August 29, 2015

Kah-Lan The Adventurous Sea Otter: Book Launch (Vancouver and Kelowna)

Celebrate 
Sea Otter Awareness Week
Science Literacy Week, 
and 
the launch of children’s author Karen Autio’s new book!


Kah-Lan, the Adventurous Sea Otter

Written by Karen Autio
Illustrated by Sheena Lott
Sono Nis Press
978-1-55039-244-9
64 pp.
Ages 7-12
September, 2015


on Saturday, September 26, 2015

10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

at

Vancouver Aquarium
845 Avison Way
Vancouver, BC


AND


on Saturday, October 3, 2015

2:30 - 4:30 p.m.

at

Okanagan Regional Library
1380 Ellis Street
Kelowna, BC

Special to this event:

Contest for students!
A free author presentation 
for the school or homeschool co-op 
with the most students attending the event

Door prize for teachers!
Draw for a reading circle set of 6 copies 
(donated by Sono Nis Press)
for teachers who attend



Both events include:
• a reading by Karen Autio
• a Q & A with Karen Autio, and 
• a book signing.


Here's the description from Sono Nis Press, the book's publisher, retrieved here:

Kah-Lan, a young sea otter, is hungry. He is sure there are big crabs and sea urchins, his favourite foods, around the point, but his mother won’t let him out of her sight. Then, one day, Kah-Lan sees his chance. He and his friend Yamka race to the point and soon they are swept into danger. At first, the challenges are familiar: strong currents, crashing waves, the open ocean, and Orca, who is hungry too. Then, as the sea otters travel unfamiliar waters, they encounter new and strange dangers: two-legged furless creatures; fearsome, noisy, smelly things that pull log islands; and fish-filled webs that threaten to tangle them up and drag them down. All the while, they struggle to find enough food to keep going. Will they ever get back home? 
The heroic travels of two dynamic and realistic sea otter characters are a wonderful introduction to sea otters, and to the human activities that threaten them. Warm and appealing illustrations by Sheena Lott and a triumphant ending will inspire readers to learn more about these remarkable animals, helped by the factual notes and resources provided by author Karen Autio, who has loved sea otters from first sight.  
This is the fourth book by popular author Autio, and her first foray into illustrated chapter books and natural history.

August 25, 2015

Some Things I've Lost

by Cybèle Young
Groundwood Books
978-1-55498-339-1
32 pp. with fold-outs
Ages 4+
September 2015

Prepare for the wonder of turning and folding out pages to witness the astonishing artwork as twelve everyday objects, from a roller-skate and wristwatch, to a set of headphones and a lawn chair, are transformed through the skill, artistry and marvel of Cybèle Young.

The text is minimal, with a brief introduction about lost items having ends that are also beginnings, and then each small object is identified with a figure number, named and the location given where it was last seen.  Each double spread of an object displayed in a sea of white with accompanying i.d. is so sparse and bare, in such constrast to the detailed images of the object as it transforms into something fantastical and other-worldly.  How each becomes a deep-sea element– jellyfish, sea cucumber, sea urchin, coral, plankton, fish, seaweed–is left to the extension, feathering, weaving, wrapping, folding, trimming of the Japanese paper Cybèle Young favours in her paper sculptures.  How each becomes something new and wonderful is astounding.  A final spread of all transformations tells us simply that, “Anything is possible.”  And in her skilled hands, obviously anything is.

While we have all lost some things, and most of us have lost the very items displayed within Some Things I’ve Lost, never, ever have we seen anything as wonderful, as spectacular, as the creatures into which they have been converted with such skill and originality.  Some Things I’ve Lost is as unique in its premise as it is in its artwork and I suspect we will never, ever find anything like it again.

