Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Awards 2011



Melanie Watt (best picture book winner for Chester's Masterpiece) and I pose with our impractically large prize cheques Our respective juries are off to either side: amazing kids who read, discussed, debated and chose the winning book from a shortlist of five!

Melanie Watt and I with the Solways, the relatives of Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz, the esteemed Toronto booksellers after whom the award is named.

Will it fit into the ATM or will I actually have to talk to a teller?














Doing a quick reading of HALF BROTHER in which Ben gets peed on by a baby chimp. Went down well I think.

Friday, June 3, 2011

CLA AWARDS 2011

I spent four years of my childhood in Halifax, so was particularly pleased to receive both the Children's Book of the Year Award, and Young Adult Book Award in a city that holds so many fond memories for me -- the Bookmobile on Saturday in the Sobey's parking lot, the Historic Properties, Point Pleasant Park, the wonderful old library on Spring Garden Road -- and my first viewing of Star Wars at the Gottingen Street Cinema!

Thanks to photogapher Erica Penton I have a photographic record of the evening!