Two in a row for Mophead! Mophead Tu: The Queen’s Poem a finalist in the 2021 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. 

Selina Tusitala Marsh’s Mophead Tu: The Queen’s Poem is shortlisted for the Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction in the 2021 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

The nomination comes after Selina’s first Mophead book, Mophead: How Your Difference Makes a Difference, won in the same category in 2020. Mophead was also awarded the 2020 Margaret Mahy Book of the Year, and at the 2020 PANZ Book Design Awards was the winner in three categories: the Gerard Reid Award for Best Book, the Scholastic New Zealand Award for Best Children’s Book, and the Publishers Association of New Zealand People’s Choice Award.

The judges found the Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction a particularly strong category this year, stating ‘to say there is something for everyone is an understatement – this list has everything, for everyone’.

Mophead Tu continues an inspirational tale with bold illustrations, even bolder words and big questions – ‘colonialism 101 for kids’ Selina calls it.

‘Poet, performer, storyteller, artist – Selina Tusitala Marsh is a creative whirlwind and working with her on the Mophead books has been a dream. Mophead Tu dives right into the big, tough stuff and I reckon it’s even better than the first Mophead. Great to see this great book in the awards,' says Sam Elworthy, director of Auckland University Press.

The winners will be announced at an award ceremony in Wellington on Wednesday 11 August.

Click here for more information about the finalists.