1996 Australian Book of the Year Awards

Book of the Year : Older Readers

• Jinks, Catherine, Pagan's Vows (Omnibus Books)

• Dubosarsky, Ursula, The First Book of Samuel (Penguin Books Australia)
• Hartnett, Sonya, Sleeping Dogs (Penguin Books Australia)

Book of the Year: Younger Readers

• Moloney, James, Swashbuckler (University of Queensland Press)

• Carey, Peter, The Big Bazoohley (University of Queensland Press)
• Honey, Elizabeth, 45 & 47 Stella St and Everything that Happened (Allen & Unwin)

Picture Book of the Year Award

• Oliver, Narelle, The Hunt (Lothian Books)

• Baker, Jeannie, The Story of Rosy Dock (Random House Australia)
• Spudvilas, Anne (text Christobel Mattingley), The Race (Scholastic)

Eve Pownall Award for Information Books

• Nicholson, John, The First Fleet: a New Beginning in an Old Land (Allen & Unwin)

• Kuchling, Gerald and Guundie (illustrator Guundie Kuchling), Yakkinn the Swamp Tortoise: the Most Dangerous Year (Chelonia Enterprises)
• Little, Douglas (illustrators, David Francis and Donna Rawlins), Ten Little Known Facts about Hippopotamuses and More Little Known Facts and a Few Fibs about Other Animals (Scholastic)