Summer Reading ListsWith summer in full swing, there are a number of summer reading lists available to help find great books for your kids. The Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) list includes a great number of titles arranged by topic matter, reading level and age level. The CCBC has also recently launched of a new online edition of Best Books for Kids & Teens, an online version of the CCBC’s semi-annual selection guide to the best Canadian books for children and young adults. Other reading lists worth noting include the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) list for 2016, Bookology Magazine’s Quirky Book Lists and via the CBC 15 Pride reads for youth and 15 Canadian Indigenous Reads. Best wishes for a great summer of reading!Remembering Larry LoyieIt is with great sadness that we heard of the passing of Cree author Larry Loyie on April 18th, 2016. Loyie was born in Slave Lake Alberta and wrote a number of young adult and children’s books. Goodbye Buffallo Bay and As Long as the Rivers Flow told of his own experiences in a residential school when he was young. In The Moon Speaks Cree: A Winter Adventure a young boy learns about Cree culture and his award-winning Gathering Tree confronted issues of HIV with a younger audience. These books, along with many other works for adult audiences, will serve as a legacy to what was a powerful voice in first nations and Canadian children’s literature. Larry passed away at home in Edmonton. Festivals and EventsMost book festivals across Canada have already passed for the summer but if you are looking towards the fall you can look into the Taleblazers Literary Arts Festival for Children put on by the Young Alberta Book Society from October 3-November 4, 2016.I am pleased to be writing my first News, Awards and Announcements for the Deakin Review. I have served as a reviewer and editor in past years and I look forward to sharing news on children’s and young adult literature in Canada and beyond. I am always looking for suggestions, so if you have news you would like me to include in future issues please send me an email at hanne.pearce@ualberta.ca.Best wishes for a great summer of reading!HanneHanne Pearce has worked at the University of Alberta Libraries since 2004. Aside from being an avid reader, she has continuing interests in writing, photography, graphic design and knitting.
Greetings everyone! Well it seems winter weather has finally descended on much of Alberta. Before spring arrives there is still time to curl up under a quilt with some good books. In this issue’s news there are a number of new award winners and finalists you can look up to keep you occupied on snow days. There are also a number of events happening in late winter to early spring that you can put in your calendar to look forward to.2017 TD Canadian Children’s Literature AwardIn November the winner and finalists for the 2017 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award were announced. Jan Thornhill won the children’s book award with her book The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk. The book is a nonfiction picture book about the causes behind the North Atlantic Ocean bird's extinction in 1844. Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading AwardsFinalists for the OLA Forest of Reading Awards were announced in October of 2017.The competition is currently in process and voting concludes in April 2018.The Vancouver Children’s Literature RoundtableThe Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable (VCLR) awarded the 2017 Information Book Award to Jan Thornhill for The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk. Rocky Mountain Book Award NomineesNominees are in for the the Rocky Mountain Book Awards, the Albertan reader’s choice book award for grades 4 to 7. The 2017 Gold Medal Award was awarded to Svetlana Chmakova, author of the graphic novel Awkward. Serendipity 2018The Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable (VCLR) is hosting a meeting on March 3, 2018 at UBC Robson Square; the theme is Serendipity: Beasts, birds, and words: The poetics of children’s books. The event features several authors, including Isabelle Arsenault, Robert Heidbreder, Kyo Maclear, Tiffany Stone, and Frédéric Gauthier of Les Éditions de la Pastèque. Please visit the VCLR website for full details. Freedom to Read Week: February 25 to March 3, 2018Freedom to Read Week promotes advocacy against censorship across Canada. Events are being held across Canada, some include children’s and young adult authors whose work has been challenged. On February 28, 2018 from 1:00-2:00pm Jillian Tamaki will be speaking at the Toronto Public Library to discuss her graphic novel This One Summer, which was considered controversial at its publication in 2016 for LGBT characters, drug use, and mature content. A Celebration of Bilingual Books and Latinx CommunitiesOn March 3, 2018 in New York City the Bank Street Center for Children's Literature is hosting a Spring Mini-Conference. The keynote speaker is Duncan Tonatiuh.2018 Children’s & Teen Choice Book AwardsEvery Child a Reader Announces the Finalists for the 11th Annual Children’s & Teen Choice Book Awards. Launched in 2008, these are the only national book awards voted on only by kids and teens. Voting begins March 1 and runs through May 6.Children's Book Week April 30 - May 6, 2018Children’s Book Week will celebrate its 99th anniversary in May 2018. Established in 1919, it is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the US. You can learn more about events and how to host one through Every Child a Reader or the Children’s Book Center website. This year’s poster art can be downloaded here.Wishing you happy and warm reading for the winter!Hanne PearceCommunications Editor
