Children's Things We Like
New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults
The winners of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults for 2025 have been announced! Check out the 2025 winning titles here:
The Treaty of Waitangi by Ross Calman
Winner of The Margaret Mahy Book of the Year and the Elsie Locke Award for Non-fiction
This book is a must-read condensing of an extraordinarily complex and difficult subject, now made accessible to young people. It doesn’t simplify or leave out key parts of the history or the origins of our founding document, nor the implications of what te Tiriti can mean to all of us. Imagine how difficult it must have been to distil so much information – information so important to our sense of who we are – but this is precisely what Ross Calman has done. The Treaty of Waitangi is a deeply important book at a crucial time, a book that will give young people the courage they need to explore this part of our history and identity.
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Titiro Look by Gavin Bishop
Winner of the Book Hub Book Award
This deceptively simple, beautifully produced board book is an absorbing exploration of reo Māori and reo Pākehā. A representatively diverse whānau member and a favourite toy gaze out from each spread, inviting the reader to interact, ask questions, point, talk and learn. A mix of both common and surprising kupu is repeated and built upon in various contexts, enabling a deeply powerful learning experience. The vivid colour palette and bold, uncluttered images are perfect for pēpē and highlight connection with the people and toys that fill their world. Titiro Look is a taonga of a board book from an acclaimed Aotearoa storyteller.
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Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat
Winner of the Wright Family Foundation Ester Glen Award for Junior Fiction
Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat is a delightful feline-fuelled mystery where a kitty detective earnestly goes about trying to find his hat. This book is both literally and figuratively colourful – Beans interacts with a cast of entertaining characters on his sleuthing mission, which his Mum is fine with as long as he’s home by 8pm. The graphic novel format is expertly used to capture the character expressions, tone, and movement of the narrative. This is a skilfully crafted work, an all-ages book that is both fun and funny, with humour that hits on multiple levels.
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The Paradise Generation
Winner of the Young Adult Fiction Award
In Ultrawild, Steve Mushin leads us on a deadly serious quest to design our way out of climate change. He presents out-there concepts that are ingenious, technically plausible and often humorous, but it’s the way they are communicated that gives this book the wow factor. Pages are filled to the brim with detailed illustrations of his designs, speech bubbles, arrows, calculations, and full-page spreads that show what these rewilded cities could look like. This book about futuristic design is itself an object of outstanding design.
Ultrawild encourages readers to see the explicit connection between creativity and science, and as Steve Mushin puts it, to think ludicrous thoughts and have revolutionary ideas.
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Hineraukatauri me Te Ara Pūoro by Elizabeth Gray
Winner of the Russel Clark Award for Illustration and the Wright Family Foundation Te Pounamu Award for a book originally written in Te Reo Māori
Hineraukatauri me Te Ara Pūoro tells the pūrākau of the becoming of Hineraukatauri, from chrysalis to atua of taonga pūoro – and Rehua Wilson's illustrations embody the kaupapa with a breath-taking synaesthetic skill that seems quite magical. There is an innate musical quality in the light and shade, the stabs and washes of bright colour, the delicate linework tracing a visual melody. Familiar atua are encountered in perhaps unfamiliar forms, the line between the literal and the figurative is always permeable, and the relationship between te Ao Wairua and te Ao Kikokiko is reflected in a way that feels right, feels tika.
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A Ariā me te Atua o te Kūmara by Witi Ihimaera
Winner of the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for a book translated in Te Reo Māori
He nui ngā mānuka ka takoto i mua i te aroaro o Ariā me ōna hoa i a rātou e kake ana i ngā whetū, e kimi ana i a Whānui, ā, māna e whakaora mai ngā māra kūmara o te ao, engari kua ara kē mai ko Matariki. Ko tā te pūkōrero, tā Witi Ihimaera, he whakaora mai i te tikanga o te kōrero pūrākau ki tēnei paki whakaaweawe kua whakamāorihia e Hēni Jacob. Ko te tikanga, me pānui ā-waha, ā, mā te rōnaki o te reo, me ngā whakaahua whakamīharo e kukume mai te tamaiti, kia kite ai ia i a ia anō e hāereere ana i te taha o Ariā. Waihoki, mā tēnei pukapuka e tahuri ai te iwi ki te kōrero mō te hiranga o Matariki.
Ariā and her fellow apprentices face many challenges as they climb to the stars in search of Whānui, to save the world’s dying kūmara crops – but Matariki is already rising. Master storyteller Witi Ihimaera brings the wisdom of traditional pūrākau to life in an inspirational tale that has been translated expertly by Hēni Jacob. Meant to be read aloud, the smoothly flowing reo and captivating illustrations will draw tamariki in, so they feel they are travelling alongside Ariā on her quest. This pukapuka will also provide a platform to spark conversation about the significance of Matariki.
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The Raven's Eye Runaways by Claire Mabey
Winner of the NZSA Best First Book Award
Rich, atmospheric prose propels this beautifully-inked fantasy quest, set in a medieval realm in which reading and writing are forbidden arts restricted strictly to the elites. Contemporary concerns are given profound, allegorical parallels and resonate on the page. Claire Mabey's genuine love of language shines brightly and her ability to craft pacey narrative sweeps you up and away into this dark, dangerous world where young bookbinder Getwin, her friends and a one-eyed raven seek to unravel the mysteries of Prime. The Raven’s Eye Runaways is the work of a writer who wields her words with exquisite care and understands the power of great storytelling.
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