It’s finally here – the day I can shout about the wonderful books that we have chosen as the finalists in the 2014 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.  It was a mammoth task, reading our way through 120 or so books, to choose just 20 to be named the best books for children and young adults in New Zealand from last year.  It was incredibly difficult choosing only 20 books but we believe we’ve chosen the best books in each category and I’m looking forward to all the events during festival week that will celebrate these books, authors and illustrators.

Congratulations to all the finalist authors!  Check out the list below.

Picture Books

• Machines and Me: Boats by Catherine Foreman
• The Boring Book by Vasanti Unka
• The Three Bears (Sort of) by Yvonne Morrison, illustrated by Donovan Bixley
• Toucan Can by Juliette MacIver, illustrated by Sarah Davis
• Watch Out, Snail! by Gay Hay, illustrated by Margaret Tolland

Junior Fiction

• A Winter’s Day in 1939 by Melinda Szymanik
• Dunger by Joy Cowley
• Felix and the Red Rats by James Norcliffe
• Project Huia by Des Hunt
• The Princess and the Foal by Stacy Gregg

Young Adult Fiction

• A Necklace of Souls by RL Stedman
• Bugs by Whiti Hereaka
• Mortal Fire by Elizabeth Knox
• Speed Freak by Fleur Beale
• When We Wake by Karen Healey

Non Fiction

• An Extraordinary Land by Peter Hayden and Rod Morris
• Anzac Day: The New Zealand Story by Philippa Werry
• Flight of the Honeybee by Raymond Huber, illustrated by Brian Lovelock
• Beginner’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Paul Adamson
• Wearable Wonders by Fifi Colston

Maori Language Award

• Taka Ki Ro Wai by Keri Kaa and Martin D Page