2010 SYRCA Willow Awards

The following Tundra books are nominated for the 2010 Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Award:

Bird Child
By Nan Forler
Illustrated by François Thisdale
ISBN 978-0-88776-894-1
Hardcover
32 Pages
Nominated in the Shining Willow category (kindergarten – grade 3)
Bullying and the ability to rise above it are at the heart of this strikingly beautiful picture book. All school-aged children have either bullied, been bullied, or witnessed bullying, and all too often, they feel powerless to stop what has been set in motion.

Dear Toni
By Cyndi Sand-Eveland
ISBN 978-0-88776-876-7
Hardcover
136 Pages
Nominated in the Diamond Willow category (grades 4-6)
When sixth-grader Gene Tucks moves south, she dreads being the new kid at school and almost everything else about her life as a “nobody.” But what she dreads most is the hundred-day journal-writing assignment her teacher has given the class. His brilliant idea is to have the journals locked in the town museum’s vault for forty years so that future grade-sixers can read them.

Word Nerd
By Susin Nielsen
ISBN 978-0-88776-875-0
Hardcover
256 Pages
Nominated in the Snow Willow category (grades 7-9)
In this brilliantly observed novel, author Susin Nielsen transports the reader to the world of competitive Scrabble as seen from the honest yet funny viewpoint of a boy who’s searching for acceptance and for a place to call home.

The Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Award allows over 10,000 students and young adults to read and vote for their favorite books. Award winners will be announced at a gala that will be held in the spring. For more info on the SYRCA Willow Awards, please visit www.willowawards.ca.

Congratulations to the abovementioned authors and illustrator!

The Best Children’s Books of the Year

The Best Children’s Books of the Year
List compiled by the Children’s Book Committee
of the Bank Street College of Education

Here are the Tundra books that made the list this year:

Word Nerd
Written by Susin Nielsen
ISBN: 978-0-88776-875-0
CDN Price: $20.99
US Price: $18.95
Hardcover
One uber nerd, one ex-con, a love of words, a budding romance … put them together and voila, a wonderful novel about coming into one’s own.

Dear Toni
Written by Cyndi Sand-Eveland
ISBN: 978-0-88776-876-7
CDN Price: $16.99
US Price: $14.95
Hardcover
A novel with the look and feel of a journal that reveals the heart of a special twelve year old.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: The Graphic Novel
Adapted by Alan Grant
Illustrated by Cam Kennedy
CDN Price: $12.99
US Price: $11.95
Paperback
The classic story of good and evil, retold by the graphic novel dream team of Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy.

Visit the Bank Street College of Education: Children’s Book Committee’s website for more information. This is their 100th anniversary edition of The Best Children’s Books of the Year. This special edition of their annual booklist was published in September 2009.

Guest Post: Susin Nielsen

Author and Blogger, Susin Nielsen, shares with us in this guest post on how she became an author:

How I Got My Start

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. In the very first diary I ever kept (I was eleven, and it lasted one week), this is, I kid you not, the opening sentence:

“This is the first day I’ve really written in a diary. The reason I am, is ’cause I LOVE writing stories, and if I do grow up to be a famous writer, and later die, and they want to get a story of my life, I guess I should keep a diary.”

 Yup. Prescience and arrogance, rolled into one.

Anyway, this is me, reading recently in Edmonton.

But back to the past. My first paid writing gig came along when I was still quite young, in my early 20’s. I’d been hired on a brand-new TV series called Degrassi Junior High, to feed the cast and crew food (a job called “craft services.” Don’t ask me why). This is how the kid actors repaid me in that first season; this poem appeared in a “yearbook” they published:

An ode to Susin, the Bran Muffin Queen,
We eat them,
We die,
Then we turn green.

Thanks, kids.

Anyway, in between first and second season I wrote a “spec” script and showed it to the head writer. Next thing I knew, he and the producer hired me to write my first ever episode of television.

It was really, really, really hard! I was lucky – in the right time at the right place – but I did draft after draft after draft, trying to learn the craft of writing for TV. They were amazingly good to me on Degrassi, and I wound up writing 16 episodes of Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High. Believe it or not, they were also responsible for giving me my first crack at writing young adult novels: I wrote four books in the Degrassi series: Shane, Wheels, Snake and (my personal favourite) Melanie.

But here’s a little secret that very few people know … for a brief, fleeting period, I was also an ACTOR on Degrassi …

That’s right: I played, in two memorable episodes, Louella Hawkins, the janitor.

Yup. That’s me. Age 22 or so, wielding a wrench or some other tool. In that particular episode the heating was on the fritz in the middle of winter and the kids were boiling hot, and when Joey Jeremiah asked me, “Isn’t it fixed yet Louella?” I got to say, “Good guess, goofball.” In my other episode, Arthur and Yick hide a dog in the boiler room, and when they come to find him, I step out of the shadows holding the dog: “Is this what you’re looking for? Dogs are not allowed in school. You’d better go see Mr. Lawrence.”

It’s a performance both wooden and laughable … Thank goodness I’m a better writer than I am an actor!

CBC Salutes our Award Nominees!

Hannah Sung of CBC Book Club presents the five nominees for the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature – Illustration, which included Tundra’s book, Bradley McGogg, The Very Fine Frog by Tim Beiser and Rachel Berman.

Congratulations to Jirina Marton, illustrator of Bella’s Tree, who was announced as the winner in this category on Tuesday, November17th.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke1qJ-68fXI]

Hannah also interviewed Shane Peacock, Susin Nielsen, and Cary Fagan on their books’ nominations for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, the biggest prize in Canadian Children’s Lit! We’ll be cheering them on at the ceremony at the Carlu in Toronto this Thursday, November 19th.

Other Tundra authors and books up for awards Thursday evening include:

  • Thing-Thing by Cary Fagan (again!), nominated for the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award.
  • The Ancient Ocean Blues by Jack Mitchell, nominated for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People.

Sigh. What to do when you have so many nominated books in one evening?!

Vlog courtesy of www.cbc.ca/bookclub

Tundra Book Group