Under Fives Literary Event

On Wednesday 18th April 2012, the Illawarra-South Coast Branch of the CBCA hosted an Under Fives Literary Event for local Indigenous children aged 3-5 years. It was a fun morning of literacy with the theme of "Bear and Chook" and "Bear and Chook by the Sea" by Lisa Shannahan. The children enjoyed book readings by CBCA members, bear and chook craft activities, 'warm honey toast' and special guest appearances by Bear and Chook themselves. The CBCA branch also donated a selection of children's picture books to 'Noogaleek' Children's Centre.




CBCA Illawarra Christmas Dinner - 2 November 2011

Author Kate Forsyth will be the guest speaker at the Villa D'Oro Function Centre for the 2011 Christmas Dinner.

HSC Extension 2 Day - 30 November 2011

Further details to follow.

Book Week - 20-26 August 2011

For more information click on the Book Week tab above or here.

Literary Lunch - August 2011

Dave Hackeet, Bill Condon, Di Bates, Mary Small, Moya Simons, Annabel Joss, Oliver Phommavan, Deb Abela, Aleesah Darlison, Frances Watts, William Kostakis, Belinda Murrell and Serena Geedes spent the day with 11 local primary and high schools.

SCARF Story Time - 6 July 2011

Approximately 20 African and Burmese children, with parents, siblings and minders, attended a session of readings followed by Morning Tea and the issue of a lovely new book for each child. A successful event. For more information see Scarf Events.

Annual General Meeting - 5th March 2011

Our Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday 5th March, 2011 at the Tom Thumb Room, Wollongong City Library from 2 pm to 4 pm.


We hope to have as our speaker one of the local public librarians.


Hope to see you all there.

HSC Extension Day -1st December 2010

Our final event for 2010 was another workshop day especially for local 2011 HSC students studying English Extension 2. This was held at Edmund Rice College. Over 120 students travelled from all over NSW attended. Some of the schools were Moruya High, Ulladulla High, Nowra High, Macarthur Anglican, Chevalier.


The speakers were Don Carter, BOS Head Inspector of English and Tony Britten, English Co-Ordinator at SCEGGS, Darlinghurst.

CBCA Christmas Dinner - 10th November 2010

On the 10th November over 70 guests enjoyed a wonderful three course dinner at Villa D’Oro, Wollongong and were extremely lucky to have the incredibly talented Glenda Millard fly in from Victoria to entertain them.

Glenda has two books short-listed this year in the CBCA Book of the Year Awards - Isabella’s Garden and A Small Free Kiss in the Dark.

Our table hung onto every word Glenda spoke about her life and writing, we reminisced on our own childhood and were so enthralled that we ignored the delicious desserts that sat in front of us until Glenda finished.

What a great end to the year.

Jackie French and Bruce Whatley - 7th September 2010

Over 500 children from schools throughout the Illawarra were entertained for the morning by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley at The Illawarra Grammar School IGC Hall. A wonderful morning was had by all.

Children’s Literary Lunch – 3rd August 2010

Bruce Whatley
Oliver Phommavanh
This year the Children's Literary Lunch was held at the Fraternity Bowling and Recreation Club, Fairy Meadow. Guest Speaker was Bruce Whatley hosting a drawing workshop.

Approximately 120 children, teachers and librarians from around the Illawarra were lucky enough to be entertained by authors and illustrators Deb Abela, Aleesah Darlison, Sandy Fussell, Susanne Gervay, Richard Harland, Mo Johnson, Annabelle Josse, David Legge, Dawn Meredith, Kim Miller, Oliver Phommavanh, Lisa Shanahan, Mary Small and Sue Walker.

The children were then invited to come down onto the floor and learn to draw a wombat – just like Bruce’s – well some and to create funny faces with doodles. At the end of the day, the children, with their goody bags and lots of autographs and books tucked under their arm, went away eager to return next year.

Under Five's Grug Party - 1 July 2010

The CBCA Illawarra-South Coast Branch hosted an under five's Grug party on the 1st of July. The event was a huge success with over fifty children and their parents enjoying a morning of arts and crafts, games and storytelling. Every child also received a goodie bag with a Grug book inside.
The venue was the Thirroul Library and Community Centre where I felt extremely privileged to mingle with glittering princesses, delightful fairies and some of my favourite superheroes, like Batman and Superman.

But the best part of the morning was the arrival of our special guest: Grug! Everyone I talked to had been looking forward to meeting him. I am very, very close to Grug, so I was especially pleased he would be making an appearance at our party. Halfway through the morning, I began to peek through the windows and the doors to see if I could get a glimpse of him. I was so excited, I couldn't help myself.

At last Grug arrived, and he was so thrilled to meet all the children, he rushed forward and became stuck in the doorway. After a few anxious moments, with a shove from behind, he managed to squeeze himself through! Poor Grug - perhaps he's been eating too many biscuits at morning tea time!

