New Zealand's award winning children's books 1982-1992 : is there any correlation between adult choice and children's preferences

Abstract

This is a study of New Zealand children's book awards from 1982-1992. It compares the popularity of award winning and shortlisted titles for the Esther Glen and Russell Clark Awards, administered by the New Zealand Library Association, the Government Printer Awards for Children's Book of the Year and Picture Book of the Year, 1982-1988, and the first three years of the AIM Children's Book Awards when there were two categories only. The popularity of the books has been assessed using borrowing records from North Shore Public Libraries. A brief overview is given of the history of children's book awards and what qualities are considered to make a good children's book and which geres are most popular. Judges comments, reviews and the popularity rank of each book are presented in a year by year analysis. The study concludes that fantasy, followed by realism are the most popular genres and that historical fiction written during this time has been unpopular with library borrowers. The readership of some picture books has been affected by their non-fiction classification. There is a strong preference for particular authors and author/illustrators regardless of which books have won awards.