Finally the Bride, Not the Bridesmaid

After years of many other honours, my colleauges at YES Mag have finally been awarded the Periodical of the Year by the Association of Educational Publishers! This is much deserved honour for a very hard working crew.

Honours for Robots

Robots: From Every Day to Out of This World (which I wrote as part of my gig at KNOW Mag) has been short-listed for two awards: the Hackmatack and the Rocky Mountain Book Awards. Not sure where the awards ceremony will be in either case, but with The Rockies and The Maritimes one can't go wrong!

Lu & Clancy Go to Hong Kong

I received some good news the other day — my four Lu & Clancy titles (Carnival Caper, Secret Codes, Sound Off, and Spy Stuff) are heading to Hong Kong. Rights have been sold to Sun Ya Publications to publish these titles in the "Complex Chinese" language and to do distributed in Hong Kong and Macao. These photos are from the books when they were published a few years ago in China. It will be interesting to see how the characters differ. I think this is Mandarin? (Please help me if you know.)

Whoo, Hoo, Howie Woo

For Robots, we were lucky enough to have the very talented Howie Woo do the illustrations. The arrival of Howie's cartoons and illustrations at our office is always a happy thing. He is one of the funniest guys I know and...he crochets too! Every once in awhile he sends us little crocheted treasures, like the pumpkin that appeared last Halloween and even quirkier things, like grenades. (Yes, grenades.) If you have a moment, and even if you don't, check out Howie's blog. Thanks for the laughs, Howie!

More on Violence...

Book Ninja has waded in with his thoughts on the topic. I think a lot of this, as with many (most?) things in the world, depends on the individual. Some kids seem to be able to handle "bad things" or violence more than others. It's all in your definition of violence, too. Some people would consider an animal dying to be violent. Me? I would consider that the "cycle of life" (to quote The Lion King), but would be sensitive to my little readers ears and emotional state. At this juncture, bear with me as I begin, yet again, my not-so-private rant about how this is another situation where knowledgeable librarians, teachers, and booksellers (and parents, yes, but very few are kids' lit fanatics) are SO CRITICAL to putting the right book in the right child's hand, at the right time in their life. To continue with the violence metaphor — well-stocked and STAFFED libraries and bookstores staffed with knowledgeable sales people — are worth fighting for.

More Violence in Books?

Not enough violence in kids' books? What do you think?

See, They Do Let Me Out on Occasion

A photo of moi with the fabulous Tanya Lloyd Kyi at CWILL's also fabulous Spring Book Hatching. Sorry we missed you! Watch for the Fall Book Harvest in, well, the fall!