Posts filed under 'Groundwood'
Toronto Public Library picks Groundwood, Tradewind titles for First & Best 2009
Crocodiles Play, by Robert Heidbreder
978-1896580890 | $16.95 hc | in stock
Tradewind Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)
When Stella Was Very, Very Small, by Marie-Louise Gay
9780888999061 | $18.95 hc | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
Mother Goose, by Celia Lottridge
978-0888999337 | $9.95 boardbook | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
Crocodiles Play, When Stella Was Very, Very Small and Mother Goose have been selected by the Toronto Public Library as First & Best books of 2009 as part of TPL’s Ready for Reading program. They promote the books in an ad for the Globe and Mail, in a TPL flyer, and in a bookmark.
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Add comment November 27, 2009
Governor General’s Shortlists Announced
The Canada Council has announced the shortlists for the 2009 Governor General’s Awards, and I’m thrilled to have nine titles on the shortlists:
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Fiction:
The Mistress of Nothing, by Kate Pullinger |
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Non-Fiction:
The Cello Suites, by Eric Siblin |
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Drama:
Where the Blood Mixes, by Kevin Loring |
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Another Home Invasion, by Joan MacLeod 978-0889226227 | $16.95 pb | in stock Talon Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast) |
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Children’s Literature – Illustration:
Bella’s Tree, by Janet Russell, illustrated by Jirina Marton |
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My Great Big Mamma, by Olivier Ka, illustrated by Luc Melanson 978-0888999429 | $18.95 hc | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins) |
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Alego, by Ningeokuluk Teevee 978-0888999436 | $17.95 hc | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins) |
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Translation – French to English:
A Slight Case of Fatigue, by Stephane Bourguignon, translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott |
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Empire of Desire, by Thierry Hentsch, translated by Fred A. Reed 978-0889225879 | $29.95 pb | in stock Talon Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast) |
Add comment October 14, 2009
When Stella Was Very, Very Small gets starred reviews in Kirkus, Q&Q, School Library Journal
When Stella Was Very, Very Small, by Marie-Louise Gay
9780888999061 | $18.95 hc | temporarily out of stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
The newest Stella book has been given starred reviews in the School Library Journal, the Quill & Quire, and Kirkus. It has also been reviewed well in Publishers Weekly and Booklist.
From the School Library Journal:
Gay’s mixed-media scenes dance with the energy of scribbled butterflies on the walls, teetering objects, and a blanket-turned-turban that flaps as Stella braves the desert storm in the sandbox…Subtle and sweet, yet full of life and humor, the child’s world is a place kids will want to visit again and again.
Add comment July 27, 2009
Groundwood board books reviewed in Globe, Toronto Star, & CM Magazine
It’s Useful to Have a Duck, by Isol
9780888999276 | $10.00 board | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
Mother Goose, by various
9780888999337 | $9.95 board | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
Mother Goose was reviewed in the Globe & Mail on Apr. 24, and Isol’s It’s Useful to Have a Duck was reviewed in both the Toronto Star (Apr. 25), and CM Magazine. From the Toronto Star:
For the even younger, try the accordion-folded board book It’s Useful to Have a Duck – also titled, on the other cover, It’s Useful to Have a Boy, by the Mexican artist Isol. Deceptively naïve, black pencil drawings on yellow pages take us through a boy’s ways of playing with a toy duck – from riding it like a rocking horse and wearing it as a hat to using it for a bath plug.
Read this book from the other side, with its identical pictures but this time, blue pages, and you’ll find it’s useful for a duck to have a boy. "I use his head to see the view," is the duck’s interpretation of the boy using him for a hat. The same pictures from two very different points of view give us two wildly different stories. A book that looks deliciously simple, but offers up complex ideas and some wit, too.
Add comment May 3, 2009
earthgirl in National Post, on CBC Metro Morning
earthgirl, by Jennifer Cowan
978-0888998903 | $12.95 pb | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
A great piece on earthgirl by Jennifer Cowan was in the National Post and went out nationally in CanWest papers on Apr. 22. The same day, Jennifer was also on Toronto’s CBC Metro Morning with Andy Barrie.
From the CanWest article:
Eco-engaging the iGeneration
Social Media; Reaching out to a younger audience
Julie Beun-Chown, Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Jennifer Cowan cheerfully admits she’s been hearing voices for years. And she couldn’t do without them. Some talk to her, some talk to each other.
