Congratulations to Mireille Messier and Kass Reich for winning this years RMBA award! Winners of this award are chosen by the student readers in Alberta. I was very happy to have The Very, Very Far North included in this year’s selection.
Just Beyond the Very, Very Far North is a finalist for the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize. Being nominated for an award is always a great honour, and even more so when it’s in your own province. And I’m thrilled that it is for a sequel, because it tells me I must have done something right with the second book 🙂
Congrats to all the finalists, in all categories this year!
I am so pleased to announce that The Very, Very Far North has been nominated for the 2022 Colorado Children’s Book Award. This is a wonderful continuation of good news from the state, having had two schools there select my middle grade novel for their One Book / One School event which gets a copy into the hands of every student.
The Very, Very Far North has been included in the line-up of books to be read by students all across the state in their 2020-2011 Battle of the Books. I believe I’m the only Canadian author on the list, so go TEAM POLAR BEAR!
The Guilford County School District requested a recorded greeting, allowing me the opportunity to introduce the book to their students.
I am very happy to announce that The Very, Very Far North has been included in Indigo’s Best Kids’ Books of 2019 list!
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/kids/books/best-of-the-year/
Nothing helps in curing two months of debilitating back pain and a kidney stone attack like finding out that one of your books, Dog Night at the Story Zoo, has been nominated for the Joan Betty Stuchner Oy Vey! Award. Why? Because ironically, oy vey is what I’ve been groaning of late, and laughter is medicine, and an award celebrating funny books is kind of related.
It’s also a great honour. Those of us in Vancouver knew Joan to be a very funny soul who was taken from us much too early. This award was set up by some of her writer friends.
Dog Night at the Story Zoo is a graphic novel illustrated by Vick Nerino and published by Tundra Books
Yesterday, I took part in the Red Cedar awards gala and had a great time! This is an event owned by the children (several hundred strong) who packed the room, many of whom had taken the ferry from Victoria that morning to get there. These grade 4-6 students served as masters of ceremony, they introduced the authors in attendance, they performed skits based on the nominated books and they came up to us to chat and get books signed. The level of confidence, the degree of capability and the abundance of humour shown by them has so much to do with the fact that these were children in school reading clubs who were among other children from other schools who also had a passion for reading. I was impressed with all of them.
I’m thrilled to announce that Audrey (cow) has been nominated for a 2016 Willow Award, in the Diamond Willow (grade 4-6 fiction) category.
This is a reader’s choice award for the province of Saskatchewan, where I have toured many times and thoroughly enjoyed the schools I’ve visited.
Learn more about the awards here:
The Red Cedar Award is an annual, young reader’s-choice event given in two categories: fiction and information. Students from across the province of British Columbia take part in deciding the winners.
This is the first time one of my books have been nominated and I’m very excited to be attending the gala awards ceremony on May 7th at the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. I understand that there will be skits performed based on the shortlisted books.
As part of the pre-voting activities, interviews have been conducted with the authors. Here is the link for the one I did with a grade six student from Pemberton BC:
Dan Bar-el 