Venom Nominated for a Chocolate Lily Award!

Well this is quite exciting news! Venom has been nominated for a Chocolate Lily award! This blurb is from the website:

The Chocolate Lily Awards began with a desire to encourage B.C. grade school children to read books by authors and illustrators living in British Columbia. After seven years, Chocolate Lily has grown into a nationally recognized book awards program.

By exposing children to the best of B.C. fiction and introducing them to the creators of these quality books, we hope to ignite a passion for reading that will last a lifetime. 

The Chocolate Lily is a real indigenous flower that grows in woodland areas along the west coast of B.C. but no where else in Canada. 

***

Karen Ehrenholz

Teacher, Founder of Chocolate Lily 

Best of luck to all the nominees and happy reading to all the participants!

Just a Tad Overwhelming!

Books, books everywhere! The Bologna Children's Book Fair is rather an overwhelming place to wander! Row after row of children's book publishers with booth after booth full of titles from around the world. Austria, Belarus, Argentina, Botswana, Korea, Malaysia, NZ, Australia, the USA, Great Britain - publishers large and small, industry associations, trade publications, etc., etc. all here to showcase authors, illustrators, books, and products...

We cruised through two and a half of the four main exhibition hallsss before retreating to the hotel for a break, heads spinning, backs and feet aching.

A couple of strange 'ain't it a small world' moments included running into Andrew Wooldridge of Orca Books (also from Victoria) and seeing a review of BTS Racehorse in ForeWord, a magazine promoting independently published books.

After we regroup and recover a little, we're going to head back to the fair to try to get hold of a catalogue (they hadn't been delivered yet! someone missed a deadline...), which we will study over dinner and then come up with a strategy for tomorrow.

Yesterday's wandering through Bologna was magnifico! We stumbled into the Museum of Archaeology, which was excellent. Items dated back to the early Paleolithic period (700,000 years ago!) and the Bronze Age. There were also plenty of Etruscan, Roman, and Greek goodies to ogle as well as an impressive collection of Egyptian artifacts.

Spring Launch Event in Vancouver

This is from the CWILL-BC website... A great event, by the sound of it. So, for all of you who are close enough to attend... don't miss this chance to stock up on summer reading!

Saturday, June 9th, between 1 and 3, hie yourself off to the Alice McKay room in the downtown branch of the Vancouver Public Library.

There you will find all the new material you need for a summer of wonderful reading. More than 30 authors and illustrators will be presenting their latest works. Blackberry Books will be on site, so you can pick up a new book or six from your favourite BC authors and illustrators.

These will include: Alison Acheson, Dan Bar-el, Dianna Bonder, Vivien Bowers, Della Burford, Kristin Butcher, Linda DeMeulemeester, Maggie de Vries, kc dyer, Lee Edward Födi, Dennis Foon, Diane Haynes, James Heneghan, Melanie Jackson, Heather Kellerhals-Stewart, Cora Lee, Shar Levine, Ainslie Manson, Adrienne Mason, James McCann, Victoria Miles, Max Newhouse, Cynthia Nugent, Jacqueline Pearce, Louise Phillips, Ellen Schwartz, Sima Elizabeth Shefrin, Shannon Stewart, Tiffany Stone, Joan Betty Stuchner, Diane Tullson, Kari-Lynn Winters & Pam Withers.

This event is sponsored by CWILL BC, Blackberry Books, The Vancouver Public Library and Pandora’s Collective, with support from ING Direct and Purdy’s Chocolate.

Each author or illustrator will have a table — so come out and meet your favourites! There will be treats and activities galore.

There will also be a PASSPORT table, where all attendees can collect a passport. If you collect autographs from ten or more presenters around the room, you can tear off a tab at the bottom of the passport and be eligible for a PRIZE! (Plus you get to keep the autographs…)

Bonnie Nish and Sita Carboni of Pandora’s Collective have graciously offered to help by emceeing this event. Each author and illustrator will get a brief chance to showcase his or her latest books.

There will be three presentation ’sets’ – one for each age group: Picture Books, Middle Grade/Chapter books, Young Adult/Teen books. In between sets, activity will take place at the tables, books can be bought, autographs can be obtained. Activities around the room will resume between the presentations, giving the authors a chance to sign their books etc.

Come and join us for a couple of hours of great book collecting fun — June 9th at the Vancouver Public Library.

~kc dyer