The FOLD: Exploring Identity in Young Adult Fiction Panel

It’s one of our favorite times of the year: The Festival of Literary Diversity (aka The FOLD) starts this weekend! We’re really looking forward to the “Exploring Identity in Young Adult Fiction” panel featuring H.N. Khan (Wrong Side of the Court) and moderated by our very own Senior Marketing & Publicity Associate, Sam Devotta.

The panel is happening on Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 12:00 pm ET – make sure to register here if you’re interested in attending and check out the rest of the schedule for some amazing events!

Wrong Side of the Court
By H. N. Khan
312 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270879 | Penguin Teen Canada
Fifteen-year-old Fawad Chaudhry loves two things: basketball and his mother’s potato and ground-beef stuffed parathas. Both are round and both help him forget about things like his father, who died two years ago, his mother’s desire to arrange a marriage to his first cousin, Nusrat, back home in Pakistan, and the tiny apartment in Regent Park he shares with his mom and sister. Not to mention his estranged best friend Yousuf, who’s coping with the shooting death of his older brother. But Fawad has plans: like, asking out Ashley, even though she lives on the other, wealthier side of the tracks, and saving his friend Arif from being beaten into a pulp for being the school flirt, and making the school basketball team and dreaming of being the world’s first Pakistani to be drafted into the NBA. All he has to do now is convince his mother to let him try out for the basketball team. And let him date girls from his school. Not to mention somehow get Omar, the neighborhood bully, to leave him alone.

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!