Transatlantic is beyond thrilled to announce that titles from Rachelle Delaney and Melanie Florence have been shortlisted for the Forest of Reading Awards!
The Forest of Reading® is Canada’s largest recreational reading program! This initiative offers ten reading programs to encourage a love of reading in people of all ages. The Forest helps celebrate Canadian books, publishers, authors and illustrators. More than 270,000 readers participate annually from their school and/or public library. All Canadians are invited to participate via their local public library, school library, or individually.
The Forest of Reading Award Programs are where children and young adults pick the winner! Readers choose a program that they would like to be a part of, usually based on their age or grade, and simply begin reading! They can read all ten of the titles, or pick and choose to read only the ones they are interested in. Participants are encouraged to read at least five of the ten titles to be eligible to vote in April. This program aims to encourage a genuine and life-long love of reading among readers of all ages.
THE BIG STING (Tundra Books) by Rachelle Delaney has made the Silver Birch Fiction Nomination List.
About the book:
Eleven-year-old Leo is an “armchair adventurer.” This, according to Dad, means he’d choose adventures in books or video games over real-life experiences. And while Leo hates the label, he can’t argue with it. Unlike his little sister Lizzie, Leo is not a risk-taker.
So when he, Lizzie, Mom and Dad leave the city to visit Grandpa on Heron Island, Leo finds all kinds of dangers to avoid — from the deep, dark ocean to an old barn on the verge of collapse. But nothing on the island is more fearsome than Grandpa himself — Leo has never met anyone so grumpy! According to Mom, Grandpa is still grieving the recent death of his wife, a beekeeper beloved by everyone on the island.
Despite Leo’s best efforts to avoid it, adventure finds him anyway when Grandma’s beehives go missing in the dead of night. Infuriated, Grandpa vows to track down the sticky-fingered thieves himself . . . with risk-averse Leo and danger-loving Lizzie (plus a kitten named Mayhem) in tow.
Rachelle Delaney is the author of several middle-grade novels, including The Metro Dogs of Moscow, which was a CLA Book of the Year Honor Book, as well as a finalist for the Silver Birch Award and the Red Cedar Award, among others. Its sequel, The Circus Dogs of Prague, was shortlisted for the Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader’s Choice Award. The Bonaventure Adventures won BC’s Chocolate Lily Award in 2019, and Clara Voyant was a Chocolate Lily Award nominee. Visit her at www.rachelledelaney.com.
Rachelle is represented by Amy Tompkins.
AUTUMN BIRD AND THE RUNAWAY (Scholastic Canada) by Melanie Florence and Richard Scrimger had made the Red Maple Nomination List.
About the book:
Two kids from different worlds form an unexpected friendship. Cody’s home life is a messy, too-often terrifying story of neglect and abuse. Cody himself is a smart kid, a survivor with a wicked sense of humour that helps him see past his circumstances and begin to try to get himself out.
Autumn is, quite literally, on the other side of the tracks from him. Her home life is loving and secure, and she is “in” with the popular girls at school, even if she has a secret life as a glasses-wearing, self-professed comic book nerd at home. And even if the pressure to fit in at school requires hours of time spent making herself look “perfect.”
Returning home from a movie one evening, Autumn comes across Cody, face down in the laneway behind her house. All Cody knows is that he can’t take another beating from his father like the one he just narrowly escaped. He can’t go home, but he doesn’t have anywhere else to go either. Autumn won’t turn her back on him, even if they never really were friends at school. She agrees to let him hide out in her dad’s art studio at night.
Over the next couple of days of Autumn sneaking Cody food and bandages, his story comes out. And so does hers.
Told in alternating narratives, Autumn Bird and the Runaway is a breathtaking collaboration by two of Canada’s finest writers of books for young readers. Infused with themes of identity, belonging and compassion, it’s a story that reminds us that we are all more than our circumstances, and we are all more connected than we think.
Melanie Florence is an award-winning writer of Cree and Scottish heritage based in Toronto, Ontario. She is the author of Missing Nimâmâ, which won the 2016 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, the 2017 Forest of Reading Golden Oak Award and was a finalist for the 2017 First Nation Communities READ award. Her most recent picture book, Stolen Words, won the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award and was a finalist for the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award. Her other books include the novels Just Lucky, He Who Dreams, Dreaming Color, and the forthcoming middle grade novel Dear Doctor.
Melanie is represented by Amy Tompkins.
Learn more about the awards here: https://forestofreading.com/nominated-lists/
Congratulations!