Children's Book Awards in Australia: Their Effects on the Literary Marketplace

Abstract

This study explores the outcomes resulting from the formal recognition of selected children's literature in Australia for six stakeholder cohorts. For the purposes of this research, the recognition was in the form of a children's or young adult literary award. The process leading to an award is documented in policies, reports and handbooks and some publicity is evident in the media, journals, online sources and popular literary magazines. However, the outcomes of this personal, corporate, organizational, social, cultural and economic activity have not been examined to date and this research project addresses the question of exactly what happens to the selected stakeholders after the winning announcement is made. Out of the general focus question there arose subsidiary questions relating to the strength of the impacts, the longevity of the impacts, the current knowledge of a range of awards and responses in terms of income or impressions of award related promotional activity. Selecting meaningful and relevant populations to survey and to clarify relevance and vocabulary in questioning involved a pilot study and resulted in a survey structure of six cohorts to represent the affected field. The survey method involved mailed questionnaires. In the construction of the questionnaires it was apparent that cohort-specific questionnaires would be necessary for there were very few avenues of questioning which were common across all cohorts. As these questionnaires were developed the research design evolved into six mini-projects which had some elements in common but also unique features and perspectives. The evolution of book awards over time is explored in this work. Recognition and dedicated publishing of Australian children's literature slowly developed out of children's literature published in Great Britain, the mother country. This thesis briefly follows this growth and development of literary works for children and the awarding of prizes for exceptional quality, revealing the shifts in perception of the nature of the child reader and society's perception of what constitutes a quality child's book in Australia. Book awards for children's literature did not arise spontaneously but were an expression of interest, respect and maturity in the development of Australian literature.