Media Release (29 July 2005) Winners of the 'Book of the Year' award announced

Best Book for Language Development: Young Children

Where is the Green Sheep? By Mem Fox (Penguin/Viking)

This is a delightful book for the younger child!
In this simple and endearing story about the search for a missing sheep, Mem Fox encourages the reader to embrace concepts such as colour, size and position using simple and humourous language.
The books uses repetition to great effect as it builds suspense and encourages children to ‘read along’. 
It has a sense of the ridiculous and with the help of Judy Horacek’s eye catching illustrations creates a sense of fun. Characters are readily identifiable to young children by their everyday settings but they engage and intrigue with their wacky realisations. It will generate much discussion and vocabulary expansion during book interactions.
This book is brilliant in it’s simplicity and is sure to become a household favourite! 

Mem Fox’s acceptance speech for WHERE IS THE GREEN SHEEP?
winning Best Book for Language Development – Pre-school

Well, for heaven’s sake!  A book award from speech pathologists!  I can’t tell you how proud and happy you have made me feel.
You and I are united in our quest for normal language development in young children.  We know that talking to children is an essential component of that development.  But we also know that some parents don’t understand how important it is to chat to their children, and that even when they’re encouraged to engage in conversation they don’t know what to say.  As someone who talked non-stop to her own newborn baby thirty four years ago, and has never stopped, I find it astounding that people don’t know what to say to their kids.  
You and I also know that the one thing parents can talk about to their children is a book that they’re looking at and reading together, a book like Where Is The Green Sheep?
When I wrote Where Is The Green Sheep? I clearly heard a parent’s voice in my head, asking the questions and chatting about the features of each page.  I heard a child’s voice too: interrupting, asking different questions, making observations, getting hyped up over the crazy quest for the green sheep and finally, eventually, learning to read the book all on its own at a very young age.
The story isn’t a story at all but an extended interactive and, I hope, exciting conversation between the reader and the mad keen little listener, and I am totally thrilled that you have recognised that. You and I meet smack bang in the middle of the read-aloud-world and the fact that you have given me such great recognition on our journey together makes me a very happy woman.  
Thanks a million, and all the very best in your future endeavours.
Mem Fox

Best Book for Language Development: Lower Primary

Jungle Drums by Graeme Base (Penguin/Viking)

This is a captivating book about embracing individual differences.
Children easily identify with the main character and the notion of yearnings and consequences.
It has a strong narrative format and Graeme Base’s wonderful vocabulary brings his characters to life. The book introduces a broad range of complex language and concepts and enlists an excellent use of tag questions and adjectives.
It’s superb illustrations are imaginative and appealing, with plenty of character and intrigue and the easy to read format invites the reader to delight in the book.
A beautiful read that will lead to conversation and discussion.
This book is a feast for the ears and eyes as the jungle comes alive

Best Book for Language Development: Upper Primary

By the River by Steven Herrick (Allen & Unwin)

This is an intriguing and absorbing book that allows the reader to bond deeply with many of the vivid and heart-wrenching characters.
It takes the reader on a journey with a boy dealing with the loss of key figures in his life and encourages us to consider the complexities of life, death, love, loss, grief and prejudice.
The book has a strong narrative flow using poetry to relay the story. Readers will connect with the characters through the simple language and wonderful use of metaphor.
This book is perfect for older children who are not engaging with the reading process easily as it is visually appealing and easily entices reluctant readers to read a ‘lengthy’ book.
This book is deceptively simple in that the language and form are simple. However this book allows the reader to explore many universal themes that are appropriate for an older child.
This is a book that you will continue to think about long after you put it down.

Steven Herrick's acceptance speech for BY THE RIVER
winning Best Book for Language Development - Upper Primary

I'd like to thank Speech Pathology Australia for honouring my book with this wonderful Award. I'm sorry I can't be here in person, but I'm in the middle of an extensive Schools tour at present.
It gives me immense pleasure to receive this Award as I'm one of the one-in-seven Australians with a communication disability. Put simply, in certain words I have trouble saying my “r’s”. The characters in my books never live in suburbs with names like Warrawee, Warriewood and Woollahra. And the word “rural” never leaves my lips!
I now make my living as a writer and as a performer of my poetry. I'm pleased I haven't let this speech impediment get in the way of my career as a performer. Certainly much of the enormous joy I get from my job is standing up in front of hundreds of children and reading poetry to them.
My only experience with anyone trying to “fix” my disability was when I was nine years old, in 1967. One day at school, in the middle of class, I was called out and asked to go to a “special class” with the young woman waiting at the door. She sat me in a quiet room and explained that I had trouble saying certain words. She wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know! At nine, I couldn't say my “th” words, my “r” words, and for some inexplicable reason while playing soccer and appealing for a “corner”, the word always came out “torner”.
Was I embarrassed at being selected and sent to this woman? Well, yes, at first I was. But, let me say she had an “unusual” way of encouraging my learning process. She would arrange a pile of lollies on her side of the desk. Every time I said a word correctly, she would slide a sweet across the desk to my side. My speech improved dramatically as my teeth rotted away to nothing! After class, I would be surrounded my new friends wishing they too had a speech disability.
Now, I'm not advocating this as the preferred method of teaching, and I'm not even sure if she was a trained Speech Pathologist. But, she was patient, kind, she got me out of boring subjects like Maths and she gave me lollies. She helped me enormously with my communication disability, except the “r” dilemma. But if anyone out there has a bag of lollies, I'm happy to give it another go.
Thank you once again for this award.