CBCA Book Week | Book an Adventure | 16-23 Aug 2025
CBCA Children’s Book Week Theme for 2025 and Costume Ideas for Kids.
The theme for Children’s Book Week this year is “Book an Adventure” and the featured artist is Jess McGeachin.
Each year since 1945 the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has brought children and books together across Australia through CBCA Book Week.
During this time schools and public libraries spend one glorious week celebrating books and Australian children’s authors and illustrators. Classroom teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians create colourful displays, develop activities, run competitions and tell stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading. You will often see parades with students dressed as their favourite book character.
2025 Theme: Book an Adventure!
The feature artist for 2025, Jess McGeachin, has brilliantly captured this adventurous spirit in his artwork, which features a whimsical map filled with imaginary characters. Jess’ illustration invites young readers to embark on fantastical journeys, inspiring them to travel through the worlds that books open up. As an award-winning Australian picture book illustrator, Jess’ work encourages children to imagine, explore, and create their own adventures.
2025 is a milestone year as they celebrate 80 years of Children’s Book Week! For 8 decades, CBCA has been dedicated to inspiring young minds to journey through the countless worlds that books offer. Jess’ imaginative artwork reflects this mission perfectly, encouraging children to set off on adventures through time, lands, and imagination.
Getting Involved:
- Check with your local library for events and activities
- Encourage your children to dress up and participate in school events and activities
- Share photos via social media using #CBCA2025
- Check out the the Book Week Online Store for merchandise
Costume Ideas & Dressing Up:
Costumes can be made up of items you have lying around at home, old dress-ups and craft materials. Stores such as Kmart, Spotlight, $2 shops and even hardware stores can have items you can use with a little imagination. There are also fabulous ready-made costumes covering a huge range of themes available for all ages from local and online costume stores that will save you time if you’re not confident sewing and creating your own costume. If your child loves dressing up at home and role-playing with friends, costumes can be a great investment for hours of endless play.
Costume Resources*
- Spotlight Stores
- Kmart
- Big W
- Best & Less
- Target
- Costume Box
- Heaven Costumes
- Amazon
- Browse In & Save
- Costume Super Centre
(*Play & Go is not affiliated with these companies, simply listing as a helpful guide for our readers.)
We loved this Transformers creation in 2017 by Nadine for her son’s first Book Week parade.
About the CBCA
The CBCA is a not for profit, volunteer run organisation that aims to engage the community with literature for young Australians.
Established in 1945, the CBCA was founded at a time when Australian children’s books were few, and Australian authors and illustrators were virtually unknown. In 1946 the CBCA established annual book awards to promote Australian children’s books of outstanding literary and artistic quality. These awards are now the most influential and highly respected in Australia.
For more information and all enquiries please visit the CBCA website or follow their Facebook page.
What: CBCA Book Week 2024
When: Saturday 16 – Saturday 23 August 2025
Where: Australia-wide
Who: Everyone
At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.
Image Source: CBCA (artist Jess Racklyeft)
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