Arleen Paré & Chris Tougas Photo by Times Colonist
Mechanimals, a picturebook written and illustrated by Chris Tougas has won the Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize. Paul Gould has this to say about Mechanimals.
“Chris Tougas’s Mechanimals represents a trenchant analysis, by way of pastiche and parody, of the modern mania for mechanization in the area of food production. Neo-Marxist critique mixes here with post-deconstructionist play to generate a profoundly unstable, and thus destabilizing, text. Tougas’s Rooster-bot, perhaps his most prescient creation, subverts the paradigm of temporality to which we cling with such desperation in our post-millennial panic.”
Mechanimals which was presented last night at a gala celebration in Victoria, was the only picturebook on the shortlist.
Also presented last night was the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. This was the inaugural year for the Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize, sponsored by Bolen Books, the CBA 2007 Bookseller of the Year.
Chris Tougas is also the author of the recently released Art’s Supplies.