The Vancouver Public Library, in conjunction with Cwill BC, has announced the locations of the new plaques for the Reading Lights program, and I am delighted to have two of my books featured on lampposts in the city.

If you are interested, you can see the lovely plaque for Bear’s Winter Party at Jones Park, across from 5381 Commercial St.

And the plaque for West Coast Wild is at Hinge Park, at 1st and Columbia.

I haven’t seen the plaques in person yet, but I plan to soon. And then I will post some photos. It’s very exciting!

A big thank you to Vi Hughes, who spearheaded the project and to the Vancouver Public Library for their enthusiastic support of it.

The past ten days have seen many heartfelt tributes to Sheila Barry, who was the beloved publisher and editor to authors and illustrators across the country. Here is a lovely one by the talented and wonderful Qin Leng.

It is with a heavy heart that I write about the loss of Sheila Barry, the wonderful, insightful publisher at Groundwood Books and a long-time editor and friend of mine. She made the world a better, brighter place — both in person and through the books she published. I will miss her dearly.

Groundwood Books said this about her today:

As she did her whole life, Sheila brought happiness and laughter and thoughtfulness and love to all of us here. She was such a valued colleague. And Sheila was a great publisher – influential in ways large and small. The legacy of books she leaves will run far into the future.

We hold Sheila in our minds as the most wonderful example of a truly good person, one who had such a positive effect on so many people. We will miss her terribly.

I was happy to hear the news that two of my recent books have been selected to be Reading Lights books by the Vancouver Public Library.

Bear’s Winter Party, illustrated by Lisa Cinar, and West Coast Wild, illustrated by Karen Reczuch (both published by Groundwood), will have illustrated plaques featuring them on lampposts around the city of Vancouver.

The purpose of Reading Lights is to highlight local books and to encourage children and families to take them out of the library. It is a lovely honour and both of the illustrators and I are thrilled!

The plaques will be installed sometime in early 2018 and I look forward to seeing them! For more information about the Reading Lights program, you can visit their website at the VPL.

(And if you check the Reading Lights map, you will see an earlier book of mine, Watch Me Grow!, with photos by Brian Harris, has a plaque at the northwest corner of Sunrise Park.)

Lisa Cinar, the wonderful illustrator, and I were happy to receive an email this week from the Chocolate Lily folks telling us that Bear’s Winter Party had been nominated for the 2018 Chocolate Lily Award — BC’s Children’s Choice Award.

Lisa and I are thrilled, and so is Bear! A big furry thank you to the nominating committee. Honey-ginger cookies for all!

It’s spring — the season of new beginnings!

In that spirit, here is a beautiful spring image painted by Karen Reczuch in our book West Coast Wild. Along the coast of BC, the sandpipers are stopping by on their annual migration to northern parts, where they will lay their eggs and hatch their babies.

Also in the spirit of new beginnings, I’d like to introduce you to my new website! Welcome!

For ten years, I had a lovely website created by Carol at Third Planet Design in Toronto. She did a fabulous job of updating it and keeping me current. But with the changing technology of today’s world, I realized that many authors were now building and updating their own websites. I thought it was time for me to dive in!

This new website was set up by the good folks at Kits Media in Vancouver. It’s been a lot of work to organize the content and images (and my thoughts!) and the format is new to me. But it’s been fun learning how to update the website myself. Forgive me if a few mistakes occur as I figure it all out!

Please have a look around and see what you think. Feel free to send me some comments via my Contact page.

I’d love to hear from you! Thanks for stopping by!

P.S. If you’ve read my blog in the past, you may recognize the earlier entries here. Like the sandpipers, they’ve migrated too!

I’m excited about the release of my lovely new picture book, Bear’s Winter Party! It’s the story of a lonely bear and how he makes friends. (He has a party!)

The book is beautifully illustrated by Lisa Cinar and published by Groundwood Books. Would you like to know more? Here’s a link to Groundwood‘s page and to Lisa’s page.

I’m delighted that my book, Watch Me Grow! has been selected as part of “Reading Lights.” This is a collaborative project by the Vancouver Public Library and the Children’s Writers and Illustrators of BC to feature excerpts of local children’s books, on plaques, on lamp posts around the city. What a wonderful idea!

My lovely plaque is at the northwest corner of Sunrise Park (near Rupert and 1st Ave.) in East Vancouver. Thank you to everyone involved in this amazing initiative!

To see more about Reading Lights, please check the website of the Vancouver Public Library. Watch for more plaques around the city!

The children’s book publishing world is a wonderful place, filled with warm, supportive people who are mutually appreciative of one another’s work.

One of the best groups of such people is found with my publisher, Groundwood Books. And, today, they were recognized as the “Best Children’s Publisher in North America” at the Bologna Book Fair.

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair (held each year in Italy) is regarded as the world’s biggest and most important children’s book fair in the world. Receiving an honour here is highly prestigious!

Congratulations to Groundwood, and to publisher, Sheila Barry, and to all the talented, hard-working people in this organization who collaborate to create such beautiful books for children!

What a marvellous honour!