘ The Bone Sparrow is one of those books that never really leaves you. The simple, beautiful prose is such a pleasure to read, almost lulling you into a false sense of security, before you receive the sickening gut punch of reality – this story is really happening, and it’s really happening in our own country. The Bone Sparrow is important, it’s a story that must be told, a story we must confront. At times it is bleak, but it is also a celebration of warmth, hope, humour and humanity.’

Along with winning the Readings Young Adult Book Prize, The Bone Sparrow has been Shortlisted for Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2016, selected as a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book 2017 and longlisted for the Gold Inky Award 2017

To read the full release, please visit the Readings Blog

Mark Carthew, one of Booked Out’s fabulous speakers and author of The Great Zoo Hullabaloo, has been short-listed for the 2017 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Award! The Great Zoo Hullabaloo follows the adventures of Jess and Jack, two friends on a mission to solve the puzzling mystery of a zoo without animals. Through the magical imagery of illustrator Anil Tortop, and the whimsical language of Mark Carthew, the story beautifully evokes the spirit of adventure through a playful and engaging rhyming expression. Congratulations, Mark!

Adrian Beck and Heath McKenzie have released a new book, and with it, a fabulous new trailer!  Click on the image below to watch the hilarious video, bought to us by Beck Power.

For more information about The Alien Zoo… And You! visit Affirm Press.

Hello there!

Lot’s of schools are back today, so welcome! We hope you are settling back into the classroom.

Here in the Booked Out Office we are busily finalizing Book Week engagements, and making sure we are all systems go for the busiest term of the year!

Coming up this Term we have some brilliant interstate visitors coming to Victoria, and we are sending some brilliant people to other states too. Check our tours page to see who is going where.

We are also looking forward to the CBCA Book of the Year Awards announcement – just one month away now!. Check out the CBCA website to see who is on the shortlist.

If you would like to make an enquiry for a special Term 3 visitor, don’t hesitate to let us know. Angela, Erinna, Gemma and Hannah are all here, refreshed after the break, and looking forward to talking to some enthusiastic teachers (hopefully you!).

Here’s to a happy Term 3!

(This is us getting ready for our own Book Week costume parade)

Michael Pryor is one of Australia’s leading Science Fiction and Fantasy authors. He has a count of over a million words on print, with more than 35 books, and over fifty short stories to his name. Michael has been shortlisted seven times for the Aurealis Awards and seven of his books have been CBCA Notable Books. He has a new story coming out in August 2017.

Gap Year in Ghost Town.

Anton Marin and his father are on high alert after violent ghost manifestations in their town reach an all time high. Anton wants to help the ghosts, but Rani Cross wants to slice, dice and put them back into the ground. This duo has to come together to keep their city safe. A smart, snappy, funny and scary ghost-hunting adventure, with lots of action and attitude.

New Zealand born writer, Alan Brough has always loved books, and even from an early age wanted to be a writer. Though he has had a career that spans many different things (dancing, directing and singing, to name a few), he recently decided he still wanted to be an author and hopes that his biography will one day include phrases like ‘bestselling’, and ‘award-winning’. Alan’s new book ‘Charlie an the Karaoke Cockroaches’, sequel book to ‘Charlie and the War Against the Grannies’ comes out on the 27 of June, 2017

Charlie returns to the pages in a more whimsically hilarious adventure than ever before. There are lurkers, strange teachers and orchestral insects. A mysterious box speaks and sings. There’s even a botching burglar. It’s all up to Charlie and Hills to save the day and protect three bugs from dark forces.