As part of our commitment to bringing children and books together, CBCA SA Branch hosted Stories by the Stables at Carrick Hill during the October holidays
More than 90 4-8 year olds joined us on the stable lawns for stories, songs and craft ideas.

We were thrilled to see this article about our 2017/ 2018 CBCA Book of the Year Award judge for the Older Readers category in the Adelaide Advertiser.

CBCSA was pleased to be associated with Scholastic Australia's Reading Leaders professional development event and the Australian release of Donalyn's new book 'Game Changer! Book access for all kids'. 
More than 160 South Australian educators were part of a workshop at Concordia College - all receiving an advance copy of her book.
Prior to the workshop Donalyn also breakfasted with key educators,and literacy leaders, and met informally with the CBCSA Committee for dinner.

Pirates and treasure were the themes of the 2018 Book Week dinner at the Hackney Hotel on Friday, August 10th. The fun started at 6:00 pm when all the guests were greeted by our two visiting pirates,Cap'n Adele Fancypants and Jelly Legs Doug, who gave everyone their pirate name.
      Anne Cameron and Lydia de l'Amour were representing Scholastic Australia, our sponsors for the night. Guests were all presented with a complimentary book and the first 10 people to book were given a copy of "I'm an Australian Too". Anne spoke about the wonderful programs run by Scholastic that encourages reading and literacy throughout the nation.
     A "Kahoots" quiz was one of the first events, with guests trying to answer the pirate quiz.
     Mem Fox was our special guest for the night and she spoke about her treasures, the many illustrators who have worked on her books. It was a wonderful insight into the long term relationships that have occurred through each picture book. Mem was awarded the inaugural "Honorary Membership" to CBCSA. This will be a feature of all our Book Week dinners from now on.
      Our other 3 shortlisted authors, Phil Cummings, Vikki Wakefied and Charlie Archbold were also our special guests for the night. Lucky attendees were able to purchase books from Caitlin of Dillon's Books of Norwood on the night and have them signed.
     The 120 guests were invited to create a pirate hat with accessories (and a backstory) for one of their lucky table members. Bags of "making" materials were delivered to each table and the imaginations were highly active as many creative and bizarre pirates were born that night. The 2 winners were able to each share a treasure chest of goodies with their table.
    The Hackney Hotel provided delicious food and even created 3 unique pirate themed cocktails for the night.
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A great time was had by all and we wished our 4 shortlisted authors all the best for the August 17th announcements of "Book of the Year".

Picture This – Art Ideas for Bookweek in the St Peter’s Public Library Community Hall on June 22nd was the twelfth annual art-based event that the CBC has run. And I’ve been thinking recently about how it all started, and how things have changed over the years as our circumstances have changed.

Our first art-evening was organized for us by Jane Moore and took place in her school-library at the beginning of March in 2007. In part it was a celebration of the beginning of a new CBC year. So we called it a cocktail party: food was very, very plentiful, and the cocktails made you levitate.

The theme was (the UN) International Polar Year – and thus had nothing to do with the Awards or Bookweek. The particular pleasure of it all was seeing how Jane had decorated her library to reflect this theme. It looked simply stunning. The evening included a demonstration of relevant art-activities for children by Janine Boyd of Little Picasso Art (no hands-on!) and talks and displays by book-sellers (Bees Knees and Seelect at that first event). Participants went home with bags of goodies including a hand-out of pictures of Jane’s library to inspire them.
The last time we used an UN International Year-theme was 2012. By that time we had changed our venue to Linda Guthrie’s equally beautiful library, the presenter had changed, and her role become more prominent, and the alcohol was perhaps less elevating.

The new presenter was Evelynne Richardson, formerly a primary art-teacher, and also an artist in her own right. Evelynne introduced an element of hands-on, but it had to be kept very simple, as people were working on clip-boards on their laps.

By this time, too, the CBC Committee was concerned about the fact that although a great deal of effort went into organizing the art-event, and you couldn’t fault the presenter, it was decreasing in popularity. We decided that there were two probable reasons for this: one was that UN International Years were not all equally interesting, at least from a visual point-of-view (the 2012 one was the Year of Co-operatives – but perhaps we should rejoice that at least we escaped the Year of Pulses – 2016!); the other that trying to hold a CBC event in the face of The Fringe, the Festival, WOMADelaide, Writers’ Week and the car race was simply not a good idea. So we changed the date to May/June, and re-badged our effort as ‘Art Ideas for Bookweek’. Numbers increased dramatically the following year, and have been between good and overwhelming ever since.
In 2016 Evelynne retired as presenter, and we invited Maxine Cavaggion to replace her. Maxine has a long history teaching art to both children and teachers.

We intended, from the beginning, that the ‘Art Ideas for Bookweek’ session would include ideas on both the theme and the shortlisted picture books. But it has always been difficult to offer adequate coverage of both in a couple of hours on a Friday night when people are inevitably tired.
The ‘hands on’ element has also caused difficulties from the beginning: it takes up time, and we have to have the right equipment and appropriate furniture (ie tables).

Another factor we now have to take into account is that our public has changed. Teacher-librarians are well on the way to extinction (as are school-libraries that look like Aladdin’s Cave). We now need to run a session which is helpful principally to public librarians, classroom teachers, and SSOs. So there will be another discussion, and once again we will seek to adjust our offering to meet the current need.

Val van Putten,
Co-ordinator,
Picture This – Art Ideas for Bookweek​

Congratulations to the fabulous South Australian authors, illustrators and publishers recognised on the CBCA Notables list.

It is fantastic to see Allayne Webster, Charlie Archbold, Rosanne Hawke, Mem Fox, Mike Dumbleton, Phil Cummings (3 nominations), Katrina Germein, Amanda Graham, Mike Lucas, Jennifer Harrison, Vikki Wakefield, Sally Heinrich, Jane Jolly, and Midnight Sun Publishing recognised and wish them all the best for the Short List.
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If we have missed a SA connection please email admin@cbcsa.org.au so that we can rectify our list and add to our web page.

More than 60 people attended our first Book Shop Blitz for 2018 followed by a short AGM at Pegi Williams Bookshop on Monday 12 February 2018 to hear Rebecca Bird from Pegi Williams talk about "What's new and hot in children's books". 

Guests also had the opportunity to network, browse and purchase over light refreshments. Inaugural Life Memberships were presented to Valerie van Putten and Anna Angelakis for outstanding long service to the Branch. Following presentation of reports the 2018 committee was elected with a wonderful response of 27 committee members.