Hardie Grant Publishing

2025 Little Hare Illustration Prize now open

Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing is delighted to announce that the 2025 Little Hare Illustration Prize is now open. Awarded biennially, the prize is open to aspiring picture-book artists across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. 

Entrants are invited to create two full-bleed illustrations for an upcoming Little Hare picture-book manuscript. The winner will receive a publishing contract, an advance against royalties, a mentorship with a published children’s illustrator, and comprehensive art direction and editorial support to bring the picture book to publication. This year’s Little Hare Illustration Prize text is Dinosaur Stomp by Sandhya Parappukkaran, author of the 2024 NSW Premier’s Literary Award–winning Stay for Dinner.

‘Sandhya’s stories resonate strongly with her readers not only because her prose is so beautiful, but also because they stem from her lived experience,’ said Hardie Grant art director and publisher Pooja Desai. ‘Set in a high-rise apartment block, Dinosaur Stomp shows off the diversity and interconnectedness of neighbours in a semi-shared living space, where a dinosaur-obsessed young brown girl is looking for the space to be her loudest self. It’s a text full of motion, movement and heart that will suit many different illustration styles, and I’m so excited to see it come to life as the entries roll in!’ 

Artists from all backgrounds are invited to enter, including self-taught illustrators, college graduates, graphic designers and fine artists. To be eligible for the prize, artists should not have illustrated more than one picture book with a trade publisher. 

‘Our judging team is looking for artists who can demonstrate skill in composition, visual narrative, and character development and design,’ said Desai, ‘as well as original and arresting illustration styles and points of view. We have a long tradition of working with and developing emerging artists, and the Little Hare Illustration Prize is a celebration and affirmation of that commitment.’ 

Established to inspire new work from unpublished and emerging artists, the Little Hare Illustration Prize helped launch the publishing careers of 2021 winner Meg Rennie (Let’s Build a Boat) and shortlistees Jake A Minton (Zombie Diaries, There’s No Such Book, and Inked), Jennifer Goldsmith (Freckles) and Myo Yim (White Sunday and Filo’s Butterflies).

The key dates for the 2025 Little Hare Illustration Prize are as follows:

• Entries      open: Thursday 1 May 2025
• Entries      close: midnight, Thursday 31 July 2025
• Shortlist      announced: mid-September 2025
• Winner      announced: late September 2025

How to enter:

Read the terms and conditions and competition text below and submit the following:

1. One to      three pages of character sketches that shows your character development.
2. One      rough double-page black-and-white sketch that demonstrates your      ability to storyboard and interpret narrative.
3. One      double-page colour illustration that shows your final artwork.

Only illustrations that are based on the text Dinosaur Stomp by Sandhya Parappukkaran will be considered. You can select any double-page section of the text that you would like to illustrate for your submission; please indicate in your PDF submission which part/s of the text you have chosen to illustrate. Do not illustrate the whole book. 

For the purposes of your submission, you can work to any picture book trim you like. Our most common single-page trims are:

• Square      -- 244 x 244mm (double-page: 244mm high x 488mm wide)
• Portrait      -- 275 x 225mm (double-page: 275mm high x 450mm wide)
• Landscape      -- 225 x 275mmm (double-page: 225mm high x 550mm wide)

Please ensure you upload your submission in one pdf, maximum size 10MB.

Terms & Conditions

By entering the 2025 Little Hare Illustration Prize, you confirm the following: 

• That you have illustrated no more than one published (or contracted to be published) children's picture book with a trade publisher (i.e. a publisher who produces books for the general book trade, and not including      educational or other specialist publishers).
• That you are a citizen or permanent resident of Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand.
• That the work is entirely your own and is not created with any assistance from artificial intelligence, nor does it breach any existing copyright or other right of any third party. 
• That outside of this submission, you will not reproduce any part of the competition text, written by Sandhya Parappukkaran. Nor will you store it in a retrieval system or transmit it in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise. 
• That outside of this submission, you will not publish or license a third party to publish the artwork that was created in response to the competition text. Outside of this submission, you will not take the central concept of      the competition text and publish or license a third party to publish artwork or text based on the central concept of the competition text. 
• That the judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into during or after the judging process. The judges reserve the right not to select a winner.
• That if you are selected as the winner, you agree to contract world rights in all formats and languages to Hardie Grant Children's Publishing in return for a negotiated advance against royalties and standard contractual terms. You will retain copyright in your work. 
• That shortlisted and winning artists will be contacted via email and/or phone, and that in the event you are contacted, that you will respond within 5 working days.
• That you will keep all matters relating to the 2025 Little Hare Illustration Prize confidential until publication of the competition text.

Competition text:

Dinosaur Stomp

© Sandhya Parappukkaran

Pages 1, 2 and 3

[prelims]

Pages 4 and 5

Dhanya lived in a building as tall as a diplodocus. 

