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Tuesdays with Tundra 31

Tuesdays with Tundra is a monthly post on our new releases. The following books are available today in stores and online!

The Pocket MommyThe Pocket Mommy
Written by Rachel Eugster
Illustrated by Tom Goldsmith
Hardcover | 32 Pages | Ages 4-6
ISBN: 978-1-77049-300-1
Saying goodbye to Mom at the kindergarten door can be tough. Samuel hates it and wishes he could have a tiny, pocket-sized mommy to carry around with him all day. His mom slips a pretend mommy into his pocket, and when she comes to life, Samuel is delighted . . . at first. But he soon discovers that having a mom along in kindergarten isn’t as much fun as he thought it would be. Sure, she helps him remember the words to songs and keeps him company. But she also rearranges the bookshelf, corrects his artwork, and tries to clean out the guinea pig cage-all with disastrous (and comic) results. An energetic romp with a sweet core, The Pocket Mommy follows one little boy as he navigates the age-old conflict between the comfort of the familiar and the joy of letting go.

Pandemic SurvivalPandemic Survival: It’s Why You’re Alive
Written by Ann Love and Jane Drake
Illustrated by Bill Slavin
Hardcover | 128 Pages | Ages 9-12
ISBN: 978-1-77049-268-4
eBook: 978-1-77049-499-2
The Black Death. Yellow Fever. Smallpox. History is full of gruesome pandemics, and surviving those pandemics has shaped our society and way of life. Every person today is alive because of an ancestor who survived-and surviving our current and future pandemics, like SARS, AIDS, bird flu or a new and unknown disease, will determine our future. Pandemic Survival presents in-depth information about past and current illnesses; the evolution of medicine and its pioneers; cures and treatments; strange rituals and superstitions; and what we’re doing to prevent future pandemics. Full of delightfully gross details about symptoms and fascinating facts about bizarre superstitious behaviors, Pandemic Survival is sure to interest even the most squeamish of readers.

HijackedHijacked: How Your Brain Is Fooled by Food
Written by David A. Kessler, MD
Hardcover | 192 Pages | Ages 10+
ISBN: 978-1-77049-503-6
eBook: 978-1-77049-505-0
Ever wonder why you love fast food so much? Or why you can’t just eat a single cookie? Well guess what-it’s not just because it tastes good! The food industry is using three things to keep you eating: sugar, fat, and salt. When you eat stimulating combinations of these key ingredients, your brain is hijacked into craving more-and you are hijacked into overeating.
What is really in a hamburger, a candy bar, or even applesauce? How much money are companies making when you supersize your portion? What is the science behind the perfect cinnamon roll? How are restaurants conditioning your eating habits?
The food industry knows how to capture your attention by designing and manufacturing food targeted at you. They want to get you hooked and they want a share of your stomach. In Hijacked: How Your Brain is Fooled by Food, Dr. David Kessler reveals the secrets behind food production and offers new insights and helpful solutions on identifying misleading food labels in order to break this endless cycle of overeating.

NOW IN PAPERBACK

It's a Snap!It’s a Snap! George Eastman’s First Photograph
Written by Monica Kulling
Illustrated by Bill Slavin
Trade Paperback | 32 Pages | Ages 5-8
ISBN: 978-1-77049-513-5
George Eastman had a new hobby: photography. The year was 1877, and photography was not as easy as you might think. It cost a lot and the equipment was bulky, but George was about to change all that. What he lacked in formal education, George more than made up for in ingenuity: he invented dry plates, film, and the Brownie camera! The rest is history.

All Aboard!All Aboard! Elijah McCoy’s Steam Engine
Written by Monica Kulling
Illustrated by Bill Slavin
Trade Paperback | 32 Pages | Ages 5-8
ISBN: 978-1-77049-514-2
There were few opportunities for the son of slaves, but Elijah McCoy’s dreams led him to study mechanical engineering in Scotland. He learned everything there was to know about engines-how to design them and how to build them. But when he returned to the United States to look for work at the Michigan Central Railroad, the only job Elijah could get was shoveling coal into a train’s firebox. Undaunted, he went on to invent a means of oiling the engine while the train was running, changing the face of travel around the world.

