Chris and Claudia at Camp Penguin

camppenguin_logoEvery year, we get new camp counselors at Camp Penguin to help run the program. As a way to introduce them to you campers, we like to do a few ice breaker activities!

We asked camp counselor Chris Rylander and Claudia Dávila today to tell us 2 Truths and 1 Lie. Use our drop-down menu to guess the false statement!  

[contact-form][contact-field label=”Chris Rylander” type=”select” options=”I recently discovered I’ve been pronouncing my last name incorrectly my whole life.,I once woke a sleeping monkey and then it attached me which led to one of my best bits of life advice – never wake a sleeping monkey.,I used to be an award-winning chef before I became an author.” required=”1″ /][contact-field label=”Claudia Dávila” type=”select” options=”When I was a kid my favourite colour was brown.,My right foot is bigger than my left foot.,I was born in a taxi on the way to the hospital.” required=”1″ /][/contact-form]

On the first night of camp, everyone is sitting around the camp fire playing Would You Rather? Here’s how our camp counselors responded:

Be stuck in a comic book or in a Where’s Waldo book?
Chris: Definitely Where’s Waldo. They’re relatively a lot safer, but still incredibly interesting. You’d never run out of stuff to see or do and the explosions would be kept to a minimum.
Claudia: I hate big, busy, noisy crowds so I’ll take a comic book any day … especially if there are no zombies.

Choose to live underwater or on land your entire life?
Chris: Underwater! In fact, I already wish this was true. I’d agree to a Reverse Little Mermaid in a heartbeat!
Claudia: I hate getting wet so I’m 100% a land lover!

Be able to predict the future or have a talking ax?
Chris: Definitely predict the future. Talking axes come with curses. And violence. Whereas predicting the future allows you to do almost anything you want in this world.
Claudia: I think if I had a talking ax it would just complain about a headache every time I used it! I’d rather predict the future – who wouldn’t want to know the winning lottery numbers?

Live in a cardboard box or be always wear a costume?
Chris: I’ve grown pretty fond of my bookshelves and video games, and so I’d have to choose the costume. But do I get to choose which one? I already sort of look like Hagrid from Harry Potter, so then there’d really be no change for me, anyway.
Claudia: I’ve made many cardboard houses in my life and they’re always fun to decorate, but I think I’d be pretty squished having to sleep curled up all the time, so I’ll say wearing a costume, especially if it could be something super comfortable like a Jedi costume (Rey is pretty cool)!

Ability to grow to a giant or shrink to a dwarf size?
Chris:
Though this world is easier for smaller things, a lifelong dream (I’ve long given up on) to play professional sports could finally be made possible as a giant. It’d sort of be cheating, I suppose, but hey, that hasn’t stopped the New England Patriots!
Claudia: I’d love to be as big as a giant, so I could walk around the country side and get amazing views of mountains and forests.

The Legend of GregThe Legend of Greg
By Chris Rylander
368 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Puffin Books
ISBN 9781524739744
Risk-averse Greg Belmont is content with being ordinary. He’s got a friend–that’s right, just one–at his fancy prep school, and a pretty cool dad. The problem is, Greg isn’t ordinary . . . he’s actually an honest-to-goodness, fantastical Dwarf!

Viminy Crowes Comic BookViminy Crowe’s Comic Book
By Marthe Jocelyn and Richard Scrimger
Illustrated by Claudia Dávila
336 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Tundra Books
ISBN 9781101918937
When Wylder Wallace spills lunch on Addy Crowe at Toronto’s Comicon, she dashes to the bathroom, leaving behind the latest issue of her uncle’s steampunk comic hit: Flynn Goster in God Rush Train. Wylder, a fan of the comics, opens this new one eagerly, astounded to see the girl who was just yelling at him inside the comic.