She loved dinosaurs more than a stegosaurus loved munching on juicy plants.

Pages 6 and 7

Some days Dhanya was a T-rex with huge, snapping teeth.

Some days she was a triceratops with a head full of horns. 

Some days she was a brachiosaur with a long, winding neck. 

But most days it wasn’t easy to be a dinosaur.

Pages 8 and 9

Dhanya couldn’t stomp when Teo was taking a nap downstairs.

She couldn’t roar when Mrs Hart was listening to her audiobook.

She couldn’t stretch her long neck when Mummy had a meeting. 

Pages 10 and 11

One day, while Teo was napping, Dhanya the dinosaur was roaming the earth.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

The floor shook.

The walls shook.

Teo’s cot shook.

Pages 12 and 13

‘Waaaah!’

Oh no!

‘Dhanya, please don’t stomp while Teo’s napping,’ said Mummy.

‘Hmph,’ huffed Dhanya.

She tucked her horns under the table, drew her favourite dinosaurs and ate her dinosaur muffins.

Pages 14 and 15

After a long while, Dhanya couldn’t hear Teo.

Or Mummy.

Or anything.

She had been still for so long that her fingers and toes were icy.

Dinosaurs needed to move around to keep warm. 

So she put on her big, snappy jaws.

Pages 16 and 17

Dhanya flexed her claws and swung her head side to side.

Rooooaaaarrrr!

The floor trembled. 

The wall trembled.

The pictures on Mrs Hart’s bookshelf trembled.

Pages 18 and 19

Thump! Thump! Thump! 

Oh no!

‘Dhanya, please don’t roar while Mrs Hart is listening to her book,’ said Mummy.

Dhanya flopped onto the window seat.

‘And no dinosaurs in my meeting,’ Mummy reminded her.

Pages 20 and 21

Dhanya plodded out into the hallway.

Some dinosaurs could camouflage themselves to hide from annoying things.

Like meetings and talking books and sleeping babies.

Dhanya hid behind the bannisters.

Pages 22 and 23

‘Can I hide here too?’ said a creature Dhanya had never seen before. ‘My name is Artie. What’s your name?’

‘Dhanya. Are you a dinosaur?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Artie. ‘I’m an ankylosaurus.’

Page 24 and 25

Dhanya and Artie ventured out into the garden.

Artie knew how to drum his tail.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Dhanya showed Artie how to stomp.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

They mixed it up. 

Bang! Bang! Stomp!

Stomp! Stomp! Bang!

Then they heard a rustle …

Page 26 and 27

Dhanya and Artie froze.

Something was moving behind the big bush.

A spiky tail swished.

Curly claws clicked. 

Dhanya spied the tip of a wavy spine.

Could it really be?

Page 28 and 29

More dinosaurs had come to the garden!

Nikki, George and Laila.

They shared their dinosaur muffins. 

They screeched and roared.

Stomp! Stomp!

Bang! Bang!

Swish! Click! 

Snap!

Page 30 and 31

The ground shook.

The big bushes trembled.

Page 32

And dinosaurs roamed the earth once again. 

Rooooaaarrrrr!

We are currently accepting submissions for the following categories ONLY:

• Picture books from author-illustrators ONLY
• Graphic novels from author-illustrators ONLY
• Submissions from writers and illustrators from marginalised backgrounds and communities (NB: We welcome submissions about any subject matter and in any genre intended for young readers.)

Please note that currently we are not accepting submissions from unagented writers outside of these categories. 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Submissions should be from citizens or residents of Australia and/or New Zealand. We do not accept submissions from outside Australia, New Zealand or Oceania unless via an agent, or the author has citizenship or residency within the region. 
• We can only consider one manuscript per person at a time. 
• For writers and illustrators from marginalised backgrounds and communities: We welcome submissions about any subject matter and in any genre intended for young readers.
• We are not considering play scripts, screenplays, activity or poster books, individual short stories, technical manuals, cookbooks, how-to guides, travel guides or educational textbooks for the children's and YA lists. 
• Due to the large volume of submissions, we are unable to provide individual editorial advice.
• If you do not meet these guidelines, your manuscript will not be considered.

A note on word lengths:

• Junior fiction manuscripts, for readers aged approximately 4–8 years, should be between 2000 and 20,000 words; 
• middle-grade manuscripts, for readers aged approximately 8–12, should be between 20,000 and 50,000 words; 
• and young adult manuscripts, for readers aged approximately 12+, should be between 40,000 and 80,000 words. 
• There is no word count specification for graphic novels.

 Note: The Ampersand Prize for debut children's and YA manuscripts runs every two years, and will next run in July 2024. More information can be found here.