For the last year or so, I’ve been hard at work on a combination story and cookbook for young readers. It’s been oodles of fun, spending much time in the kitchen, both on my own and with the eager kids in my family, testing out all sorts of yummy recipes. The work has almost wrapped up and the book is about to go to print, with an anticipated release date of April 2019.

The book is titled Cooking with Bear: A Story and Recipes from the Forest and is a sequel to my earlier story, Bear’s Winter Party, both published by Groundwood Books.

In this new book, Bear gives cooking lessons to Fox, who is tired of eating the same old thing. The two of them visit their forest friends for ideas and to collect local ingredients, then return to Bear’s den to cook up a feast. Along with the story, the book also contains 15 forest-themed recipes for kids who are keen on adventures in the kitchen. (Watercress soup, anyone?)

If you scroll down the blog to a previous entry, you can see the front cover of the book that I posted earlier. The art I’m showing here is the illustration for the back cover, with two very happy friends, kitchen tools in hand.

Lisa Cinar has once again created wonderful art for the book. She and I are very excited about its release. We hope you’re going to love it!

I recently attended a launch of new spring books published by Groundwood. It was a great evening at Kidsbooks hearing about a variety of fun and interesting titles, and catching up with my writer friends.

The books included The Snuggly by my friend, Glen Huser, and is the charming story of a little boy who thinks a snuggly is a great place to carry all manner of things — until it’s not!

Children’s poet and my friend, Robert Heidbreder, introduced his book Rooster Summer, a nostalgic and poetic look back at his childhood growing up on a mid-western farm in Illinois.

And finally, I met Nancy Vo, the author and illustrator of her first book for kids, The Outlaw, a story of a mysterious stranger who rides into town.

Much great spring reading from talented people!

Isn’t this a wonderful illustration! It was created for our local children’s book organization by the talented artist and children’s book illustrator, Mary Jane Muir.

On that note, I attended a lovely literary event at UBC last week and wanted to say how grateful I am to the Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable and to its counterparts across Canada. These are the groups that created the “Information Book Award of Canada” some twenty-five years ago, recognizing and stating how important nonfiction books are to children.

The winner of this year’s award was Jan Thornhill for her beautifully illustrated book, The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk. It was the third time Jan has won this prestigious award and it was a well-deserved honour. The evening was a chance to hear Jan speak about her books and also to celebrate the local Vancouver authors who had been nominated for or won other awards this year.

(I, too, have been fortunate enough to win the Information Book Award twice and consider it one of the highlights of my writing career.)

These days, nonfiction books for children span the age groups and tackle a wide diversity of topics. Most are creatively illustrated and designed, and are highly readable and engaging for the students who gobble them up.

Thanks so much to the Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada for their work on behalf of this award, the authors who write the books and, especially, the children who read them.