Tea Time at Annick Press is now hosted on the Annick website: please come say hi at www.annickpress.com/modules/blog!
On Wednesday, the Annick offices--both in Toronto and Vancouver--were busy participating in our first virtual conference: School Library Journal's SummerTeen event. For regular conferences like BEA and ALA, one or two Annick staff members board a plane with our trusty red suitcase, set up our booth, spend a few days telling conference-goers about our great books (new and old), and then return to Annick to tell the rest of the team how it went. But for SummerTeen, no one needed their passport--and everyone at Annick was able to join in and watch the conference unfold.
Here's how it looked to enter the virtual conference (click to enlarge):
On Tuesday, July 16, the Guelph Public Library launched its new Robert Munsch Discovery Portal on its website. There's something there for everyone: games, activities, and videos for children; curriculum materials, lesson plans, and activity ideas for teachers, librarians, homeschoolers, and daycare centers; and videos and interviews for Munsch fans of all ages. You can even contact a "Munschologist" at the library to ask questions about Robert Munsch and his works!
The portal will also run various Munsch-related contests--the current contest asks entrants to create a 30-60 second video about why they love their favorite Munsch story. You have until Sept. 1, 2013, to enter: click here for full details.
In other Munsch-related news, a new organization called StoryMobs will be hosting a Paper Bag Princess story mob in Toronto on August 17! Want to know what a story mob is and how to get involved?* Visit the StoryMobs website.
It's the middle of summer, so it seems a little early to think about fall just yet... but we've got a bumper crop of new books that will be available soon! Here are a couple sneak peeks of our upcoming picture books:
Team Canada--made up of four 12- and 13-year-old students from University of Toronto Schools--put in a solid performance at yesterday's Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals in Durban, South Africa. They even held the lead by the halfway point, but in the end it was the South African team, from Roedan School, that took home first prize. New Zealand came in second and Canada placed third. The teams were certainly well-matched: there were only two points separating the top three winners. "The Canadian team did an outstanding job!" said Nancy Davidson, National Co-ordinator of Kids' Lit Quiz Canada. "It was a nail-biter of an afternoon; we are so proud of this achievement!"
Next week, a team of four 12- and 13-year-old students from University of Toronto Schools will be representing Canada at the Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals in Durban, South Africa. Team Canada will be staying in South Africa for one activity-packed week, which will include a book exchange, meeting other teams and local authors, participating in storytelling workshops... and, of course, sightseeing!
The World Finals quiz will take place on Wednesday, July 3. All contestants will be between the ages of 10 and 13, and they may be quizzed on any children's book published in English. Past categories have included authors, poetry, titles, settings, characters, nursery rhymes, and graphic novels. You can try your hand at some past quizzes on the Kids' Lit Quiz website.
To get a picture of the excitement produced by these literary competitions, watch this video of Canadian teams competing in the national finals earlier this year:
Kids' Lit Quiz Canada's National Coordinator, Nancy Davidson, will be traveling with the team and distributing free books (she passed along an alarming statistic to me: only 8% of school in South Africa have libraries). Annick Press donated copies of Africans Thought of It, Animals That Changed the World, Fatty Legs, Kids Who Rule, People Who Said No, and Red is Best... we know they'll all find good homes.
Good luck, Team Canada!
A little about Kids' Lit Quiz
Kids' Lit Quiz started in New Zealand over 20 years ago, as a way to consolidate students' reading skills before they enter high school. Schools compete on local, regional, and national levels. The national winners then go on to compete in the annual world finals, which participating countries take turns hosting. For more information, visit the Kids' Lit Quiz website. You can also check out the Kids' Lit Quiz Canada website, or follow them on Twitter: @kidslitquiz_ca.
Today, we're delighted to present student reviews from Daniella and Dayna, who are both grade six students at Trillium Woods Elementary School. Thank you for the reviews, Daniella and Dayna, and have a great summer!
This week was beloved children's author Robert Munsch's birthday (June 11, 1945... it's on his website so I'm not giving away any secrets, heh!). Part of my job involves monitoring online mentions of our titles, and not a week goes by without Robert Munsch or one of his titles popping up. Sometimes it's an announcement of an upcoming play based on his books. Sometimes it's a new parent blogging about rediscovering his books with their own child.
By far, the title that shows up the most is The Paper Bag Princess. It pops up on lists of essential books for girls, lists of strong female role models, and lists of favorite princess and fairy tale books. But my absolute favorite is when people have been inspired to create crafts, activities, and costumes from the book.
Some recent examples:
Yesterday night, violinist Joshua Bell performed at Roy Thomson Hall. One of the many music lovers in attendance was author Kathy Stinson, whose upcoming picture book, The Man with the Violin, is about the time that Joshua Bell played a free concert in a metro station, posing as a street musician. Kathy presented Joshua with an advance copy of the book, which hits shelves this fall.
