By Sherryl Clark Probably the question before that is: what is the CBCA? It’s the Children’s Book Council of Australia, which has been going now for 80 years! To quote from their website: The CBCA was founded in 1945 in a time when Australian children’s books were few, and Australian authors and illustrators were virtually unknown. The following year, 1946 the  The Book of the Year Awards , an annual award to promote books of high literary and artistic quality was established. These awards are now the most influential and highly respected in Australia. Its key purpose of promoting children’s and young adult books has been made possible by thousands of volunteers over the years, as well as sponsorship. The awards are very influential, but also can have the inverse effect (as we see in NZ) of the shortlisted books being highly promoted while everyone else’s books miss out and fade away. However, a few years ago, some of the committee realised that they needed to make more of the Nota...