From this year and moving forward, Ms Chesters will donate the books shortlisted for the 2022 Prime Minister’s Literary Award Children’s Literature category.

The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards celebrate outstanding literary talent in Australia and the valuable contribution Australian writing makes to the nation’s cultural and intellectual life.

Ms Chesters has also met with and discussed the program with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during the recent March Parliamentary sittings, who was more than happy to sign a select handful of the books for some lucky schools in the community.

The books to be donated this year are:

• Mina and the Whole Wide World by Sherryl Clark
• The Boy and the Elephant by Freya Blackwood
• Common Wealth by Gregg Dreise
• Dragon Skin by Karen Foxlee
• Exit Through The Gift Shop by Maryam Master

Ms Chesters made her first school library book donation in 2018 and the program has grown since then to provide hundreds of books across the forty-two Government primary schools and seven secondary schools in the Bendigo electorate.

In Victoria, each individual school is responsible for fundraising to purchase new books for their school library and many schools in the Bendigo electorate just don’t have the capacity to fundraise that others do.

Quotes attributable to Lisa Chesters Federal Member for Bendigo:

“I am very excited to be donating the children’s books short listed for the Prime Minister’s 2022 Literary Awards to local primary schools as it means I am also promoting the work of Australian authors.

“I’m also proud to be supporting small businesses by purchasing these books from Bookish books Bendigo and Stoneman’s Bookroom in Castlemaine.

“Literacy is so important, and this program has become a real passion project of mine since we began formal donations to schools in 2018.