Sunday, October 28, 2007

Chicago here I come

So, Chicago here I come. I'll be heading south on Friday to pick up my Moonbeam Award in Chicago, meet up with fellow award-winners, participate in readings, and if I'm lucky, hear Philip Pullman speak. I've read His Dark Materials Trilogy as well as lots of his other books and I admire him immensely. I should be lots of fun. While I'm in the "windy city" I hope to get over to the art gallery, which is supposed to be pretty wonderful. I'm very excited.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The Smell of Paint is a Moonbeam Award winner

Fantastic News. The Smell of Paint is the gold medal winner of the Moonbeam Award in the Young Adult category. And, yes there's more! What's That Sound? By the Sea is a silver medalist in the Board Book category. How's that for making my morning!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Check out this interview

Here is an interview that I did for Book Bites for Kids. This is a fabulous site where many children's book authors are interviewed. The host is Suzanne Lieurance who is a writer herself. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bookbitesforkids

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Kit Pearson and Ken Oppel event

Last night was the Kit & Ken event sponsored by Munro's books. I was introducing Kit Pearson and Grenfell Featherston (Ken's high school English teacher turned freelance editor) introduced Ken Oppel. I brought my camera, intending to take pictures, but I totally forgot. What a fantastic night. The 350 capacity room was packed with kids and parents all excited about meeting two of Canada's finest author's for young people. Both authors gave great talks and read from their new books. Ken even showed us his first story which was dictated to his kindergarten teacher before he learned how to write.

There were plenty of questions from the audience. I love that kids aren't in the least bit shy to stand up and ask questions. Of course there were the usual ones like:
Where do you get your ideas from? and
What is your favourite book?

But some of the other questions were quite insightful.
How do you get over writer's block?
Do you know how a story will end before you begin?
and
What do you do when you have a great beginning, a great ending, but you can't think of anything for the middle?

If you missed this fabulous evening, don't worry, the Victoria Children's Literature Roundtable is having an equally fabulous evening event on Monday October 15. We're celebrating the launch of three new Sono Nis titles by local authors. Follow this link to find out more. And if you don't happen to be in Victoria, check local listings for touring authors. This is the time of the year when all the literary festivals are celebrating new books so plenty of kids book authors are on tour. There may be someone visiting a bookstore or library near you.





Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Kid's Best Sellers from Munro's Books


I was chatting with the Pat from Munro's Books who mentioned that they have sold more than 1700 copies of Jessie's Island in the last couple of years! I was thrilled. Pod of Orcas is also one of their kid's best sellers.

And don't forget the Kit Pearson/Ken Oppel event sponsored by Munro's on Friday October 12 at the Victoria Conference Centre. I'll be there introducing Kit Pearson and enjoying hearing about two great new kids books from two of Canada's outstanding authors from young people. See you there.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Two of my books on the new Moonbeam Award Short-list



I couldn't be more thrilled. Two of my books have been short-listed for the new Moonbeam Children's Book Awards What's That Sound? by the Sea is one of five titles short-listed in the Board Book category. The Smell of Paint was a semi-finalist in the Young Adult Category.

Here are the full list of semi-finalists in these two categories.
Young Adult Fiction
The Smell of Paint (Fitzhenry & Whiteside); The Race to Eagle Mountain (Wine Press Group); The Alchemist’s Dream (Key Porter Books); Kristin’s Wilderness: A Braided Trail (Raven Productions); The Princess Mage (Sumach Press)



Board Book
What’s That Sound? By the Sea (Fitzhenry & Whiteside); My Alaska Animals - Can You Name Them? (Saddle Pal Creations); If You Were My Baby: A Wildlife Lullaby (Dawn Publications); Colorful Sleepy Sheep (Little Lion Press)



A winner (gold medalist) and runner-up (silver medalist) will be announced in each category during the week of October 15-19, and remaining semifinalists will become bronze medallists.

A formal awards presentation will be held on Saturday, November 3, in conjunction with the 2007 Children's Humanities Festival in Chicago.