Reported by CBCA Person on the Spot, Sandi Wooton (alias Grug)

Book Week Illustration Competition - August 2009

Over 150 entries were received from seven primary schools and home schools in the Illawarra. Professional artists Judy Bourke and Simon Thomas judged the entries in three categories.
Category 1:
  • 1st Tiarna (homeschooler)
  • 2nd Kasanni (Thirroul PS)
  • 3rd Nicholas (Berkeley PS)

Category 2:
  • 1st Aaron (Lindsay Park PS)
  • 2nd Irene (Lindsay Park PS)
  • 3rd Eden (Thirroul PS)

Category 3:
  • 1st Jacob (Berkeley PS)
  • 2nd Rhys (Figtree Heights PS)
  • 3rd Tim (Thirroul PS)

Literary Luncheon - 31 July 2009

On Wednesday 31st July 2009 120 local school children and their teachers participated in the 2nd South Coast Illawarra CBCA Literary Luncheon at the Fraternity Club in Fairy Meadow. Guests were entertained by cartoonist 'Cartoon Dave' (Dave Hackett) who taught everyone to draw 'ELVIS'. It's hard to draw when you're laughing out loud!
Authors who shared lunch with us were - Bill Condon (Give Me Truth), Sarah Davis (Mending Lucille), Kate Forsyth (The Puzzle Ring), Sandy Fussell (Samurai Kids series), Richard Harland (World Shaker), Mo Johnson (Boofheads), William Kostakis (Loathing Lola), David Legge (Parsley Rabbit's Book about Books), Felicity Pulman (Willows for Weeping), Emma Quay (Cheeky Monkey), Lisa Shanahan (My Big Birkett), Moya Simons (Walk Right In Detective Agency series), Bruce Whatley (Diary of a Wombat) and Sue Whiting (Freaky).

Southside Festival

On the Southside Festival the Illawarra South Coast CBCA presented Fiction and Fun with authors Richard Harland, Sue Whiting, Di Bates and Bill Condon.

A star attraction was the readings including verse recitation by Grace, Meg and Maryanne, who are members of our branch Book Buddies Reading Club.

Deb Abela and Jobi Murphy Visit - 11 March 2009

On Wednesday 11 March a lucky group of adults and children gathered in Wollongong library to hear the author and illustrator of the best-selling Max Remy Super Spy series. The event was sponsored by the Wollongong City Council Library and funded by the CBCA ALOUD Program

This feedback sums it up best:

Thank you to Di Bates and her local CBCA group for organising Deb's talk at Woll Library yesterday afternoon.

I know we heard her speak at ISLA conference about 2 years ago.

With children in the audience, she was spectacular!!!! She worked to the students but not did not leave out the adults. The students lapped up her happy, animated, dramatic performance. Very inspiring.

I know she visited Flinders yesterday, I have no doubt she had every student wanting to read her books!!

A great author to have

Joan Hornig
Teacher Librarian
Berkeley Public

Creating Picture Books with Margaret Hamilton and Dee Huxley - 28 February 2009

On Saturday 28th February I attended Creating Picture Books and listened to Margaret Hamilton and Dee Huxley talk and present for five wonderful hours. Did I learn something? Lots. Did I enjoy it? Heaps. Would I recommend this course? YES.

Dee is passionate about her work and all those students in her art classes are very lucky indeed. As I watched Dee display and talk about her portfolio, I desperately wished for just a smidgen of artistic talent.

Margaret is a wealth of information on every aspect of picture book publication and presentation. Listening to her stories is both informative and encouraging. Not that she said it was easy but seeing a publisher's love for a book they 'just had to publish' - well, it doesn't get more inspiring than that.

So often I attend courses - and no matter how interested I am in the subject matter - I find myself bored part way through. Not this time. This course is entertaining and Margaret and Dee make a great tag team. The hardest thing for me was letting go of the original Stephen Michael King sketches from Janeen Brian's Where Does Thursday Go? It's one of my favourite picture books and it was exciting to hold those drawings in my hands.

If anyone is interested Creating Picture Books course information can be downloaded here. - Sandy Fussell

Feedback from attendees:

I really enjoyed learning about the technical aspect of picture book production: colour printing, page lay-out and design, and so on. I also found the presenters obvious preference for much shorter picture book texts enlightening. I have several picture book texts which are far fewer than 450 words; I now feel more confident to run with these rather than feeling the pressure to flesh them out. - Kathryn

It was particularly interesting to learn about the illustrators experience and to see the samples of books in various production stages that Margaret offered - Lili

It was encouraging to see both Marg and Dee being so enthusiastic and passionate about such a treasured part of the publishing industry - that of picture books - Anke

Lady Cutler Award presented to our President

Authors are good with words. And when Di Bates referred to the group of friends and well-wishers who had gathered to celebrate her Lady Cutler award as a family, she had chosen exactly the right word.

How do you celebrate over 25 years of devotion and commitment to children’s literature? With a lot of laughter, plenty of applause and just a few tears. On 18th December CBCA members did just that. We toasted Di - author of 100 books, founder ot two branches of the CBCA and one of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, magazine editor, staucnh industry advocate, mentor, Buzz Words compiler, Radio show host, educator, performer and friend.

Christmas Dinner - 3 December 2008

On 3 December fifty members and friends of the CBCA gathered at the Villa D Oro, Wollongong to celebrate Christmas and a wonderful year of children's literature.
The guest speaker was author, editor, educator, lobbyist and former national CBCA president, Mark McLeod. Mark entertained the gathering with a range of stories, anecdotes and advicebased on his life in the children's book industry.
Mark's latest release Tomorrow (ABC Books) was the subject of heated bidding at the fund raiser auction which followed.
The food was wonderful and the company even better. If you couldn't make it this year, don't miss the 2009 dinner.