August 24, 2015

Through Fire & Sea: Book Launch (Edmonton)

Join

Nicole Luiken
fantasy YA author of


for the launch of her newest


Through Fire & Sea (Otherselves #1)
by Nicole Luiken
Entangled Teen
978-1-633752658
354 pp.
Ages 13+
2015

on

Saturday, September 19, 2015

at

2:00 p.m. 

in UTC-06
Happy Harbor Comics 
10729 - 104 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta


Here is the information blurb from GoodReads:

In the Fire world, seventeen-year-old Leah is the illegitimate daughter of one of the realm's most powerful lords. She's hot-blooded—able to communicate with the tempestuous volcano gods that either bless a civilization or destroy it. But then Leah discovers she's a Caller, gifted with the unique—and dangerous—ability to “call” her Otherselves in mirror worlds. And her father will do anything to use her powers for his own purposes.

In the Water world, Holly nearly drowns when she sees—and interacts with—Leah, a mirror image of herself. She’s rescued by Ryan, a boy from school with a secret he’d die to protect. Little do they know, his Otherself is the son of a powerful volcano god at war in the Fire world…and he’s about to fall.

As Leah and Holly's lives intersect, the Fire and Water worlds descend into darkness. The only way to protect the mirror worlds is to break every rule they've ever known. If they don’t, the evil seeping through the mirrors will destroy everything—and everyone—they love…

August 22, 2015

Back to School Book List




With the ads starting for back-to-school sales and everyone starting to think about the beginning of the school year, consider some of these 87 (!) books–picture books, novels, young adult and non-fiction– as read-alouds.  Whether dealing with bullies, or undertaking research projects, looking back at schools of the past, these reads have got it all.


Picture Books


A+ for Big Ben
by Sarah Ellis
Illustrated by Kim La Fave
Pajama Press
24 pp.
Ages 2-5
2015

The Best Thing about Kindergarten
by Jennifer Lloyd
Illustrated by Qin Leng
Simply Read Books
36 pp.
2013

Community Soup
by Alma Fullerton
Pajama Press
32 pp.
Ages 4-7
2013

The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten
by Maureen Fergus
Illustrated by Mike Lowery
Kids Can Press
32 pp.
Ages 3-7
2013

Franklin Goes to School
by Paulette Bourgeois
Illustrated by Brenda Clark
Kids Can Press
32 pp.
Ages 3-6
1995

Get Out of Bed!
by Robert Munsch
Illustrated by Alan and Lea Daniel
Scholastic Canada
32 pp.
Ages 3-7
1998

Gift Days
by Kari-Lynn Winters
Illustrated by Stephen Taylor
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
32 pp.
Ages 7+
2012

Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress
by Christine Baldacchino
Illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant
Groundwood Books
32 pp.
Ages 4-7
2014

Noni is Nervous
by Heather Hartt-Sussman
Illustrated by Geneviève Côté
Tundra
24 pp.
Ages 2-6
2013

Oddrey and the New Kid
by Dave Whamond
Owlkids
32 pp.
Ages 4-7
2013

An Ordinary School Day
by C. J. Hamilton
Illustrated by Cindy Revell
Annick Press
24 pp.
Ages 5-9
2004

The Pocket Mommy
by Rachel Eugster
Illustrated by Tom Goldsmith
Tundra Books
32 Pages
Ages 4-6
2013

Suki's Kimono
by Chieri Uegaki
Illustrated by Stephane Jorisch
Kids Can Press
32 pp.
Ages 3-7
2005

Tilt Your Head, Rosie the Red
by Rosemary McCarney
Illustrated by Yvonne Cathcart
Second Story Press
24 pp.
Ages 4-7
2015

Willow Finds a Way
by Lana Button
Illustrated by Tania Howells
Kids Can Press
32 pp.
Ages 5-7
2013

Violet
by Tania Duprey Stehlik
Illustrated by Vanja Vuleta Jovanic
Second Story Press
24 pp.
Ages 5-8
2009






Fiction


4 Kids in 5E and 1 Crazy Year
by Virginia Frances Schwartz
Scholastic Canada
244 pp.
Ages 10-13
2007

26 Tips for Surviving Grade 6
by Catherine Austen
James Lorimer
168 pp.
Ages 8-12
2011

28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6
by Catherine Austen
James Lorimer
189 pp.
Ages 9-12
2014