Kathy Stinson presents Joshua Bell with the picture book based on his metro performance |
Hearing and watching Joshua Bell play his multi-million-dollar Stradivarius violin was even more exhilarating than I imagined it could be when I wrote these words (in my upcoming fall book, The Man with the Violin):To find out more about The Man with the Violin, visit our website or check out the book trailer below:
“The high notes soar to the ceiling. The low notes swoop to the floor. All the notes swirl and sweep around the blur of poeple rushing here and rushing there. The music is telling an exciting story. It makes the hairs on the back of Dylan’s neck tickle.”
Joshua Bell had seen the text and the illustrations for The Man with the Violin before I met him backstage after the concert and gave him his advance copy (he had to, to know what kind of Postscript to write for it). But I could tell, when he held the book in his hands, that he was as delighted with the actual book as I was. He called it “a sweet book.” And after meeting him, I have to say: Joshua Bell is one sweet man.
Author Kathy Stinson is ready to record! |
Last week on May 15 and 16, the Harbourfront Centre was making the most of the gorgeous, sunny weather at its annual Festival of Trees event. The Festival of Trees celebrates the winners of the Forest of Reading awards with readings, book signings, workshops, and all sorts of entertainment. It's attended by thousands of students, who are themselves responsible for voting for the winning books.
(c) Ross Kinnaird |
One of our recent award-winners! |
Next week, from May 4-11, 35 authors, illustrators, and storytellers will be visiting schools, libraries, bookstores, and community centers across Canada. Find an event near you to join the conversation! This event is put on by the Canadian Children's Book Centre, so check their handy events calendar to plan your week. You can also browse their Book Week website for more information on the history of Book Week, along with a neat interactive map of events.
This year's theme is All the Bookshelf's a Stage: Celebrating the Performing Arts. (If you want to celebrate the performing arts by acting out a classic Robert Munsch story, check out Munsch at Play and Munsch at Play Act 2!) Winners of the annual writing contest (for grades 4-12) will also see their stories appear online on May 8.
Two of our authors are among those on tour for this year's Book Week. Sarah Tsiang (poet and picture book author) will be visiting Nunavut from May 2-11, where she will give 10 school readings and four public readings. Click here for more information on her schedule. Fellow author and poet JonArno Lawson (Old MacDonald Had Her Farm) will be touring Quebec from May 6-11; click here for more information.
Whether you find an event in your community or simply settle down to read a child a new book (or an old favorite), I hope you enjoy celebrating Canadian Children's Book Week!
It's shaping up to be a great spring for Annick books, as award nominations pour in:
Hazel Hutchins (photo credit: Gaston Maqueda) |
April is National Poetry Month, so what better time to highlight some of our excellent children's poems? Long-time Annick author, illustrator, and poet Loris Lesynski creates books filled with hilarious rhymes that roll off the tongue. She's also a great performer, and hearing her read her work aloud makes kids (and some adults!) want to bop along to the beat, and perhaps come up with a few poems themselves. Loris's website is filled with poetry resources for teachers, like this guide to writing in rhyme.
Last fall, Annick published a book of soccer poems by Loris, Crazy About Soccer!, and this fall, Crazy About Basketball! will hit the shelves. You can also get Crazy About Soccer! and four of Loris's other popular titles in e-book format with Open Road Integrated Media.
In honor of National Poetry Month, here's one of my favorite poems from Crazy About Soccer!, "KangaKicks."
Last month, two of our staff were showing off Annick's titles (and perusing other children's publishers' lists) at the annual Bologna Book Fair. Associate Publisher Colleen MacMillan fills us in on some of the great honors Annick received at the fair.
Apart from the excitement of making the shortlist of five companies for Best Children's Publisher of 2013 for North America at the recent Bologna Book Fair, the Annick team was also thrilled to see Elizabeth Stewart's novel, The Lynching of Louie Sam, included in the White Ravens catalogue. The catalogue contains a selection of 250 “notable and remarkable“ children’s and youth books from around the world, as selected by the International Youth Library in Munich. It is often used by public and school libraries as a basis for making purchasing decisions.
Yesterday, the Canadian Children's Book Centre announced that Boy Soup, by Loris Lesynski and Michael Martchenko, will be this year's TD Grade One Book. This means that over 500,000 Canadian grade one students will be receiving their very own copy of the book. Loris and Michael will also be visiting schools and libraries to treat children to a live reading of the book.
