Category: author

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Kidlit Celebrates Women’s History Month


For the second year in a row, librarian/bloggers Lisa Taylor of Shelf-Employed and Margo Tanenbaum of The Fourth Musketeer are organizing Kidlit Celebrates Women’s History Month. This blog brings together children’s book authors, librarians, and book bloggers from across the “kidlitosphere” in order to highlight some of the outstanding books for young people dealing with women’s history. The site is nonprofit and contains no advertising. Each day in March features a guest post with a new essay, commentary, or review by a different author or blogger. Authors contributing this year include Monica Kulling, Donna Jo Napoli, Jeannette Winter, Marc Aronson, Andrea Pinkney, Margarita Engle, and Karen Blumenthal. Participating bloggers include Betsy Bird of Fuse #8 and Jules Danielson of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Interested readers can sign up to “follow” their blog or receive it through their e-mail – don’t miss a single post during March!

Last year, Marthe Jocelyn, the author of “Scribbling Women” participated. Click here to read her post. This year, Monica Kulling will be contributing to their blog. We can’t wait to see what she wrote!

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Notable Books for a Global Society Book Award

Tundra Books would like to congratulate the co-authors of Five Thousand Years of Slavery, Marjorie Gann and Janet Willen! Their book has been selected as one of the 25 winning titles for the 2012 Notable Books for a Global Society Book Award!

Five Thousand Years of Slavery
Written by Marjorie Gann and Janet Willen
Hardcover | 176 pages
Ages: 11+
ISBN: 978-0-88776-914-6
eBook: 978-1-77049-151-9
Praise: “This well-researched global survey introduces readers to slavery practices, customs, suffering, uprisings, and revolts as well as antislavery efforts from ancient Greece and Rome to today’s world…. The authors promote global awareness and issue a call to action…. Informative documentary photos and factually rich sidebars enhance the text. A timeline lists pivotal moments from the rise of Sumerian cities to the 2001 Cocoa Protocol denouncing child labor on African cocoa plantations. This groundbreaking title brings the disturbing subject into historical and contemporary focus.” – Starred Review, School Library Journal

MARJORIE GANN, an educator for thirty years, has written language arts curricula, review articles on children’s literature, and sat on the jury for the Canadian Jewish Book Awards. She lives in Toronto with her husband and has two grown children.

JANET WILLEN has been a writer and editor for more than thirty years, working on publications ranging from remedial writing curricula to articles on health and safety. She holds a master’s degree in political philosophy from the New School for Social Research. Janet Willen lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband

About Notable Books for a Global Society
Annually, a committee of the Children’s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group of the International Reading Association selects 25 outstanding trade books for enhancing student understanding of people and cultures throughout the world. The committee reviews books representing all genres intended for students K-12. The Mission of the Children´s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group is to promote the educational use of children’s books by focusing on recently published children’s literature, supportive professional books, issues relative to children’s literature, and current research findings.

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Tuesdays with Tundra 17

Tuesdays with Tundra is a monthly post on our new releases. The following books are available today in stores and online! Do you see the environmental theme this month? It’s all about the love for our planet this Valentine’s Day:

Creatures Great and Small
By Karen Patkau
Paperback | 32 pages | Ages 6-9
ISBN: 978-1-77049-309-4
A glossary, map endpapers, and handy charts – introducing the concepts of scale and proportion by comparing measurements of animals that are “Big” and “Really Big” to “Small” and “Really Small” – make this book a must-have for parents, schools, and libraries alike.

Creatures Yesterday and Today
By Karen Patkau
Paperback | 32 pages | Ages 6-9
ISBN: 978-1-77049-310-0
Captivating text in the voices of the animals themselves is complemented by the vibrant illustrations, map endpapers, glossary, geological time line, and chart of the history of life, making this fact-filled book a welcome addition to any home or school library, where a budding scientist can happily explore.

Who Needs a Jungle?
By Karen Patkau
Hardcover | 32 pages | Ages 7-10
ISBN: 978-0-88776-992-4
Jungles are treasures for all of us, regardless of where we live. In Who Needs a Jungle? we learn about its vital role in providing us with oxygen, food, medicinal ingredients, and raw materials we use every day.

Who Needs a Swamp?
By Karen Patkau
Hardcover | 32 pages | Ages 7-10
ISBN: 978-0-88776-991-7
Swamps are often seen as a dangerous and useless. They are often drained to create farmland or to reduce diseases. But such measures can be disastrous. Who Needs a Swamp? explores wetlands and their importance in the food chain and in preserving our soil and clean water.

Who Needs an Iceberg?
By Karen Patkau
Hardcover | 32 pages | Ages 7-10
ISBN: 978-0-88776-993-1
Who Needs an Iceberg? The Arctic ecosystem is changing rapidly. The Arctic Ice Cap is melting, the habitat for the creatures that live in the north is shrinking, and the earth is warming up. The impact is enormous for all of us.

