Palmerston North school librarian Alan Dingley, who was also a judge in the 2020 awards, will convene the English language panel. He will be joined by senior lecturer in Children’s Literature at the University of Waikato, Nicola Daly; award-winning author and educationalist, Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith; longtime children’s bookseller, Mary Sangster; and public librarian, composer and performer, Stephen Clothier.
The judges will read and appraise an expected 160 or so entries in six categories: Picture Book, Junior Fiction (the Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award), Young Adult Fiction, Non-Fiction (the Elsie Locke Award), Illustration (the Russell Clark Award) and te reo Māori (the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award). They will select up to five finalists in each category, as well as up to five finalists for a Best First Book Award, and then a winner in each category. The overall winner, the Margaret Mahy Award for Book of the Year, will be decided from the six main category winners.
Submissions for the 2021 awards are now open to books published between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021. The first deadline, for books published up to 30 November 2020, is Tuesday 15 December 2020. More details about how to enter can be found here: http://www.nzbookawards.nz/new-zealand-book-awards-for-children-and-young-adults/how-to-enter/
Category finalists will be announced on 10 June 2021 and the awards ceremony is due to be held in Wellington on 11 August 2021, preceded by a programme of finalist author events under the Books Alive banner.
The New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are made possible through the generosity, commitment and vision of funders and sponsors Creative New Zealand, HELL Pizza, Wright Family Foundation, LIANZA, Wellington City Council and Nielsen Book.
For more information about the 2021 judges, see below or go here: http://www.nzbookawards.nz/new-zealand-book-awards-for-children-and-young-adults/2021-awards/judges/