Entries have opened for the 2024 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, with an increase in the prize money on offer.

The New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa is now inviting submissions for these annual awards that recognise and celebrate the best books for young readers published in Aotearoa. The total prize money package available for the 2024 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults will be $62,000.

Titles with release dates between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024 will be considered for the 2024 awards. There are two submission dates. Publishers are asked to observe the guidelines for sending entries in two tranches, which are in place for ease of sending to judges. Submissions are now open for books published between 1 April 2023 and 30 November 2023, and will close at 5pm on Wednesday 13 December 2023. For books published between 1 December 2023 and 31 March 2024, submissions open on 14 December and will close at 5pm on Friday 9 February 2024.

For books in the second tranche, page proofs will be accepted where books are not yet printed. In such cases, finished books must arrive with the Awards Administrator, New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, Attn: Joy Sellen, 72 Te Wharepōuri Street, Wellington 6023, by 5pm on Friday 8 March 2024

All entries must be submitted online at www.nzbookawards.nz and fees paid by credit card via the online submission form.

A Call for Entries pack with eligibility criteria and other information is available at http://www.nzbookawards.nz/new-zealand-book-awards-for-children-and-young-adults/how-to-enter/. Eligibility criteria and conditions of entry are reviewed each year, so even publishers who enter books annually are encouraged to read the pack carefully before completing the online form.

The judges of the 2024 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults will be announced in the coming weeks, and their shortlist will be made public on 6 June 2024. The awards ceremony is planned for mid-August 2024 in Wellington.

Awards in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are made 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). Up to five finalists are selected for each category, and from these a category winner is selected. All category awards carry prize money of $8,500. In addition, the judges will award a Best First Book prize of $2,500 to a previously unpublished author or illustrator. The supreme winner of the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award, selected from one of the six main category winners, will take home a further $8,500.

The New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are administered by the New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa, and supported by Creative New Zealand, HELL Pizza, the Wright Family Foundation, LIANZA, Wellington City Council, the New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa (NZSA), and Nielsen BookData.

Any queries about the Awards should be directed to Awards Administrator Joy Sellen at childrensawards@nzbookawards.org.nz.