New Zealand Post Book Awards

The New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards winners were announced in a lavish ceremony in Christchurch last night.

We blogged about the finalist books here, and now we can tell you which ones won!

Best Non-Fiction:

100 Amazing Tales from Aotearoa by Simon Morton & Riria Hotere

Go behind the scenes at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand and discover more than 100 treasured items from the Museum’s collection. 100 Amazing Tales From Aotearoa gives readers a special look at some of the surprising, wonderful, and significant items that Te Papa stores in trust for the nation. Learn the secrets of one of the first dinosaur fossil ever discovered, see new spider species, be inspired by famous paintings and quirky jewellery, encounter fearsome weapons from the Pacific, and uncover deep and personal stories of Māori taonga (treasures).

The book is based on the popular TV mini-documentaries Tales from Te Papa, and includes a DVD of the complete series – with a bonus 20 episodes

Best Junior Fiction:

My Brother’s War by David Hill

It’s New Zealand, 1914, and the biggest war the world has known has just broken out in Europe. William eagerly enlists for the army but his younger brother, Edmund, is a conscientious objector and refuses to fight. While William trains to be a soldier, Edmund is arrested. Both brothers will end up on the bloody battlefields of France, but their journeys there are very different. And what they experience at the front line will challenge the beliefs that led them there

Honour award, Junior Fiction:

The Queen and the Nobody Boy: A Tale of Fontania series by Barbara Else

Hodie is the unpaid odd-job boy at the Grand Palace in the Kingdom of Fontania. Fed-up, he decides to leave and better himself. The young Queen, 12-year-old Sibilla, is fed-up too. Sick of gossip about her lack of magical ability, she decides to run away with Hodie, whether he likes it or not.

Sequel to The Travelling Restaurant

Best Picture Book:

Mister Whistler by Margaret Mahy & Gavin Bishop

Absentminded Mister Whistler always has a song in his head and a dance in his feet. In a rush to catch the train, he is so distracted he loses his ticket. Is it in the bottom pockets of his big coat or the top pockets of his jacket? Perhaps he slipped it into his waistcoat. Where is Mister Whistler’s ticket?

Best First Book:

Reach by Hugh Brown

Young Adult Fiction.

Will Clark thinks he’s a socially inept bookworm who just happens to enjoy cross-country running and taekwondo. But then his mother returns after a five year absence overseas, and he has his first full contact taekwondo fight, and the gorgeous comic-reading Conway Jones asks if she can be his maths tutor… Will must reassess himself, and his past, as he reaches towards a new future and lets his dreams take flight.

Best Young Adult Fiction and New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year:

Into the River by Ted Dawe

When Te Arepa Santos is dragged into the river by a giant eel, something happens that will change the course of his whole life. The boy who struggles to the bank is not the same one who plunged in, moments earlier. He has brushed against the spirit world, and there is a price to be paid; an utu to be exacted. Years later, far from the protection of whanau and ancestral land he finds new enemies. This time, with no-one to save him, there is a decision to be made.. he can wait on the bank, or leap forward into the river

Children’s Choice Award:

Melu by Kyle Mewburn, Ali Teo & John O’Reilly,

Melu has always been different. While the other mules stubbornly clip-clop around the sun-baked hills, Melu dreams of swimming in the glittering green sea below. But it will take more than stubborness for Melu to reach the glittering green sea.

This is the award that you got to vote for. Did you vote for Melu?