Notable Books … In comparison with last year, ten more non-fiction titles to read and scrutinise. The Fab Six panel ploughed through a wealth of New Zealand related topics and subjects, some better known than others, some close to our hearts, others fascinating and surprising, some fiercely debatable, some disappointingly marked by factual errors … Subjects varied immensely as you can see in the word cloud below. Not being able to put a book down, standing on a parking lot next to my EV recharging, speaks volumes about the quality of text and illustrations. It was my favourite book out of those 27 and now lives in a bookcase in my house. Guess which one it is – it made the Notable Books list for children and young people non-fiction.

Curious about the Storylines Notable Books list? You can find it here: https://www.storylines.org.nz/awards/storylines-notable-book-awards/storylines-notable-book-lists-2025/

Once the judging was finished, we received an invitation to consider being part of the judging panel for the Storylines Tessa Duder Award or the Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award for unpublished and original manuscripts for respectively young adults and junior fiction. I pondered for a while… volunteered… and was accepted on the panel for the Tessa Duder Award. Little did I know this requires reading 34 young adult manuscripts (about 70.000 words each) in about two months, Thirty-four!

To be continued…