2011 Winner – Kiristi Bridgeman
Jurors’ Citation: Each finalist has given us a compelling and memorable work, so the jury’s choice was not easy. However, Kristi Bridgeman’s extraordinary accomplishment in Uirapurú is to tell a story with illustrations so richly-layered and complex, so warm with colour, humour and detail so as to draw the reader back into its haunting magic and back again, each rereading a discovery. P.K. Page’s telling of a Brazilian legend is timelessly captured – indeed, the actual song of the Uirapurú bird is evoked in the illustrations’ lines and fluid tone. Readers of all ages will enter and re-enter this clicking, hooting, croaking rainforest for decades to come.
Jurors
- Tracy Kendrick, librarian
- Barbara Nickel, writer
- Pat Oldroyd, bookseller