Athlete vs. Mathlete
by W. C. Mack
Scholastic Canada
172 pp.
Ages 9-12
2013

The BEDMAS Conspiracy
by Deborah Sherman
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
172 pp.
Ages 8-11
20011

Bernadette and the Lunch Bunch
by Suzanne Glickman
Illustrated by Mélanie Allard
Second Story Press
123 pp.
Ages 7-9
2008

Dunces Anonymous
by Kate Jaimet
Orca Book Publishers
157 pp.
Ages 8-12
2009

Dunces Rock
by Kate Jaimet
Orca Book Publishers
215 pp.
Ages 8-11
2014

Egghead
by Caroline Pignat
Red Deer Press
173 pp.
Ages 11-14
2008

Ghost Most Foul
by Patti Grayson
Coteau Books
192 pp.
Ages 10-13
2015

The Glory Wind
by Valerie Sherrard
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
222 pp.
Ages 11+
2010

How to Tame a Bully
by Nancy Wilcox Richards
Illustrated by Drazen Kozjan
Scholastic Canada
80 pp.
Ages 7-10
2006

Invasion of the IQ Snatchers
by Arthur Slade
Coteau Books
115 pp.
Ages 8-12
2007

Jolted: Newton Starker’s Rules for Survival
by Arthur Slade
HarperCollins Canada
203 pp.
Ages 11-14
2008

Late for School (Haley and Bix)
by Scott Higgs
Scholastic Canada
30 pp.
Ages 6-7
2007

The Mealworm Diaries
by Anna Kerz   
Orca Book Publishers
176 pp.
Ages 9+
2009

Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze
by Alan Silberberg
Aladdin
288 pp.
Ages 8-13
2011

The Missing Dog is Spotted
by Jessica Scott Kerrin
Groundwood Books
204 pp.
Ages 8-12
March, 2015

Monsters in the School
by Martyn Godfrey
Scholastic Canada
86 pp.
Ages 7-9
1991


No More Dead Dogs
by Gordon Korman
Scholastic Canada
192 pp.
Ages 8-12
2002


Not Fair, Clare
by Yvonne Prinz
Raincoast Books
197 pp.
Ages 11-13
2008

Overtime
by David Skuy
Scholastic Canada
216 pp.
Ages 11-14
2011

Pigboy
by Vicki Grant
Orca Book Publishers
101 pp.
Ages 9-13
2006

Rain Shadow
by Valerie Sherrard
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
150 pp.
Ages 10+
2014

Revenge on the Fly
by Sylvia McNicoll
Pajama Press
224 pp.
Ages 8+
2014

Rex Zero: The Great Pretender
by Tim Wynne-Jones
Groundwood Books
224 pp.
Ages 10-14
2009

Running Scared
by Beverley Terrell-Deutsch
Red Deer Press
176 pp.
Ages 9-12
2013

Schooled
by Gordon Korman
Scholastic Canada
208 pp.
Ages 8-12
2007

The Secret of Grim Hill
by Linda DeMeulemeester
Lobster Press
187 pp.
Ages 8-12
2007

The Sixth Grade Nickname Game
by Gordon Korman
Scholastic Canada
160 pp.
Ages 8-12
2004

Speechless
by Jennifer Mook-Sang
Scholastic Canada
184 pp.
Ages 8-12
September, 2015

The Spotted Dog Last Seen
by Jessica Scott Kerrin
Groundwood Books
196 pp.
Ages 8-11
2013

The Strictest School in the World: Being the Tale of a Clever Girl, a Rubber Boy and a Collection of Flying Machines, Mostly Broken
by Howard Whitehouse
Illustrated by Bill Slavin
Kids Can Press
252 pp.
Ages 11-14
2006

This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall
by Gordon Korman
Scholastic Canada
116 pp.
Ages 8-12
1978/2011