Who Will Save My Planet?
By Cristina Urrutia
Hardcover | 32 pages | Ages 7+
ISBN: 978-1-77049-281-3
This unique and powerful wordless book uses striking photos to show the impact of humans on the environment. Each provocative image speaks volumes. On every spread we are shown a treasure that nature has given us beside a picture of how we’ve abused that treasure. It would take thousands of words to express the important environmental message presented by Cristina Urrutia.

Pub Date Giveaway: Tell us which new releases you would love to read in the comments below and one lucky reader will receive their requested book! You can either request for the set of two Creatures books, the set of three books in the Ecosystem Series, or Who Will Save My Planet?

One request per person and please review our rules. This giveaway ends at midnight on Thursday, February 16, 2012!

UPDATE: Congratulations to Eleanor Q! You will be getting a copy of Creatures Great and Small and Creatures Yesterday and Today.

PS: Our next Pub Date Giveaway will be on March 13, 2012.

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Reading for the Love of It 2012


Tundra Books will be exhibiting at booth #618 at Reading for the Love of It, which starts tomorrow! Teachers will be gathering at the Sheraton Centre Hotel and visiting the exhibits from February 9th to the 10th.

Please come by to learn about our new and upcoming books. You can also pick up catalogs, posters, and bookmarks for your classrooms.

We will also have author signings! Be sure to line-up early, the complimentary books will be available on a first come, first serve basis.

Author signings on Thursday, February 9:

Michael Bedard will be signing ARCs of The Green Man at 10:30 AM
Hardcover | 320 page | Ages 10-14
ISBN: 978-1-77049-285-1
eBook: 978-1-77049-293-6
Teenaged O – never call her Ophelia – is about to spend the summer with her aunt Emily. Emily is a poet and the owner of an antiquarian book store, The Green Man. At once an exploration of poetry, a story of family relationships, and an intriguing mystery, The Green Man is Michael Bedard at his finest.

Nan Forler will be signing Winterberries and Apple Blossoms at 12:30 PM
Illustrated by Peter Etril Snyder
Hardcover | 40 pages | All ages
ISBN: 978-1-77049-254-7
The poems and recipes are perfectly complemented by Peter Etril Snyder’s lovely paintings. Winterberries and Apple Blossoms is a beautifully produced book, perfect for gift-giving, or sharing with anyone who appreciates simple, enduring values.

Author signings on Friday, February 10:

Karen Patkau will be signing Who Needs a Jungle?, Who Needs a Swamp?, and Who Needs an Iceberg? at 1:00 PM
Hardcover | 32 pages | Ages 7-10
ISBN: 978-0-88776-992-4
In Who Needs a Jungle? we learn about its vital role in providing us with oxygen, food, medicinal ingredients, and raw materials we use every day. Who Needs a Swamp? explores wetlands and their importance in the food chain and in preserving our soil and clean water. Who Needs an Iceberg? talks about the shrinking Arctic Ice Cap.

Rina Singh and Farida Zaman will be signing Nearly Nonsense: Hoja Tales from Turkey at 2:15 PM
Hardcover | 48 Pages | Ages 5-8
ISBN: 978-0-88776-974-0
Though the ten Hoja stories presented by Rina Singh and richly illustrated by Farida Zaman are funny, each one contains such insight into human nature that Sufi teachers use them to illustrate their teachings. Traditional Turkish Hoja stories are much-loved throughout Asia, and Nearly Nonsense brings them to a North American readership sure to enjoy them and, through laughter, to learn from them.

Follow Tundra Books on twitter for signing reminders!

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OLA Best Bets 2011

Each year the OLA Best Bets Committee selects the top 10 Canadian picture books, fiction and non fiction for children and fiction for teens. The lists were announced at OLA Superconference today. Here are the Tundra titles that made the 2011 lists:

Non Fiction:

  • In the Bag! Margaret Knight Wraps it Up by Monica Kulling, illustrated by David Parkins
  • Honourable mention goes to the Body Works series by Liza Fromer and Francine Gerstein MD, illustrated by Joe Weissmann

Young Adult:

  • Honourable mention goes to First Descent by Pam Withers
  • Honourable mention goes to “Scribbling Women” by Marthe Jocelyn is a noteworthy title (there’s isn’t a nonfiction category)

Picture Book:

  • Honourable mention goes to Noni Says No by Heather Hartt-Sussman, illustrated by Geneviève Côté

Junior Fiction:

  • Honourable mention goes to Stones for My Father by Trilby Kent

Congratulations to our authors and illustrators!

Tundra Book Group