The Sellout
by Paul Beatty

A biting satire about a young man’s isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality―the black Chinese restaurant.

Born in the “agrarian ghetto” of Dickens―on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles―the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: “I’d die in the same bedroom I’d grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that’ve been there since ’68 quake.” Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father’s pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family’s financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that’s left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.

Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town’s most famous resident―the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins―he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.

Coming Rain
by Stephen Daisley

A universal story of love and aspiration, betrayal and disappointment, the prose is masterful, simple and moving. The characters are utterly believable and complex in their ordinariness. The author’s portrayal of hard physical tasks in conjunction with the mental effort required to carry on in the face of everyday obstacles and heartbreak is a thing of beauty.

“Coming Rain is a universal story of love and aspiration, betrayal and disappointment. The prose is masterful, simple and moving. The characters are utterly believable and complex in their ordinariness. It was a book that all three judges came across joyfully and read with the ease of those who know they’re in the hands of a confident writer.” Jill Rawnsley, convenor of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Fiction category

The winners of the 2016 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults

The winners of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are as follows:

	Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Young Adult Book Award Singing Home the Whale by Mandy Hager Penguin Random House
	Picture Book Award Jim’s Letters by Glyn Harper and Jenny Cooper Random House
	Junior Fiction Award Monkey Boy by Donovan Bixley Scholastic New Zealand
	Non-fiction Award Mōtītī Blue and the Oil Spill by Debbie McCauley Mauao Publishing
	Best First Book Māori Art for Kids by Julie Noanoa and Norm Heke Craig Potton Publishing
	Maori Language Award Ngā Ki by Sacha Cotter and Joshua Morgan Translated by Kawata Teepa Huia Publishers (translation of span Keys, a finalist in the Picture Book category)

Children’s Choice Award Winners

	Picture Book  The Anzac Puppy by Peter Millett & Trish Bowles Scholastic NZ
	Junior Fiction The Island of Lost Horses by Stacy Gregg HarperCollins
	Non-Fiction The Letterbox Cat & other poems by Paula Green & Myles Lawford Scholastic NZ
	Young Adult Fiction Night Vision by Ella West Allen & Unwin