Whatever they say, they eventually end up as material for the Toronto-based television writer’s latest project.
These days, the loudest voice belongs to Sabine, a funny and self-righteous 16-year-old with a budding environmental conscience and a smart mouth who first ’spoke’ to Ms. Cowan as a blogger in 2003.
"I was walking around Lost Lake [at Whistler] when I first heard Sabine’s voice. At first she was blogging about things that were senseless. Then," Ms. Cowan recalls, "she decided someone should be talking about ‘all the everything going on in the world.’ "
That ‘everything’ — from recycling and pollution to rampant consumerism — has now formed the basis not just of Ms. Cowan’s first novel, earthgirl — a teen love story/ green manifesto — but also a blog featuring Sabine herself.
As part of Ms. Cowan’s multi-media marketing effort, ‘Sabine’ regularly updates her blog (sabinetheearthgirl. wordpress.com),with links, videos and posts on everything from her environmental interests (wild foxes, Earth Hour) to her eclectic musical tastes (think indie Canadian bands). Ms. Cowan, who draws on her own green thinking and musical repertoire to fill the blog, admits that while using social media and posing as her character to engage the so-called iGeneration in environmental issues is an unusual step, she suspects it’s just the start of what the future holds.
2 comments April 27, 2009
Skim leads nominations at 2009 Eisner Awards
Skim, by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
9780888997531 | $18.95 hc | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
Mariko and Jillian Tamaki’s Skim has been nominated in 4 categories at this year’s Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards: Best Publication for Teens/Tweens, Best Graphic Album–New, Best Writer, and Best Penciller/Inker.
Add comment April 15, 2009
Six Groundwood books win 2008 Honor Book Awards
The following six books have won 2008 Honor Book awards from the Society of School Librarians International:
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The Black Book of Colors, by Menena Cottin 9780888998736 | $17.95 hc | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins) |
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On the Road Again!, by Marie-Louise Gay and David Homel 9780888998640 | $15.95 hc | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins) |
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Apart, by R.P. MacIntyre and Wendy MacIntyre 978-0888998347 | $9.95 pb | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins) |
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Brave Deeds, by Ann Alma 9780888997913 | $17.95 hc | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins) |
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Oil, by James Laxer 978-0888998163 | $11.00 pb | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins) |
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Weird Weather, by Kate Evans 9780888998415 | $9.95 pb | in stock Groundwood Books (HarperCollins) |
Add comment February 14, 2009
Groundwork Guides on The Point
Groundwood publisher Patsy Aldana was interviewed on CBC Radio’s The Point on Monday, Nov. 17th about the Groundwork Guides.
Cities, by John Lorinc
9780888998194 | $11.00 pb | in stock
Slavery Today, by Kevin Bales and Becky Cornell
9780888997739 | $11.00 pb | in stock
Oil, by James Laxer
9780888998163 | $11.00 pb | in stock
The Betrayal of Africa, by Gerald Caplan 
9780888998255 | $11.00 pb | in stock
Being Muslim, Revised Edition, by Haroon Siddiqui
9780888998873 | $11.00 pb | in stock
Climate Change, by Shelley Tanaka
9780888997845 | $12.95 pb | in stock
Empire, by James Laxer
9780888997074 | $12.95 pb | in stock
Genocide, by Jane Springer
9780888996824 | $12.95 pb | in stock
Pornography, by Debbie Nathan
9780888997678 | $12.95 pb | in stock
Sex for Guys, by Manne Forssberg
9780888997715 | $12.95 pb | in stock
Add comment November 19, 2008
Deborah Ellis interviewed in School Library Journal
Off to War, by Deborah Ellis
9780888998958 | $12.95 pb | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
The School Library Journal has interviewed Deborah Ellis about her new book, Off to War:
Off to War
By Debra Lau Whelan — School Library Journal, 11/5/2008
In Deborah Ellis’s Off to War: Voices of Soldiers’ Children (Groundwood, 2008), the kids of American and Canadian soldiers talk openly about what it’s like to have a mom or dad—and in some cases both—deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ellis’s follow-up book Voices of War (Groundwood), which contains interviews with Iraqi children now living in Jordan as refugees, is due out in January.
