Children’s Book Week 2025 runs from 16 to 23 August and is set to be a magical celebration of imagination, reading, and adventure. This year marks the 80th Anniversary of the event, with the inspiring theme ‘Book an Adventure’.
The featured artist for 2025 is Jess McGeachin. As an award-winning Australian picture book illustrator, Jess' work encourages children to imagine, explore, and create their own adventures. Across Australia, schools, libraries and families will join in the fun with dress-ups author visits, storytelling session and creative activities that bring books to life.
For deaf children, Children's Book Week is a timely reminder that stories can be shared and enjoyed in many forms through words, signs, pictures, mime and gestures, creating a truly inclusive environment where deaf children can fully participate and thrive.
Reading and shared reading provides deaf children with many opportunities to explore new worlds, characters, and situations, stimulating their imaginations and fostering creativity and curiosity.
Research has shown that shared reading with a parent, teacher or other familiar adult is an effective way to promote language and literacy, vocabulary and knowledge of grammar. This is especially important for deaf children and is also an opportunity to foster dialogue and interaction with the text to build a strong foundation for language and learning.
Birthday Book Adventure
Each state and territory will hold a Birthday Book Adventure on Saturday 23 August.
Hosted by the state branches this will be a day of celebration that will bring readers together to enjoy themed activities, storytelling, and connections to 80 years of literary magic.
Read more about the Victoria event
To further support your engagement with Children's Book Week, we invite you to explore our VDEI Professional Learning Catalogue. It features a range of on-demand presentations designed to deepen your skills in promoting literacy, literature appreciation and effective teaching strategies. These resources are accessible at your convenience, making it easy to continue your professional learning alongside Children's Book Week celebrations.
https://www.deafeducation.vic.edu.au/professional-learning/template?eventtemplate=82-learning-to-read-strategies-for-deaf-and-hard-of-hearing-children
https://www.deafeducation.vic.edu.au/professional-learning/template?eventtemplate=159-reading-and-dyslexia-in-deaf-children
