Vale Graham Davey

Mr Graham Davey, the YABBA President for more than 20 years, passed away on Thursday 11 April 2013

Graham Davey was a good friend to KOALA over many years. He was a passionate believer in the rights of children to have their say in ‘judging’ what were the best books for them, hence his dedication to YABBA and children’s choice awards in general. He willingly shouldered most of the workload involved in the operation of the REAL Awards involving the children’s choice awards in NSW, ACT and NT as well as VIC but he never claimed any credit for himself or YABBA.

A quick call to Graham was never that – he always had time to chat, discuss problems and share ideas. YABBA and KOALA regularly borrowed ideas from each other and Graham was always generous in sharing the resources created for YABBA.  In my time as president of KOALA I had many conversations with Graham about the future direction of children’s choice awards and the creation of a national children’s choice award was one of his dreams.

Our sympathy goes to his family and friends and especially the YABBA team. They will be big shoes for someone to fill.

Val Noake

Past President of KOALA Council

A tribute to Graham Davey from the YABBA Committee

St. Philomena's joins KOALA

KOALA has been an exciting addition to Library events at St Philomena’s School. Students have been nominating books like crazy! (Seriously, we actually found a book in our post box instead of a nomination form!)

The KOALA book marks have also been a tremendous hit. Both designs are intriguing and fun, and we especially love the one illustrated by Kim Gamble because it can be coloured in!

We have been tying in lots of educational activities in our Library with KOALA, as well. Students have been learning how to identify Australian books in our collection and how a Library and Book Awards can work.

Kristy Moony
Teacher Librarian K - 10
St Philomena's School
Moree

A powerful way of getting reluctant students reading

We use KOALA in our school to support and promote local authors, literature, reading and writing. It's an easy way to engage children in the Library. You just set it up and it self promotes.

A kids' choice list is a very powerful way to get reluctant students reading. “The use of student voice of popular choice is far more effective than teacher/parent recommendation”.

KOALA gives students the chance to meet popular authors - at the annual awards day - which is great as students then feel more connected to the people who create the books they love. Because students like competitions they understand the value of nominating and voting for their favourite books/authors. The process helps them to see the importance of reading, writing and literature.

Megan Light
K-6 Teacher Librarian
Cranbrook Junior School

(Photos of our 2012 voting promotion)

Welcome

This is a new blog page for the website where we will publish news, research reports, reports from schools, book reviews - and whatever else comes to our attention which is related to Australian children's literature and children's choice awards.