The Time Time Stopped
by Don Gilmour
Scholastic Canada
151 pp.
Ages 8-11
2011

Ungifted
by Gordon Korman
Scholastic Canada
260 pp.
Ages 8-12
2012







Young Adult

Alice, I Think
by Susan Juby
HarperCollins Canada
244 pp.
Ages 12+
2003

The Baby Project
by Sarah Ellis
Groundwood Books
144 pp.
Ages 12+
1986

Bifocal
by Deborah Ellis and Eric Walters
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
280 pp.
Ages 12-15
2007

Branded
by Eric Walters
Orca Book Publishers
136 pp.
Ages 10-14
2010

Cape Town
by Brenda Hammond
Great Plains Teen Fiction
326 pp.
Ages 14+
2012 

Chance to Dance for You
by Gail Sidonie Sobat
Great Plains Teen Fiction
172 pp.
Ages 14+
2011

Creeps
by Darren Hynes
Razorbill/Penguin Canada
309 pp.
Age 13 +
2013

Cut the Lights
by Karen Krossing
Orca Book Publishers
129 pp.
Ages 11-14
2013


Depth of Field
by Chantel Guertin
ECW Press
208 pp.
Ages 13+
2014

The Dewpoint Show
by Barb Howard
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
231 pp.
Ages 11-14
2010

Drummer Girl
by Karen Bass
Coteau Books
192 pp.
Ages 14+
2011

Fragile Bones: Harrison & Anna
by Lorna Schultz Nicholson
Clockwise Press
217 pp.
Ages 13+
March 2015

Game Plan
by Natalie Corbett Sampson
Fierce Ink Press
351 pp.
Ages 12+
2013

Kissing Frogs
by Alisha Sevigny
Fierce Ink Press
231 pp.
Ages 12+
2014


My Parents Are Sex Maniacs: A High School Horror Story
by Robyn Harding
Annick Press
235 pp.
Ages 14-16
2009


The New Normal
by Ashley Little
Orca Book Publishers
222 pp.
Ages 12+
2013

The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen
by Susin Nielsen
Tundra Books
243 pp.
Ages 11-14
2012


Straight Punch
by Monique Polak
Orca Book Publishers
249 pp.
Ages 13-16
2014

The Taming
by Eric Walters and Teresa Toten
Doubleday Canada
229 pp.
Ages 13-17
2012

The Throne
by Beth Goobie
Red Deer Press
281 pp.
Ages 14+
2013

Tribes
by Arthur Slade
HarperTrophy Canada
166 pp.
Ages 12+
2004


The Truth Commission
by Susan Juby
Razorbill Canada
272 pp.
Ages 14+
April 2015

We Are All Made of Molecules
by Susin Nielsen
Tundra Books
246 pp.
Ages 12+
May 2015

What We Hide
by Marthe Jocelyn
Tundra Books
275 pp.
Ages 14+
2014

When Kacey Left
by Dawn Green
Red Deer Press
228 pp.
Ages 12+
April 2015








Non-Fiction

The Delta is My Home
by Tom McLeod and Mindy Willett
Fifth House
26 pp.
Ages 7-10
2008

Fatty Legs: A True Story
by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
Illustrated by Liz Amini-Holmes
Annick Press
104 pp.
Ages 7-11
2010 


Goodbye Buffalo Bay
by Larry Loyie
Theytus Books
142 pp.
Ages 10-14
2008

Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World
by Susan Hughes
Owlkids Books
64 pp.
Ages 8-13
2011


Razia’s Ray of Hope: One Girl’s Dream of an Education
by Elizabeth Suneby
Illustrated by Suana Verelst
Kids Can Press
36 pp.
Ages 8-10
2013

Reptile Flu: A story about communication
by Kathryn Cole
Illustrated by Qin Leng
Second Story Press
24 pp.
Ages 5-8
April 2015


School Days Around the World
by Margriet Ruurs
Illustrated by Alice Feagan
Kids Can Press
40 pp.
Ages 4-7
2015


Shannen and the Dream for a School
by Janet Wilson
Second Story Press
206 pp.
Ages 8+
2011 

The Way to School
by Rosemary McCarney and Plan International
Second Story Press
32 pp.
Ages 7-12
September 2015

When I Was Eight
by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard
Annick Press
32 pp.
Ages 6-9
2013