Win Your Kid’s Summer Reading List with #CampPenguin Contest of Chance
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter between June 6, 2019 and June 20, 2019. Open to residents of Canada (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory of residence at time of entry. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

Click here to enter for your chance to win a Camp Penguin prize pack – featuring a special bookmark, and your choice of three books from our list of recommended reads for summer camp! Click here for the full official rules.

Window Wednesday

#WindowWednesday: We are incredibly fortunate to have stores create window features of our books. We want to highlight their amazing work here on our blog for you to see (and perhaps you’ll discover a new local bookstore).

Moonbeam Books
335 Jane Street, Toronto, ON M6S 3Z3
Photography: Vikki VanSickle

Camp Penguin-Moonbeam Books

2019 Ruth & Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Books Awards

The Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards were established in 1976 – each year, two awards are presented to recognize artistic excellence in writing and illustration in English-language Canadian children’s literature. The winners are selected by juries at dedicated schools. Tundra Books would like to congratulate Wab Kinew and Joe Morse! Go Show the World: A Celebration of Indigenous Heroes was awarded this year’s Children’s Picture Book award.

This year’s school, Scarborough’s Eastview Public School, has a large Indigenous community, offering Ojibwa language instruction and other Indigenous programming.

Go Show the World: A Celebration of Indigenous Heroes
By Wab Kinew
Illustrated by Joe Morse
40 Pages | Ages 5-9 | Tundra Books
ISBN 9780735262928

What the students said:
“This was my favourite book because it showed how to be positive and how to be a hero.”
“I loved the message of the book.”
“I liked that the first part of the book is a poem, and that the second part has information about the heroes’ lives.”
“The illustrations are beautiful. The artist made all the people in the story look like heroes!”

Joe Morse with the jurors of the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award picture book category.

Window Wednesday

#WindowWednesday: We are incredibly fortunate to have stores create window features of our books. We want to highlight their amazing work here on our blog for you to see (and perhaps you’ll discover a new local bookstore).

Brave + Kind Bookshop
722 West College Avenue, Decatur, GA 30030
Photography: Bunnie Hilliard, Owner of Brave + Kind Bookshop

GreatJobDad-window

2019 Chocolate Lily Awards Winners

Created in 2002, the Chocolate Lily Book Awards strives to increase literacy for grade school children in British Columbia while celebrating BC authors and illustrators. Tundra Books would like to congratulate Rachelle Delaney and Cale Atkinson! The Bonaventure Adventures (Rachelle Delaney) won the Novel category and Where Oliver Fits (Cale Atkinson) won the Picture Book category!

The Bonaventure Adventures
By Rachelle Delaney
288 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Puffin Canada
ISBN 9780143198505

Sebastian Konstantinov has grown up in a travelling circus, surrounded by talented performers. Seb, however, has no circus skills at all. He can’t even turn a somersault. But he does know this: the old-fashioned circus his father founded is out of date and running low on money. If someone doesn’t figure out how to save it, the Konstantinovs will be in real trouble. Seb thinks he may have the answer, and it involves attending the highly selective Bonaventure Circus School in Montreal, Canada. Seb secretly writes to the school’s Directrice (conveniently leaving out the part about his lack of circus skills), and to his surprise, he gets accepted right away. Now all he has to do is keep his lack of talent a secret. But it turns out that Seb is not the only one with secrets. The school is literally crumbling beneath the students’ feet, and the Directrice is counting on Seb’s “talent” to save it.

Where Oliver Fits
By Cale Atkinson
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Tundra Books
ISBN 9781101919071

Oliver has always dreamed about where he will fit. Will he be in the mane of a unicorn? The tentacle of a pirate squid? The helmet of an astronaut? When he finally goes in search of his perfect place, he finds that trying to fit in is a lot harder than he thought. But like any puzzle, a little trial and error leads to a solution, and Oliver figures out exactly where he belongs.

Where Oliver Fits is a sweet and funny story that explores all the highs and lows of learning to be yourself and shows that fitting in isn’t always the best fit.

Tundra Book Group