KOALA awards – James Foley

Bigfoot, Yeti and Capybara shortlisted in children’s choice awards

The shortlists for the NSW and Victoria children’s choice book awards – the KOALAS and YABBAS – were released today. I’m stoked to see that two of my books were shortlisted in the Picture Story Book category!

Bigfoot vs Yeti: A Love Story and Happy Barry Capybara: Gone Bananas were both shortlisted.

Big thanks to all the young readers who nominated my books for the awards, and to the teachers and librarians who organised voting in their schools!

And congrats to everyone with a shortlisted book. There are so many great ones on the list this year. You can see all the shortlisted books in the poster below.

Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that I got to do the artwork for this year’s poster; it was heaps of fun to have Stella from Stellarphant doing a spacewalk with the mascot of the YABBAs (a mouse) and the KOALAs (a koala of course). See below for the full art.

Buy the books:

🌏 *Signed copies* – Paper bird

🇦🇺 🇳🇿 Local Indie bookshops

🌏 SIGNED COPIES (PAPER BIRD)

🇦🇺🇳🇿 LOCAL INDIE BOOKSHOPS

🇦🇺🇳🇿 Booktopia

🌏 Dymocks

🇦🇺 QBD

Happy Barry and Toffle Towers both on the REAL awards shortlist

Wonderful news this morning: Happy Barry Capybara and Toffle Towers book 1 are both on the REAL shortlist! ⁠
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The REAL (Reading and Enjoying Australian Literature) shortlist is used by three children’s choice book award programs around Australia: the KOALA awards in NSW, the YABBAs in Victoria and the KROCs in the Northern Territory. ⁠
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Congrats to everyone involved in the shortlisted books! And a huge thanks to the library staff around Australia who volunteer their help with awards like these. ⁠
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Get reading, kids – which are your favourites? ⁠

Download the 2025 REAL Awards poster

REAL_Awards_Poster_V2 (1)Download

Stellarphant on the REAL shortlist

Great news! Stellarphant has been shortlisted in Australia’s biggest children’s choice book awards – the REAL awards.

It stands for Reading and Enjoying Australian Literature, and is a partnership between the YABBAs (Young Australia Best Book Awards) in Victoria, the KOALAs (Kids’ Own Australian Literature Awards) in New South Wales and the KROC (Kids’ Reading Oz Choice) awards in the Northern Territory. So really, it’s like three shortlistings in one!

Big big thanks to the organising teams behind the awards, to all the teachers and librarians who collect the votes, and to all the kids who voted around Australia. And congrats to everyone with books on the shortlist!