Category: author

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The 2010 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award

The winners of the 2010 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award were announced today. As usual, we were all invited to attend the ceremony at the school. The winners were selected by two juries: students in grades 3 and 4 chose the children’s picture book winner and students in grades 7 and 8 picked the young adult/middle reader award winner.

Congratulations to our authors and illustrator!

Winner of the Children’s Picture Book Award Category
Proud as a Peacock, Brave as a Lion
Written by Jane Barclay
Illustrated by Renné Benoit

Winner of the Young Adult/Middle Reader Book Award Category
Vanishing Girl: The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His 3rd Case
Written by Shane Peacock

Renné Benoit and Jane Barclay get their pictures taken with the grade 3 and 4 students and the awards committee:

Shane Peacock with the grade 7 and 8 student jurors:

Renné, Jane, and Shane stayed to sign books for the students:

Not to break tradition, there were cupcake treats at the end of the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award!

Thank you to the Ontario Arts Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council, the Awards Committee, the Canadian Booksellers Association, the students, librarians, teachers, and school principal!

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The Double Blog Dare Tour

Alison Dare is going on tour!

We are hosting our second blog tour! We have a wonderful line-up of contributors and tour hosts for J. Torres’ and J. Bone’s graphic novels, Alison Dare, Little Miss Adventures and Alison Dare, The Heart of the Maiden.

Open Book: Toronto will be kicking off the tour and Sequential will be wrapping up the first week. Comics Worth Reading will start us up again on the second week while Confessions of a Pop Fan brings the tour to full circle. Each blogger will be helping Alison Dare go on tour by snapping a photo of her having a little (miss) adventure in their area. So stay tuned to see some awesome photography! In the meantime, here is the schedule of the tour stops:

DAY 1: Monday, June 7, 2010

DAY 2: Tuesday, June 8, 2010

DAY 3: Wednesday, June 9, 2010

DAY 4: Thursday, June 10, 2010

DAY 5: Friday, June 11, 2010

DAY 6: Monday, June 14, 2010

DAY 7: Tuesday, June 15, 2010

DAY 8: Wednesday, June 16, 2010

DAY 9: Thursday, June 17, 2010

DAY 10: Friday, June 18, 2010

Not only do we have a blog tour, we are also running a contest! We double-dog dare you to enter.

J. TORRES is a Shuster Award-winning, Eisner Award-nominated writer whose credits include adaptations of Disney/Pixar’s WALL-E and CTV’s Degrassi: The Next Generation, the comic book series Teen Titans Go and Wonder Girl for DC Comics, as well as the graphic novels Lola: A Ghost Story and the YALSA-listed Days Like This for Oni Press. He has also written for children’s magazines, books, and television.

J. BONE is an Eisner Award-nominated illustrator of several critically acclaimed comic books and graphic novels, including Spiderman: Tangled Web, Batman / The Spirit, and Paul Dini’s Mutant, Texas.

You can also follow @TundraBooks, @jtorrescomics, and our daring bloggers on twitter! We will be using the hashtag #AlisonDare

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BookExpo America 2010

Will you be going to New York for BookExpo America? If so, make sure to stop by these signing tables to meet our authors:

Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Signing Table 22 – 10:00
Rona Arato, author of Mrs. Kaputnik’s Pool Hall and Matzo Ball Emporium will be signing.
For ages 8-11

Treat yourself to a visit to the wackiest restaurant ever! Mrs. Kaputnik’s Pool Hall and Matzo Ball Emporium is a colourful tale that blends history and fantasy with a journey of discovery, adventure, and fun.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Signing Table 2 – 12:00
Tom Slaughter, illustrator of Which Way? will be signing
For ages 2-5

A new book from the team of Marthe Jocelyn and Tom Slaughter, Which Way? is an invitation to explore and understand the concepts we see every day in signs around us.

