A Boat of Stars, the anthology of new Australian children’s poetry which I edited with Margaret Connolly has been getting quite a bit of attention lately!
Today, we received the wonderful news that it has been listed as a CBCA Notable Book for 2019, in the Early Childhood Category. A Boat of Stars includes new poetry and artwork from some of Australia’s top children’s writers and illustrators (full list here). I am also pleased that several of our talented contributors including Sara Acton, Tamsin Ainslie, Stephen Michael King and Margaret Wild have also been included on the list for books of their own. You can read the full list of Notables on the CBCA website.
A Boat of Stars now has its own page on this website, which includes information about the book and its contributors, and an interview with Natalie Jane Prior and Margaret Connolly by poet Sophie Masson AM. If you are a teacher, remember you can download some helpful teachers’ notes by another of our poets, Lesley Gibbes, here.
Finally, in a wonderful review in The Weekend Australian, 16-17 February, Literary Editor Stephen Romei devoted a whole column to A Boat of Stars: a remarkable achievement for a children’s book. After agreeing with us that there should be more poetry books for children, he paid tribute to the talents of many of our contributors and described A Boat of Stars as “a book that should be in every school library”. High praise indeed!