In the Bag!In the Bag! Margaret Knight Wraps It Up
Written by Monica Kulling
Illustrated by David Parkins
Trade Paperback | 32 Pages | Ages 5-8
ISBN: 978-1-77049-515-9
Known as Mattie, she was different from most American girls living in 1850. She loved to make things with wood and made the best kites and sleds in town. Her father died when she was only three and by the time she was twelve she was working at the local cotton mill, alongside her two older brothers. One day she saw a worker get injured by a shuttle which had come loose from the giant loom, and the accident inspired her to invent a stop-motion device. It was to be the first of her many inventions. Margaret devoted her life to inventing, and is best known for the clever, practical, paper bag. When she died in 1914 she had ninety inventions to her name and over twenty patents, astounding accomplishments for a woman of her day.

Alien InvadersAlien Invaders: Species That Threaten Our World
Written by Jane Drake and Ann Love
Illustrated by Mark Thurman
Trade Paperback | 56 Pages | Ages 9-12
ISBN: 978-1-77049-512-8
From killer toads, feral felines, and brown tree snakes to multiple invaders in the Great Lakes and Lake Victoria, Alien Invaders explores the impact on our ecosystems of the wave after wave of invaders and why they have become a worldwide concern. Environmentalists Jane Drake and Ann Love take us on a journey from the days of sailing ships and shipboard rats to the fungus that sparked the Irish potato famine to the beautiful but deadly purple loosestrife strangling native wetlands, while presenting the concepts of biodiversity and endangered species. Learn where the invaders originate, how they travel, what they displace, why the invaded natural system is vulnerable, and what can be done. Discover if you are an invader or a saver and how you can help.

Pub Date Giveaway: In the comments below, please tell us which new August release of Tundra’s you would love to read and one lucky reader will receive their requested book! One request per person and please review our rules. This giveaway ends at midnight on Monday, August 12, 2013!

UPDATE: A winner has been chosen!

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TD Summer Reading Club 2013

Go!The TD Summer Reading Club is an inclusive, bilingual program that strives to engage all children in the joy of reading during the summer months. This program is a joint initiative between TD Bank Group, Toronto Public Library, and Library and Archives Canada. Every year a theme is selected from suggestions made across the country. This year’s theme is GO!

Children who register for the TD Summer Reading Club at their local library receive a free promotional reading kit and are encouraged to earn nine collectible stickers by reading books over the summer. They are also invited to participate in programs organized at their local library and share their love of reading with children across the country through the TD Summer Reading club website.

Here are some of the Tundra titles that are being featured in the reading lists this year, make sure you check them out at your local library!

Getting ThereGetting There
Written by Marla Stewart Konrad
Travel in Style: Ages 3-6
Hardcover | 24 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-88776-867-5
From the moment we take our first steps, it seems we are always on the move. Pictured here are the many and unusual ways we get around. Whether they go on their own two feet, by wheeled vehicle, water craft, animal power, or by air, children find some unorthodox and truly imaginative ways to “get there.”

The Flying CanoeThe Flying Canoe
Retold by Roch Carrier
Illustrated by Sheldon Cohen
Translated by Sheila Fischman
Travel in Style: Ages 7-12+
Hardcover | 24 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-88776-636-7
On New Year’s eve, 1847, eleven-year-old Baptiste finds himself far from his friends and family and his home in La Beauce. He has come to the woods of the Ottawa Valley to live and work among “the finest lumberjacks in Canada.” As the New Year approaches, Baptiste and the lumberjacks grow more and more homesick. Resolved to see their families again before the stroke of midnight, the crew board a magical canoe that lifts them into the air, across villages, and closer to home.

Cyclist BikeListCyclist BikeList: The Book for Every Rider
Written by Laura Robinson
Illustrated by Ramon K. Perez
Travel in Style: Ages 8-12+
Trade Paperback | 64 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-88776-784-5
Bikes are becoming an ever-more vital part of daily life for people of all ages. Laura Robinson combines fascinating history (the first bike was propelled by the rider’s feet pushing against the ground) with useful and fun information, including tips for the way to dress for safe and efficient biking; what to eat for maximum body efficiency; and how to select and maintain a bike.

Mable RileyMable Riley: A Reliable Record of Humdrum, Peril and Romance
Written by Marthe Jocelyn
Discover Art: Ages 9-12+
Hardcover | 288 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-88776-663-3
Composed of the letters Mable sends home, the poems she writes for her classmates, and chapters from her own work-in-progress, Mable Riley is the funny, inspiring, (and reliable) record of a young girl finding her voice, and the courage to make it heard.

Please click here for more information about Matt James, the illustrator who created the artwork for this year’s Reading Club!