Becker, Helaine. Lines, Bars and Circles: How William Playfair Invented Graphs. Illustrated by Marie-Ève Tremblay. Kids Can Press, 2017.Lines, Bars and Circles follows the life story of William Playfair. William was a dreamer and he saw the world differently than most people. Born in 1759 in Scotland, William was a joker with a unique sense of humour as a child. As he grew up, his independent spirit led him to leave home at fourteen to seek his fortune. He worked for inventors like William Watt and longed to invent something or make a discovery that would make him rich. Unfortunately, William’s dreaming and scheming did not yield much success and most of his ideas and businesses failed.William wrote books to make money and while doing so, used his unique way of thinking to describe the information he was writing about. His use of a vertical and horizontal line system to plot results, demonstrated a visual way of displaying numeric values, and thus invented the first line chart. Later he invented the bar graph and the pie chart. Despite interest from the King of France, William’s charts were not taken seriously at first, mostly because of his reputation. It was not until a hundred years after his death that his charts were revisited for their value. In our time, charts and graphs are used in infographics every day, and are greatly valued for their ability to make information easier to understand.Lines, Bars, and Circles is a great way to introduce both history and mathematics to young readers. The digitally drawn, textured illustrations by Marie-Ève Tremblay bring the 18th century to life with simplicity and whimsy. The Playfair caricature in the book reflects both his creativity and his self-involved personality, aspects of his character that led him to be viewed as uncommitted, ambitious to a fault, and an occupational drifter. Playfair’s story is an interesting one, as it shows how a unique independent spirit can be both a blessing and a curse. The book also shows how not all inventors are fabulously successful, and that one can never know which ideas will be the most impactful. Given the richness of topics in this book it would most suitable for older school age children ages 8-12. Small snippets of historical information are distributed throughout the narrative, about the people William knew and the times he lived in. The end of the book also provides a comprehensive biography of William Playfair. I would recommend this book for children with interests in math and/or history. Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Hanne PearceHanne Pearce has worked at the University of Alberta Libraries since 2004. She holds a BA and MLIS and is currently working towards her Master of Arts in Communications and Technology. Her research interests include: visual communication, digital literacy, information literacy and the intersections between communication work and information work. She is also a freelance photographer and graphic designer.
Ignotofsky, Rachel. Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World. 10 Speed Press, 2016.“It’s a Scientific Fact: Women rock!” This is the statement on the back cover of Rachel Ignotofsky’s fabulous book about women in science. This illustrated hardcover book surveys 50 women scientists’ achievements and biographies in bold style. The book includes women scientists ranging from agriculture, mathematics, chemistry, geology all the way to particle physics and astronomy. Each scientist has been allotted a two-page spread with a full-page biography, that is illustrated with bright and colourful drawings relevant to their discoveries and areas of research. Dispersed between the biographies are info-graphic sections that showcase scientific implements, a glossary, and even statistics about women in STEM.I was immediately drawn to this book by the colourful illustrations (also drawn by Ignotofsky) on both the cover and interlaced throughout the glossy pages of this book. The biographies strike an excellent balance between detail and brevity. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the many women scientists I had never learned about before, like Hypatia, a mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt in 350 CE, Emmy Noether who worked for Einstein’s team on the theory of relativity, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin who discovered the sun was comprised of Hydrogen and Helium and Rosalind Franklin who discovered the DNA double helix. This book left me with an overwhelming sense of the remarkable discoveries by women in science.Women in Science can be enjoyed all ages of readers, including adults. Older readers will enjoy the facts and information within the biographies, while younger readers can read the many illustrations. This book would be especially great to share with young girls, to inspire curiosity and interest in the sciences, and to show that they can follow in the footsteps of many great women scientists. Highly recommended.Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Hanne PearceHanne Pearce has worked at the University of Alberta Libraries since 2004. She holds a BA and MLIS and is currently working towards her Master of Arts in Communications and Technology. Her research interests include: visual communication, digital literacy, information literacy and the intersections between communication work and information work. She is also a freelance photographer and graphic designer.
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