They’re simply MAGIC!: Booksellers Choice Awards

The shortlist for this year’s Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) Nielsen Book Data Booksellers Choice Award has been announced and congratulations to Jessica Townsend and Sally Rippin for making the list with Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow and Polly and Buster: The Wayward Witch and the Feelings Monster.

If you haven’t yet picked up a copy of Nevermoor then you must. The title has already taken out awards for Book of the Year 2018 at the Indie Book Awards, Children’s Book of the Year at the Indie Book Awards, Best Children’s Fiction at the Aurealis Awards and winner of the award for Younger Fiction at the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize (UK).It is also CBCA notable book.

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Jessica Townsend, Lothian)
A breathtaking, enchanting new series by debut Australian author Jessica Townsend, about a cursed girl who escapes death and finds herself in a magical world – but is then tested beyond her wildest imagination.

Well known Australian author Sally Rippin needs no introduction, the author of the very popular Billy B Brown, Hey Jack and Australian Girl series. The Wayward Witch and the Feelings is the first in a new junior fiction series with the secondinstalment The Mystery of the Magic Stones due out later this month.

Polly and Buster: The Wayward Witch and the Feelings Monster (Sally Rippin, Hardie Grant Egmont).
Who ever heard of a witch and a monster being friends?
Everyone knows that witches don’t mix with monsters. Witches are educated, clever, sophisticated. But monsters? Monsters are just uncouth. Some are even dangerous. But Polly the witch and Buster the feelings monster have been best friends forever.
It’s the sort of friendship that makes your heart squeeze with happiness.
Somehow, they’ve managed to keep their friendship a secret.
Until one day, when everything changes …

ABA members now have the opportunity to vote for their favourite shortlisted title. The winner will be announced on 17 June during the ABA conference in Canberra.

The full shortlist is below:

• Force of Nature (Jane Harper, Macmillan)
• Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Jessica Townsend, Lothian)
• Saga Land (Richard Fidler & Kari Gislason, ABC Books)
• The Choke (Sofie Laguna, A&U)
• The Trauma Cleaner (Sarah Krasnostein, Text)
• Polly and Buster: The Wayward Witch and the Feelings Monster (Sally Rippin, Hardie Grant Egmont).

The ABA Nielsen BookData Booksellers Choice Award recognises Australian new-release titles that booksellers most enjoyed reading, marketing and handselling during the past twelve months. Last year’s winner was Melissa Ashley’s The Birdman’s Wife (Affirm).