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The Queen of Junk Island by Alexandra Mae Jones

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 14 Jul 2022

Waterstones
Amazon

“Unapologetically tackles biphobia, generational trauma, misogyny, and slut-shaming… this intensely personal and moving narrative adeptly captures the often nerve-wracking complexity of queer adolescence.” Publishers Weekly
“A story about intergenerational love; understanding ghosts, both internal and external; and becoming a person who will allow others to love them. Haunting, unusual, and real.” KIRKUS

We drove out to the cottage with all our things in June, a week after the phone call came and two weeks after Christopher Smith ruined my life.

YA debut from a young Canadian author who in her spare time paints, sings, knits, and makes ukulele covers and DIY videos for her YouTube channel.

Still reeling from a recent trauma, sixteen-year-old Dell is relieved when her mom suggests a stay at the family cabin. But the much-needed escape quickly turns into a disaster. The lake and woods are awash in trash left by a previous tenant. And worse, Dell’s mom has invited her boyfriend’s daughter to stay with them. Confident, irreverent Ivy presses all of Dell’s buttons–somehow making Dell’s shame and self-consciousness feel even more acute. Yet Dell is drawn to Ivy in a way she doesn’t fully understand. As Dell uncovers secrets in the wreckage of her family’s past–secrets hinted at through troubling dreams and strange apparitions–Ivy leads her toward thrilling, if confusing, revelations about her sexuality and identity.

Set during a humid summer in the mid-2000s, The Queen of Junk Island simmers with the intensity of a teenage girl navigating the suffocating expectations of everyone around her.

Follow the author on Instagram:

And on TikTok

@alexandelljones sometimes you just gotta knit the book cover for your debut queer YA novel what can I say #knitting #knittersoftiktok #knittok #booktok #authorsoftiktok #queenofjunkisland #booklook #ootd ♬ original sound – Kira Kosarin

Winners Announced for the 2016 Canadian Children’s Book Centre Awards

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The Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) has announce the winners of its seven English-language children’s book awards.

The TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award was given to author Melanie Florence and illustrator François Thisdale, who will share the $30,000 prize, for their picture book Missing Nimâmâ (Clockwise Press); an additional $12,500 was divided between the winning book’s publisher and the creators of the other four nominated titles.

Seven awards in total were given out:

Missing Nimâmâ, written by Melanie Florence and illustrated by François Thisdale, won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award ($30,000)

Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox by Danielle Daniel won the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award ($20,000)

Sex Is a Funny Word: A Book About Bodies, Feelings, and You, written by Cory Silverberg and illustrated by Fiona Smyth, won the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction ($10,000)

Uncertain Soldier by Karen Bass won the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction For Young People ($5,000)

The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands won the John Spray Mystery Award ($5,000)

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow won the Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy ($5,000)

The Truth Commission by Susan Juby won the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award ($5,000)

See more at: http://bookcentre.ca/2016-ccbc-award-winners/

Winners Announced for the 2016 Canadian Children’s Book Centre Awards

 

40th Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards Shortlist

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RuthSchwartzPrizeThe 2016 shortlist for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards was announced in Toronto yesterday. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Schwartz Children’s Book Awards – the only Canadian literary award where student juries work together to choose the winning books.

This year’s winners will be chosen by student juries from Toronto’s Scarborough Village Alternative Public School. The announcement will take place during a school assembly on Wednesday, June 22.

Children’s Picture Book
Award Category

Young Adult / Middle Reader
Award Category

A Boy Asked the Wind
by Barbara Nickel (Yarrow, B.C.)
illustrations by Gillian Newland (Toronto, Ont.)
Red Deer Press
A Boy Asked The Wind		Cut Off
by Jamie Bastedo (Yellowknife, N.W.T.)
Red Deer Press
Cut Off
Melvis and Elvis
by Dennis Lee (Toronto, Ont.)
illustrations by Jeremy Tankard (Vancouver, B.C.)
HarperCollins Canada Ltd.
Melvis and Elvis		The Dogs
by Allan Stratton (Toronto, Ont.)
Scholastic Canada Ltd.
The Dogs
Mr. Postmouse’s Rounds
by Marianne Dubuc (Montreal, Que.)
Kids Can Press
Mr. Postmouse's Rounds		Regenesis
by Eric Walters (Guelph, Ont.)
Doubleday Canada
Regenesis
Some Things I’ve Lost
by Cybèle Young (Toronto, Ont.)
Groundwood Books
Some Things I've Lost		We Are All Made of Molecules
by Susin Nielsen (Vancouver, B.C.)
Tundra Books
We are all made of molecules
Today Is the Day
by Eric Walters (Guelph, Ont.)
illustrations by Eugenie Fernandes (Lakehurst, Ont.)
Tundra Books
Today is the day		Young Man With Camera
by Emil Sher (Toronto, Ont.)
Scholastic Canada Ltd.
Young man with camera

About the awards

  • Two awards of $6,000 each are presented annually to recognize artistic excellence in writing and illustration in English-language Canadian children’s literature.
  • The winners are selected by two juries of young readers, which this year are students at Scarborough Village Alternative Public School in Toronto.
    • Five students in grades 3 and 4 will select the recipient(s) of the Children’s Picture Book Award.
    • Five students in grades 7 and 8 will select the recipient of the Young Adult / Middle Reader Award.

Remembering Children’s Book Store founder Judy Sarick “a huge force in the world of children’s books”

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Quill&QuireThe Canadian children’s literature community is mourning Children’s Book Store founder and kidlit advocate Judy Sarick, who died in Toronto on Feb. 15.

