2024 CBCA Book of the Year Notable

Best Suited 2-7 Years
On sunshiny mornings, we go shadow catching.
Inside, outside, in our home and in our neighbourhood, shadows dance around us from morning through to night.
Our shadows are so tall, then small, then tall again in sunlight, lamplight and even in the moonlight.

Best suited 8+ years
Strangers on Country includes the stories of six Europeans and the people who cared for them.

Best Suited for ages 3+ years
Billy wants a dog. He really really really wants one. Billy’s parents aren’t so sure. So one morning, Billy takes matters into his own paws.

Best Suited for ages 3+ years
When the rain stops it’s time to go puddle hunting. Ruby and Banjo and Mum go up the street, and into the park, over the bridge and down to the river flats where the puddles lie waiting

Best Suited for ages 8+ years
When the future looks dark, courageous kids bring light and hope into the world. Forty true stories celebrate kids who have protested, prayed, rebelled, saved lives, earned a fortune, lost everything, become world-famous, or fought to survive war and oppression

Best Suited for ages 11+ years
A collection of sci-fi and fantasy writing, including six graphic stories, showcasing twenty stellar writers and artists from India and Australia

Suitable for  10-16 Years

Bridie’s Fire is the tale of a fiery Irish girl who leaves Ireland to find a home for herself in goldrush Australia.

Best Suited 10-16 Years
Becoming Billy Dare follows the life of a feisty Irish boy who runs away to Australia and finds his vocation as an actor in the colourful theatres of Melbourne, around the time of Federation.

Suitable for  10-16 Years
A Prayer for Blue Delaney follows the outback adventures of orphaned Colm, who runs away from the cruelties of Bindoon Boys’ Home and goes in search of a family of his own. Set in the 1950s.

Best Suited 10-16 Years
Where do you turn when your family is tragically torn apart, your close friends fall away, and your long-lost father is out of reach? Where do you fit when you’re part Irish, part Chinese, part Australian? A warm-hearted story about teenage life in Australia now.

Best Suited for 10-16 Years

A gripping time-slip adventure set in a hidden valley. 11-year-old Lucy travels across the river of time to fight fires, battle floodwaters and discover the meaning of true friendship.

Best Suited 11-14 Years
A strong and vivid novel based on the fascinating true story of a group of young Australian performers – children aged from seven to seventeen – who toured Asia and India early in the twentieth century before mounting a strike against their manager and precipitating a sensational court case.

Best Suited 12-18 Years
It is 40 years into the future and the world is in turmoil. A plague has destroyed humans’ ability to conceive females, or so Callum thinks until he meets Bo. A page-turning adventure unfolds as the pair rely on each other to survive a dangerous journey to a safe haven in the city of Vulture’s Gate.

Best Suited 15-17 years
It was 11 November 1918. Armistice Day. For Tiney and her sisters, everything is about to change, but not in the way they might have imagined. Building peace is complicated; so is growing up. From tragedy to undreamt-of joy, from weddings to seances, from masked balls to riots in the streets, Tiney’s world will be transformed. At the end of the war and the dawn of the Jazz Age, Tiney Flynn must face her greatest fears and begin a journey that will change her destiny.

Best Suited 8-12 Years
To the first Europeans who came to Australia, everything seemed topsy turvy. Christmas was in the summer and trees shed their bark but not their leaves. And the animals were bizarre.

Best suited 9-13 years
An exciting story of discovery, change and identity, with all the drama of life under the big top.

Best Suited 11-13 Years
A timeslip adventure novel about a boy who goes busking at the market and finds himself transported back to a century ago.

Best Suited 
George stuffed the spoon into one pocket and the drumstick into the other and clambered up the shelves to the little window … When George is sentenced to seven years’ hard labour in Van Dieman’s Land his only thoughts are of his sister Hannah. What can he give her to remember him when he is so far away?

Best Suited 10-14 Years
The day Marie-Claire walks into PJ’s life, everything changes. Whether they are wagging school or just hanging out on the beach, Marie-Claire can make any day an adventure. She’s funny and unpredictable and full of good ideas – well, they seem like good ideas to start with. But why won’t she let PJ visit her house? What really happened to her older brother? And why won’t she listen when PJ tries to steer them out of trouble?

Walking Home with Marie-Claire is about being brave and crazy and loyal. It’s about making the wrong choices and doing the right thing. It’s about the stories girls tell and the secrets friends keep. It’s about growing up and still being yourself no matter what.