Happy Canada Day, eh? I encourage non-Canadians out there to embrace your inner U!

2013 TD Canadian Children's Book Centre Awards: Photos, List Of Award Winners

What was in my swag bag from the TD Canadian Childrens' Book Centre Awards event Had a great time celebrating Canadian children's books at last night's TD Canadian Children's Book Centre Awards gala! This was my second time attending the event, and it was just as fabulous as last year's. Lots of great conversation with kidlit-types before the ceremony began, lots of yummy food and drinks, cheering on the finalists/winners, inspiring speeches. And then champagne and decadent desserts!

I opted to leave my regular camera at home and just use my iPhone 5s to take pics this time. I was pretty happy with how most of them turned out (much better than the flash photos my old iPhone took), though I had to warn people about the double flash...one small pre-flash then the main flash along with the photo being taken. The first flash helps the phone camera determine color temperature.

Anyway, you can see my photos on Flickr and on Facebook. So great to see some of my Torkidlit friends again, plus I enjoyed some new kidlit-types as well. My children's book author-illustrator sister (Ruth Ohi) was there, too:

With my sister Ruth, whose KENTA AND THE BIG WAVE (Annick Press) and FOX AND SQUIRREL (Scholastic Canada) came out earlier this year. KENTA got a starred review in Kirkus!

I also ran into some of the Simon & Schuster Canada team:

Speaking of which, I'm looking forward to attending a mega-celebration bash tonight to celebrate Simon & Schuster Canada's new publishing program!

AWARD WINNERS:

TD Canadian Children's Literature Award: ONE YEAR IN COAL HARBOUR by Polly Horvath (Groundwood Books)

Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award: MR. ZINGER'S HAT written by Cary Fagan, illustrated by Dusan Petricic (Tundra Books)

Norma Fleck Award For Canadian Children's Non-Fiction: KIDS OF KABUL: LIVING BRAVELY THROUGH A NEVER-ENDING WAR by Deborah Ellis (Groundwood Books)

Geoffrey Bilson Award For Historical Fiction For Young People: THE LYNCHING OF LOUIE SAM by Elizabeth Stewart (Annick Press)

John Spray Mystery Award: THE LYNCHING OF LOUIE SAM by Elizabeth Stewart (Annick Press)

Monica Hughes Award For Science Fiction and Mystery: SERAPHINA by Rachel Hartman (Doubleday Canada)

There was also a special TD Canadian Children's Literature Fan Choice Award given to Polly Horvath for her novel, ONE YEAR IN COAL HARBOUR. And Loris Lesynski (author) and Michael Martchenko (illustrator) gave a short speech about their Annick Press picture book, BOY SOUP, being shared with first grade students across Canada as part of the TD Grade One Book Giveaway. That's 500,000 copies!!

Thanks to TD and the Canadian Children's Book Centre for a fine event, and congrats to all the finalists and winners. You can browse the list of all the finalists at the Canadian Children's Book Centre Awards on the CCBC website as well as more detailed info about the awards, jurors, etc. in this CCBC press release.

New Canadian stamps feature picture book character created by children's book author/illustrator, Marie-Louise Gay

Thanks to my sister Ruth for the heads-up: 

Stella, the star of Marie-Louise Gay's picture books and a television series based on her stories, is being featured in a series of stamps issued by Canada Post.

I must get some!