“I have an ache in my heart knowing that Judy has died,” says author and librarian Ken Setterington, a longtime friend of Sarick’s. “She was a huge force in the world of children’s books. Not just in Canada but all around the world. The Children’s Book Store was a destination for visitors to Toronto.”

Sarick was a beloved and revered fixture of the early days of Canadian kidlit, “one of the pioneers in the coming-of-age of Canadian children’s literature in the 1970s and ′80s,” says Judith Saltman

via Remembering Children’s Book Store founder Judy Sarick | Quill and Quire.

Is it a golden age for Canadian picture books?

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Interesting panel discussion from Quill & Quire website on subject of Canadian picture books…

If you’ve noticed that Canadian children’s book authors and illustrators seem to be garnering a lot of attention lately, you’re not alone. International awards and recognition and a ton of buzz are becoming the norm for homegrown talent. It got us thinking: are we in a golden age of Canadian picture books? Q&Q asked a panel of kidlit experts, including librarians, authors, and reviewers, to weigh in.

MEET THE PANEL:

Sarah Sorensen is an historian, author, and librarian currently working at the Hamilton Public Library. She is also a frequent reviewer for Q&Q.

Judith Saltman is a professor at the School of Library, Archival & Information Studies at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches courses in children’s literature. She has written three books on Canadian kidlit and publishing.

Linda Ludke is a collections management librarian at the London Public Library who reviews children’s books for Q&Q and the National Reading Campaign.

Helen Kubiw is the blogger behind CanLit for LittleCanadians, a teacher-librarian, former chair of the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading, and current YA authors’ co-ordinator for the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival.

Sarah Ellis is a Vancouver author and former librarian. She has won numerous awards, including a Governor General’s Literary Award, Vicky Metcalf Award, Sheila A. Egoff Award, TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, and the B.C. Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. Her latest children’s book is Ben Says Goodbye, illustrated by Kim La Fave (Pajama Press).

Kerry Clare is the editor of 49thShelf.com, and writes about books and reading on her personal blog, Pickle Me This. She also edited the anthology The M Word: Conversations about Motherhood (Goose Lane Editions).

Shannon Ozirny is the head of youth services at the West Vancouver Memorial Library and reviews regularly for Q&Q and The Globe and Mail. She has been a jury member for the B.C. Book Prize, and sat on committees for the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Best Books for Kids and the American Library Association’s Odyssey Award.

Click through for the discusssion via Kidlit spotlight: the golden age of Canadian picture books | Quill and Quire.

Critics of ‘vulgar’ book for young adults want Governor General’s award rescinded

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A Kanata children’s author has joined a protest over the awarding of a Governor General’s Literary Award to what critics are calling a “vulgar” and “gratuitous” book for young adults about gender identity issues in high school.

Kathy Clark says she is among 1,500 people across Canada petitioning the Canada Council to revoke the 2014 award because of graphic content in Raziel Reid’s debut novel When Everything Feels like the Movies.

The novel is inspired by the true story of an openly gay 15-year-old California boy who was shot to death in 2008 by a classmate he’d asked to be his Valentine. Its protagonist is a transgender male teen whose “sexual yearnings, masturbating, fantasizing (disturbingly, including sex with his father) and voyeurism constitute the bulk of the narrative,” Barbara Kay wrote in a National Post column.

Clark, author of two children’s books, says Reid’s use of language is inappropriate for a book recognized in the young adult classification (12 to 18) within the children’s literature category.

via Critics of ‘vulgar’ book for young adults want Governor General’s award rescinded | Ottawa Citizen.

Out Of Time by D. G. Laderoute (Five Rivers Publishing)

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OutOfTime

I mentioned in a blog post earlier in the day while introducing the new Worth A Look category, the poignancy of this time of year when decks are being cleared in readiness for a new season of publications.

The most difficult books to put by without a long last look are those titles that have been hand-mailed to us by the authors themselves, often from overseas. Frequently these books will not even make it to our pending piles – such is the quality of many self and independently published titles – but Out Of Time by D. G. Laderoute (not self-published but sent to us by the author himself) certainly looked worthy of consideration.

From the back jacket:

For Riley Corbeau, moving to a small town on Superior’s north shot was an opportunity for his family to find a new beginning after the death of his mother. For Gathering Cloud, living on Kirche Gumi’s shore now meant it was time to seek a vision and become a man.

There on a beach of this legendary lake, two boys meet across time and impossibilities, brought together to face an ancient evil from Anishnabe folklore, and in doing so forge a friendship that defies time.

I have to concede now that I am not going to devote time to reading the book in full, so much better that it is out of the house, on a school library or a charity book shelf waiting to find its reader.

Governor General’s Awards Finalists 2014

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This year one book has found itself on both finalist lists for Canada’s major literary awards:

Children’s Literature (Text) | Littérature jeunesse (texte)
Jonathan Auxier, The Night Gardener – Penguin Canada
Lesley Choyce, Jeremy Stone – Red Deer Press
Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Skraelings – Inhabit Media Inc.
Raziel Reid, When Everything Feels like the Movies – Arsenal Pulp Press
Mariko Tamaki, This One Summer – Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press

Children’s Literature (Illustration) | Littérature jeunesse (illustrations)
Marie-Louise Gay, Any Questions?, text by Marie-Louise Gay – Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press
Qin Leng, Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin, text by Chieri Uegaki – Kids Can Press
Renata Liwska, Once Upon a Memory, text by Nina Laden -Little, Brown and Company
Julie Morstad, Julia, Child, text by Kyo Maclear – Tundra Books
Jillian Tamaki, This One Summer, text by Mariko Tamaki – Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press