Have you ever wondered how a publisher finds the right illustrator for a book? Does it matter if the illustrator lives in the same city—or even the same country—as the publisher? Today, Annick's creative director Sheryl Shapiro tells the story of how she decided which illustrator would be right for an upcoming book.
Choosing an illustrator for a book is like casting for a movie. You feel more confident if you’ve seen something they’ve acted in before. You often prefer to use a comedy actor for a comedy and a dramatic actor for a drama. You also want that person to bring his or her own personality to the role, to provide something fresh and insightful.
But sometimes you do something to surprise and challenge your audience. Annick Press has just sent a book on medieval history to press and we chose a humorous cartoonist, Ross Kinnaird, for a history book. The book is called It’s a Feudal, Feudal World: A Different Medieval History (available this fall!). It’s full of snippets of neat infographic information about the Middle Ages and Ross’s entertaining art.Using the Internet, it’s really almost as easy to work with an illustrator on the other side of the world as it is to work with one in the same city, except if you need to spread out sheets of paper on a boardroom table. I’ve worked with illustrators all over the world and never get to meet them in person.
One of Kinnaird's illustrations for It's a Feudal, Feudal World
When we chose Ross to illustrate the book, I had no idea where he lived. I was amazed at the coincidence when I discovered that he lives in Auckland, New Zealand, one of my stops on a trip to New Zealand last year. It was so neat to sit down at an outdoor café with him in person.Ross turned out to be a serious, thoughtful guy as well as someone with a great sense of humor who sees the funny side of everything. Now I’m thinking about all those other illustrators I’ve worked with who live in interesting countries and wouldn't it be great to meet them in person too! —Sheryl Shapiro
Sheryl and Ross in New Zealand
Reading Children's Books: let them rise out/ of their silence: I am not sure of anything anymore (this is the way it is for the one who loses time in writing poems) but I pause to stare ... Read the rest of this post
Reading Children's Books: Save the Children Conference at The Grand Olympia,...: I wasn't able to upload the glossy conference information as I am technologically incapable but I still think you could see the broch... Read the rest of this post
Next week, our Sales and Rights Manager, Gayna Theophilus, and our Associate Publisher, Colleen MacMillan, will be showing off Annick's latest titles (and offering sneak peeks of our Fall 2013 list) at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. (If you're attending, come say hi at Hall 29, D/12.)
They'll also be crossing their fingers, because Annick Press has been nominated for the Best Children's Publisher of the Year award, in the North America category. It's an honor just to be nominated, especially given the high quality of the competition, so we'll be breaking out the champagne regardless of the final winner.
If you can't make it all the way to Italy, allow me to bring one of our big spring titles to you instead. War Brothers (Sharon McKay/Daniel Lafrance), a graphic novel about a young Ugandan boy who is kidnapped and forced to join a rebel army, has been receiving excellent reviews. We're also very proud of the book trailer--take a look!
The narrator's voice belongs to Toolit Ivan, a young man who lives in Gulu. The song is called "African Children (Black Children)," and was performed and recorded in Africa by Ugandan stars Rax & Romeo. You can watch their music video to hear the complete song. For a limited time, you can also receive an e-galley of the book through NetGalley.com.
Three of Annick’s talented creators came to our offices this week to discuss their latest projects in front of a video camera. Judith Keenan and Aria Evans from BookShorts acted as director and cinematographer. They will also be editing the footage to create two video profiles, one featuring Kathy Stinson and Dušan Petričić, author and illustrator of the upcoming picture book, The Man With the Violin, and the other, Sharon McKay and Daniel Lafrance, co-authors and illustrator of WarBrothers: The Graphic Novel. (Sharon’s taping will take place in early May, when she visits Toronto from her home in Prince Edward Island.)
Illustrator Daniel Lafrance and Judith Keenan with some of his artwork for War Brothers |
Last month, author Judie Oron was invited to speak about her novel, Cry of the Giraffe, at the 26th Jerusalem International Book Fair. (She was happy to note that her trip was made possible by a generous travel grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and with the support of the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv.) On February 12, she was interviewed by renowned author and educator Dr. Chaim Peri as part of the book fair's prestigious Literary Café.
(above, below) Dr. Chaim Peri and Judie Oron answer questions at the Jerusalem International Book Fair. |
This was the first Summer Teen Conference I’ve attended, and one of the things that made me glad I had the opportunity to participate was learning about the book Hooked: When Addiction Hits Home.
Even though I'm now [obviously] an adult, this book is helping me view my childhood experiences through a different lens. Since I believe it will really help today’s teens realize they're not alone in their experiences, H:WAHH is now in my list for fall school booktalks, as well as a go-to title for reluctant readers because the personal stories are riveting.
Thanks, Kelli! Glad to hear that you found the conference useful, and that you discovered HOOKED. :)