Best book award for Bluey: The Beach is child’s play

Bluey: The Beach, a spin-off from the hit ABC television ­series, is the first children’s picture book to be awarded book of the year.

Bluey: The Beach has won book of the year at the Australian Book Industry Awards, the first children’s picture book to take the top award.

It is perhaps a sign of our times that the star of the Australian Book Industry Awards is the one who cannot go on stage and deliver an acceptance speech: she is an animated dog.

Bluey: The Beach, a spin-off from the hit ABC television ­series, has been named book of the year, becoming the first children’s picture book to win that honour at the ABIAs.

The book is the first of seven published so far, following a deal between Penguin Random House and the ABC and BBC, which co-commissioned Joe Brumm’s Brisbane-set TV series aimed at preschoolers.

The seven books are closing in on sales of one million copies, and there are lots more to come. “We hope to publish another eight ­before the end of the year,’’ Holly Toohey, PRH’s head of brands and partnerships, said.

The ABIAs, the red carpet night of Australian publishing, could not go ahead as usual because of COVID-19 lockdown. The awards were announced on Wednesday via YouTube, with regular host Casey Bennetto in the chair and with winning ­authors and publishers joining in with pre-recorded interviews.

The other big winner at the ABIAs was independent publisher Allen & Unwin, which was named publisher of the year and dominated the fiction awards.

Charlotte Wood won the literary fiction prize for The Weekend, and Heather Rose won the general fiction prize for Bruny. Both are published by A&U.

“I want to send love to the whole industry,” Wood said. “I know everyone is doing it tough but it’s so inspiring to see the imagination and cleverness in how everyone is working remotely. We writers love you for it.”

Former AFL star Neil Daniher, with co-writer Warwick Green, won the biography prize for When All is Said and Done, the player’s account of his struggle with motor neurone disease.

The general non-fiction prize went to comedian Kitty Flanagan for Kitty Flanagan’s 488 Rules for Life, also published by A&U.

Former Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani continued his success at book awards, with his memoir No Friend But the Mountains winning the audio­book prize.

The book of the year for older children is Welcome to Your ­Period, by Yumi Stynes and Melissa Kang. Dual Booker Prize-winner Margaret Atwood won the international book prize for The Testaments.

For full details go to www.abiawards.com.au