TD Summer Reading Club

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Guest Post: Searching for Extraordinary Manuscripts

Hello! We’re so happy to have Esme Shapiro here with us at Tundra. You might have already seen some of her illustrations pop up on instagram. She’s not only a talented illustrator, but with her keen sense of art, she’s been helping us search for illustrators for newly acquired manuscripts and giving us valuable input on cover comps. So we hope you enjoy her insights on children’s book publishing and we hope that she’ll write (or draw) many more guest posts!

Esme Shapiro Tundra illustration

Hello there! I am Esme Shapiro, Tundra’s summer 2013 intern.

I have been working here for about a month now, and there is never a dull moment! It has been a very eye opening experience to be a part of this wonderful, creative publishing team. The Tundra team really seems more like a family that all share the same goal: the desire to create amazing stories for children and young adults that expose children to quality illustrators that can stimulate their imaginations. As an aspiring children’s book illustrator, it’s very exciting to see the long and thorough process a book has to go through to finally arrive on the shelves of book stores and libraries. One of my favorite things to do to help out is to read the manuscripts coming in. There are so many great ones, written by so many authors from all over the place, it’s truly inspiring!

So with all these amazing manuscripts coming in, how does one sniff out the extra special ones? As an intern, it took me a while to figure out how to tell a wonderful manuscript from an extraordinary manuscript. There really are so many amazing stories written by talented authors out there, so sometimes it was hard to pick the extra special ones out. I didn’t have the essential critical eye quite just yet. Eventually, after talking with the members of the Tundra Team and listening closely during editorial meetings, I have discovered that an extraordinary manuscript should be a unique experience all on it own. I have put together a list of the sensations you go through when you are reading that extraordinary manuscript.

First, the extraordinary manuscript should reel you in; they don’t call it a hook for nothing. Within the first few pages, you should be so involved that you have the desire to bury your face in the papers- you want to jump right in. Your belly should delightfully rumble with curiosity and your toes should tingle with anticipation.

Then, you should expect a few surprises. You should leave your chair to travel into the world that the author is describing. You should start imagining what that world would taste, look, feel, and smell like. You should begin to really connect to the characters. At this point, the rumble in your tummy should move from your belly to your smile, and a big grin should appear (with perhaps a few giggles or tears).

By the end, the rumble in your tummy and the tingle in your toes should turn into little tiny blue birds that fill you up from your head to your toes. The extraordinary manuscript should tie up all the loose ends like a brilliant seamstress. There should be a lesson you have learned and absorbed all throughout your being. When you are done reading it, you should want to put down the pages and touch them as if it were made out of the most precious of fabric. Flowers should blossom behind your eyes when you recall the book, and the words should echo in your head long after your done reading.

So that is what it feels like to read an extraordinary manuscript – and that’s not even including watching the illustrations bring the story to life!  That’s a whole other story. What a magical experience.

In my month here, I have learned that Tundra Book’s has a special ability to sniff out the extra special books. They give these stories a chance to breathe life into library and book store shelves everywhere.  I’m so honored to have been given the chance to see the inner workings of a company the produces such quality books for children and young adults.

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Shortlist for the 2013 Sunburst Award

The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award to recognize stellar writing, named after the first novel by Phyllis Gotlieb (1926-2009), one of the first published authors of contemporary Canadian science fiction.

The shortlisted works in the young adult category are:

The Green ManThe Green Man
By Michael Bedard
Hardcover | 320 Pages | Ages 10+
ISBN: 978-1-77049-285-1
eBook: 978-1-77049-293-6
“Fifteen-year-old O-short for Opehlia, but don’t call her that-spends the summer with her Aunt Emily, whose poor health means that Emily is as much nurse as niece. A well known poet in her day, Emily now runs a ramshackle secondhand bookstore called The Green Man, and over the course of the summer O will discover that it is not only her aunt who is haunted by the past. The author’s lyrical prose illuminates this haunting love story to the written word, and its power to captivate, enchant, and possess. Sympathetic characters, a creeping evil which must be defeated, and an endearing phantasmagorical Dead Poets Society inhabiting a bookshop are only some of the delights in this heavenly read.” -Jury Comments

Bright’s Light by Susan Juby
Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Rebel Heart by Moira Young

Congratulations to the five shortlisted authors!

The awards will be presented in the fall of 2013. The jurors for the 2013 award are: Rebecca Bradley, Tony Burgess, Shari Lapeña, Barbara Roden, and Leon Rooke.

Tundra Book Group