70th Australian Book Design Awards Longlist

We're excited to see that five Scribe and four Scribble books have been longlisted for the 70th Australian Book Design Awards.

Best designed commercial fiction cover
The Speechwriter by Martin McKenzie-Murray
Designed by Nathan Burton

Best designed literary fiction cover
A Room Called Earth by Madeleine Ryan
Designed by Allison Colpoys

How We Are Translated by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson
Designed by Allison Colpoys

In Moonland by Miles Allinson
Designed by Allison Colpoys

Best designed nonfiction cover
The Ghost in the Garden by
Designed by Laura Thomas

Best designed children's illustrated book
A Pair of Pears and an Orange by Anna McGregor
Designed by Anna McGregor

Arno and His Horse by Jane Godwin and Felicita Sala
Designed by Miriam Rosenbloom

Best designed children's nonfiction illustrated book
Let’s Eat Weeds by Annie Raser-Rowland, Adam Grubb, and Evie Barrow
Designed by Miriam Rosenbloom

Best designed children's fiction book
Rhyme Hungry by Antonia Pesenti
Designed by Antonia Pesenti & Miriam Rosenbloom

The shortlist will be announced in April 2022 and the winners of the Australian Book Design Awards will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on 3 June.

Congratulations to all the longlisted designers.

The Speechwriter

**In his fiction debut, erstwhile speechwriter Martin McKenzie-Murray takes us on a frantic, funny, and surreal journey through the corridors of power.**
Toby, former speechwriter to the PM, has reached a new low: locked behind bars in a high-security prison, with sentient PlayStations storming the city outside, and the worst of Australia’s criminals forcing him to ghost-write letters to their loved ones or have his spine repurposed as a coat-rack. How did he get here? From the vantage point of his prison cell, Toby pens his memoir, trying to piece together how he fell so far, all the while fielding the…

Read more

A Room Called Earth

**A brilliant debut from a neurodiverse author that explores a young woman's magical, sensitive, and passionate inner world.**
A young woman gets ready to go to a party. She arrives, feels overwhelmed, leaves, and then returns. Minutely attuned to the people who come into her view, and alternating between alienation and profound connection, she is hilarious, self-aware, sometimes acerbic, and always honest.
And by the end of the night, she’s shown us something radical about love, loss, and the need to belong.

Read more

How We Are Translated

**LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE**
People say ‘I’m sorry’ all the time when it can mean both ‘I’m sorry I hurt you’ and ‘I’m sorry someone else did something I have nothing to do with’. It’s like the English language gave up on trying to find a word for sympathy which wasn’t also the word for guilt.
Swedish immigrant Kristin won’t talk about the *Project* growing inside her. Her Brazilian-born Scottish boyfriend Ciaran won’t speak English at all; he is trying to immerse himself in a Swedish
språkbad language bath,
to prepare for their future, whatever the *fick* that means.…

Read more

In Moonland

WINNER OF THE 2022 *AGE* BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR FICTION
HIGHLY COMMENDED IN THE 2022 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION
‘A parent’s love for a child, you probably know this yourself, it’s pretty bottomless. It goes down into the guts of the world. But a child’s love for a parent is different. It goes up. It’s more ethereal. It’s not quite present on the earth.’
In present-day Melbourne, a man attempts to piece together the mystery of his father’s apparent suicide as his young family slowly implodes. At the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, in 1976, a man searching for salvation must…

Read more

The Ghost In The Garden

**The forgotten garden which inspired Charles Darwin becomes the modern-day setting for an exploration of memory, family, and the legacy of genius.**
Darwin never stopped thinking about the garden at his childhood home, The Mount. It was here, under the tutelage of his green-fingered mother and sisters, that he first examined the reproductive life of flowers, collected birds’ eggs, and began the experiments that would lead to his theory of evolution.
A century and a half later, with one small child in tow and another on the way, Jude Piesse finds herself living next door to this secret garden. Two acres of…

Read more

A Pair of Pears and an Orange

**An adorable story about making new friends and finding creative solutions to playground problems.**
A pair of pears rocked on a seesaw.
A pair of pears played ping-pong.
A pair of pears rode their tandem bike.
Until one day, someone new wanted
to join their fun.
Big Pear and Little Pear love playing together. But when Orange joins in, their games don’t work and Big Pear feels left out. A relatable, hilarious, and kind-hearted tale about navigating friendship when three definitely starts to feel like a crowd! From the author of the CBCA Honour winner, *Anemone is not the Enemy.*
The ideal gift for new…
Read more

