Our Associate Director, Kids Marketing & Publicity: Meet Sylvia!

Hi, I’m Sylvia (she/her), the new-ish Associate Director for Marketing and Publicity at Penguin Random House Canada for the young reader imprints. I had my start in publishing at WLU Press as a Marketing Intern before joining Tundra Books, where I went from Publicity Intern, to Publicist, to Publishing Coordinator. That’s right, I had a short stint in editorial where I learned to proofread, copyedit, write editorial letters, among other things. Knowing that my heart was in marketing, I moved to Penguin Random House Canada as a Marketing and Publicity Coordinator before becoming a Manager. Today, I am so happy to still be working on the Tundra list in my new role overseeing a fantastic and creative team.

5 Random Facts About Me

1. Despite everyone thinking otherwise, my Zoom and Teams background is actually fake. (It’s a photo of my bookshelves!)
2. I used to live in Hong Kong and Florida, but Toronto is home.
3. Baking is so therapeutic and rewarding! You can bet that I’ll plan travel around bakeries.
4. I used to be a competitive swimmer, I was pretty good at the butterfly.
5. Started watching Korean dramas on Netflix during the pandemic and I’m now obsessed.

Favorite Penguin Random House Titles

How to Make Friends with a Ghost
By Rebecca Green
40 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Paperback
ISBN 9781774880401 | Tundra Books
What do you do when you meet a ghost? One: Provide the ghost with some of its favorite snacks, like mud tarts and earwax truffles. Two: Tell your ghost bedtime stories (ghosts love to be read to). Three: Make sure no one mistakes your ghost for whipped cream or a marshmallow when you aren’t looking! If you follow these few simple steps and the rest of the essential tips in How to Make Friends with a Ghost, you’ll see how a ghost friend will lovingly grow up and grow old with you. A whimsical story about ghost care, Rebecca Green’s debut picture book is a perfect combination of offbeat humor, quirky and sweet illustrations, and the timeless theme of friendship.

Petra
By Marianna Coppo
48 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735262676 | Tundra Books
Petra is a little rock who believes she is a mighty mountain . . . until a dog fetches her for its owner, and she is tossed into a bird’s nest. A mountain? No, Petra is now an egg! An egg of the world in a world of possibility. Until she’s flung into a pond, and becomes an amazing island . . . and, eventually, a little girl’s pet rock. What will she be tomorrow? Who knows? But she’s a rock, and this is how she rolls!

Julia, Child
By Kyo Maclear
Illustrated by Julie Morstad
32 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735264014 | Tundra Books
Julia and Simca are two young friends who agree that you can never use too much butter – and that it is best to be a child forever. Sharing a love of cooking and having no wish to turn into big, busy people who worry too much and dawdle too little, they decide to create a feast for growing and staying young. A playful, scrumptious celebration of the joy of eating, the importance of never completely growing up and mastering the art of having a good time, Julia, Child is a fictional tale loosely inspired by the life and spirit of the very real Julia Child – a story that should be taken with a grain of salt and a generous pat of butter.

Iron Widow
By Xiran Jay Zhao
416 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735269958 | Tundra Books
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected – she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​ To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way – and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

Crazy Rich Asians
By Kevin Kwan
544 Pages | Paperback
ISBN 9780385679077 | Anchor Canada
When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home, long drives to explore the island, and quality time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn’t know is that Nick’s family home happens to look like a palace, that she’ll ride in more private planes than cars, and that with one of Asia’s most eligible bachelors on her arm, Rachel might as well have a target on her back. Initiated into a world of dynastic splendor beyond imagination, Rachel meets Astrid, the It Girl of Singapore society; Eddie, whose family practically lives in the pages of Hong Kong Tatler; and Eleanor, Nick’s formidable mother, a woman who has very strong feelings about who her son should – and should not – marry. Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider’s look at the Asian Jet Set, a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money, between Overseas Chinese and Mainland Chinese, and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, disgustingly rich.

Favorite Non Penguin Random House Titles

• Cats Are a Liquid by Rebecca Donnelly and Misa Saburi
• Pokko and the Drum by Matthew Forsythe
• Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
• Ira Crumb Makes a Pretty Good Friend by Naseem Hrab and Josh Holinaty

Anticipated Penguin Random House Titles

• Dim Sum Palace by X. Fang
• The Only Way to Make Bread by Cristina Quintero and Sarah Gonzales
• The Little Books of the Little Brontës by Sara O’Leary and Briony May Smith
• A Super Scary Narwhalloween by Ben Clanton
• Plantcakes by Lyndsay Sung

Meet more of our staff by checking out previous posts!