Thursday, May 27, 2010
Signing Table 1 – 11:00
Arlene Alda and Lisa Desimini, author and illustrator of Lulu’s Piano Lesson will be signing.
For ages 4-7

Who wants to practice the piano? Certainly not Lulu. She’d rather listen to her swing squeak, the bell on her bike ring, or the apples thump as she climbs a tree. Even her shoes play a tip-tap tune as she runs on the sidewalk. Before she knows it, it’s Friday afternoon and time for her piano lesson. Lulu’s heart sinks. She hasn’t practiced all week. Luckily, Lulu’s teacher knows how to inspire his small student.

Thursday, May 27, 2010
Signing Table 1 – 9:30
Dirk McLean, author of Curtain Up! A Book for Young Performers will be signing
For ages 6-8

Young Amaya is auditioning for a role in a professional play. Although she longs to perform, she is about to learn how much team effort and hard work is involved. As the reader follows her progress from a nervous hopeful at an audition through the fittings for costumes, the rehearsals, the memory work, and even stage fright, Dirk McLean introduces the many people and jobs involved in staging a play.

Don’t forget to visit Tundra Books at booth #4252 – Alison Morgan and Pamela Osti will be there to let you know about our new and upcoming books! Or if you’re shy, come say hi and pick up our catalogues, posters, bookmarks, and postcards.

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Launch of: Folly

Last night, we celebrated the launch of Marthe Jocelyn’s new releases at Ben McNally Books.

Here is Marthe Jocelyn before all the guests arrive. Please, look at all the lovely books!

The guests arrive and Marthe Jocelyn is busy, busy!

Busy signing books!

Group photo! Former Publisher of Tundra Books, Kathy Lowinger, is back from a vacation and came to say a few words about working with Marthe Jocelyn.

Marthe Jocelyn reading the first section of Folly.

Thank you to the wonderful team at Ben McNally Books! Thank you to everyone that came out to say “hello” to Marthe! It was nice seeing Gillian O’Reilly, Shannon Howe Barnes, and Meghan Howe from the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. They came with the new issue of Canadian Children’s Book News too! Here’s a little snippet of what the issue contained:

“…Rather than crafting a bleak, grimy and desperate tale, Jocelyn enriches her story with the inclusion of love and desire to paint a wonderfully textured portrait of some of England’s poor. Savvy teen readers will enjoy drinking from this sometimes saucy literary concoction. A toast to the spirited author and her great-grandmother….” – Lian Goodall

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Cool Woods

The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement has been signed by most of the Canadian forestry industry and environmental activists! Read the article from the Globe and Mail here or take your own trip around the world’s boreal forest:

Cool Woods
A Trip around the World’s Boreal Forest
Written by Jane Drake and Ann Love
Illustrated by Andrew Kiss
Hardcover | 80 pages | Ages 9+
ISBN 978-0-88776-608-4
The boreal forest is the last great forest wilderness on earth. It drapes across the subarctic right around the world. It pervades our myths and folklore. It provides us with wood and water. It freshens the very air we breathe.

  • Winner of the Skipping Stones Honor Award in the Ecology and Nature Books category

Praise for Cool Woods:

“…totally right on…” – The Globe and Mail

“…informative and beautiful…. The text conveys a sense of wonder along with its many facts…. [L]ovingly detailed paintings…teem with life…. [T]he authors provide a glossary, an index, and an indispensable map for this intriguing trip, and many young readers will be inspired to find out more.” – Quill & Quire

“[Andrew] Kiss makes visible just how magical the forest can be….” – Toronto Star

“…a remarkable look at the last great forest on Earth…each chapter is full of wonderful information…But the real merit of this book is the obvious passion that the authors feel for saving and preserving this unique and vital ‘lungs of the Earth’ environment” – Victoria Times Colonist

“Useful as an introductory resource…designed to pique curiosity and send learners off in search of more information – or a boreal forest in which to wander.” – Green Teacher

Tundra Book Group