Arno and His Horse

**A *BIG ISSUE* BOOK OF THE YEAR**
*Arno and His Horse* is a beautifully written rhyming text, matched with exquisite illustrations, that explores love, memory, loss, and the power objects can hold.
*Arno had a horse,*
*it was brown and it was black.*
*He took it with him everywhere,*
*but did he bring it back?*
When Arno loses his precious toy horse, all the kids in town help him to look for it. They look everywhere, but will Arno ever see his horse again?
A touching story about memory, dreams, and the mysterious ways we feel connected to those we love.

Read more

Let’s Eat Weeds!

**From salads to main dishes, edible weeds are delicious! Find out how to identify them, where and when to find them, and how to cook them.**
Ever thought weeds were just pesky plants to pull out and throw away? Think again! This informative, funny, and beautiful book will show you just how great edible weeds can taste. Learn to smell your way to an angled onion, bake weeds ‘n’ cheese pie, and safely harvest the juicy fruits of a prickly pear.
This is the ultimate companion for the young urban or rural forager. Once you’ve read it, you’ll start to see food all around you, every time you go for a…

Read more

Rhyme Hungry

**From INSTANT POODLES to CHEESE GHOSTIE, *RHYME HUNGRY* is the ultimate book of lunchtime wordplay!**
Flip the flaps to reveal unexpected rhymes and bold, bright illustrations. A book that will delight adults, appeal to design lovers, and get young kids squealing and begging to read it again and again.
From the creator of award-winning *Rhyme Cordial.*

Read more

Sign up for our newsletter

We send out a monthly email with all our book news, author events, competitions, book club notes, and more! Sign up here.

Related content

Adam Grubb runs an urban permaculture design and education business,…

Discover

Annie Raser-Rowland is a horticulturalist and writer. She works at…

Discover

Jude Piesse is an academic and writer. She holds an MA in Creative…

Discover

Madeleine Ryan is an Australian writer, director, and actor. She’s been…

Discover

Jessica Gaitán Johannesson grew up between Sweden, Colombia, and…

Discover

Melbourne based author/illustrator/designer Anna McGregor is devoted to…

Discover

Evie Barrow is an artist and illustrator passionate about artful…

Discover

Felicita Sala is a self-taught illustrator and painter. She graduated…

Discover

Jane Godwin is an Australian children’s book publisher, and also the…

Discover

Antonia Pesenti is a Sydney based architect and illustrator/book…

Discover

Martin McKenzie-Murray was The Saturday Paper’s chief correspondent,…

Discover

Miles Allinson is a writer and an artist, and the author of the multi…

Discover

Quick view

The Speechwriter

Martin McKenzie-Murray

RRP: $29.99 Pub date: 2 Feb 2021 Category: Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945) Cover view

Quick view

A Room Called Earth

Madeleine Ryan

RRP: $29.99 Pub date: 2 Mar 2021 Category: Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945) Cover view

Quick view

How We Are Translated

Jessica Gaitán Johannesson

RRP: $29.99 Pub date: 2 Feb 2021 Category: Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945) Cover view

Quick view

In Moonland

Miles Allinson

RRP: $29.99 Pub date: 31 Aug 2021 Category: Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945) Cover view

Quick view

The Ghost In The Garden

Jude Piesse

RRP: $35.00 Pub date: 1 Jun 2021 Category: Biography: science, technology & medicine Cover view

Quick view

A Pair of Pears and an Orange

Anna McGregor

RRP: $24.99 Pub date: 1 Jun 2021 Category: Picture storybooks Cover view

Quick view

Arno and His Horse

Jane Godwin

RRP: $24.99 Pub date: 4 May 2021 Category: Picture storybooks Cover view

Quick view

Let’s Eat Weeds!

Annie Raser-Rowland Adam Grubb

RRP: $24.99 Pub date: 31 Aug 2021 Category: Cooking & food (Children’s / Teenage) Cover view

Quick view

Rhyme Hungry

Antonia Pesenti

RRP: $19.99 Pub date: 28 Sep 2021 Category: Early learning: rhyming & wordplay books Cover view

70th Australian Book Design Awards Longlist

Related content

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

ILLUSTRATOR

AUTHOR, ILLUSTRATOR

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

AUTHOR