What struck you most about the kids you interviewed?
A lot of the kids I talked to seemed really, really lonely. Things had changed with their parent and nobody would talk to them about what was going on. And they didn’t want to bring it up just in case it made their parent more sad. Sometimes the parent would come back really angry and uptight and not want to spend any time with their kids any more. So they wouldn’t see this parent for 16 to18 months, and then the parent would come back, and they still wouldn’t have their parent. Other parents came back changed for the better. They used to be crabby and nitpicky, and they came back so grateful to be with their families, and little things didn’t bother them any more.
Was there a common thread in the stories you heard?
It certainly differed between the full-time army and the reserves. The kids from the National Guard families were really thrown for a loop. They hadn’t expected their parent to go to war. It wasn’t on their radar. A lot of them just didn’t know how to deal with it. And a lot of the families around them didn’t know how to deal with it. Often, they would be the only kid in their school or even the only kid in their town going through that experience, and they didn’t have anybody else to talk to. Kids with parents in the military fulltime and whose parents came home—they seemed fine. But when talking to them, they would start to cry remembering the time that they’d last seen their parents.
Did age play any role in how well they handled the separation?
The older kids took on a lot more of the burden for caring for the family, but they all kind of missed their parent really, really deeply.
Were any of these kids, their friends, or even parents antiwar?
The military is not a monolithic organization. It’s full of a wide variety of people with a wide variety of opinions and backgrounds. Some of the kids I interviewed, their parents were very active in the antiwar movement, Veterans Against the War and so on. Some of the kids had been at antiwar protests and had spoken at rallies, and of course, some of the kids approached it from a very different perspective, believing that the protesters were in fact traitors to the country. So there were both of those opinions. Some kids talked about classmates who knew they were military kids, and some said kids assumed that if their parent was in the military that they just wanted to go and kill people. They didn’t have a realistic sense of what was going on over there or what the military was all about.
How did you find the roughly 20 kids in your book?
In Canada, I approached the military, military organizations, and groups that work with military kids. Then to get to Fort Bragg (in North Carolina), I had to get permission from the army public relations office in New York City. I interviewed probably three times as many kids who’ve actually ended up in the book.
Did substance abuse become a problem?
If I interviewed kids alone without a parent present, they would tell me things about alcohol abuse and things like that relating to their parents. But I couldn’t put that into the interview because that would be harmful to them down the road. They also told me stuff like the escalation of tensions and the effects of that.
How can school librarians help these kids?
The kids were really curious about where their parent was. And some schools took the approach of “Let’s just not talk about Afghanistan. Let’s make it a place where kids don’t have to deal with it.” And other communities took the approach of “Let’s talk about it a lot. Let’s get to know the people over there.” And they did displays and all sorts of things. I found that the kids were really hungry for information, so libraries can put on displays about Iraq, Iraqi culture, society, and history, as well as Afghanistan.
What audience does your book target?
I was initially only targeting myself because I wanted to find out how these kids were managing. I think the publisher had in mind that it could be for military kids to read and glean through for information about how they could manage to get through what they’re going through. Hopefully, the adults who work with these kids can read it and get a sense of how they can be more useful when it comes to what these kids are experiencing. And for kids who are not part of that world, it gives an interesting perspective of a different way to look at what’s going on when they see it in the news.
Did any of the interviews leave a lasting impression?
The thing that made me saddest about doing this book is I would ask the kids if they could imagine a world without war, and I’d say 95 percent of them hadn’t even thought of it. They just assumed that war is a natural part of our lives. It hadn’t even really entered their minds that there could be an alternative. And while this isn’t a scientific sample by any means, if there is any truth at all to this theory that these kids haven’t had their imagination opened up enough to be able to think about a world without war, then we adults have a lot of work to do in order to make that seem to them like a possibility that they could start to work on.
Add comment November 19, 2008
Deborah Ellis talks with Shelagh Rogers
Off to War, by Deborah Ellis
9780888998958 | $12.95 pb | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)
Deb Ellis’s interview with Shelagh Rogers will air Saturday, November 8 on “The Next Chapter” on CBC Radio One.
Breckyn, one of the children profiled in Off to War, contributed a short reading for the segment.
Add comment November 4, 2008
