Archive for November 2008
Kathy Stinson & Cornelia Oberlander Visit Crofton House
Imagine having the chance to meet the author of a biography you were reading, and the person the biography was about, too? That’s what happened for a group of Grade Six students in Vancouver on the last morning of my Book Week tour.
3 comments November 25, 2008
Children’s Book Week 2008 – A Few Highlights
Between November 17 and November 21 I met with roughly 900 kids and the many adults (teachers, librarians, and parents) who accompanied them to a total of 17 readings. Here are just a few moments from that week that I carry with me still, now that I’m home again.
1. When the bell rang to end my session with a group of Grade Eight students in Port Coquitlam, several approached me with their hands out. “Can we please just see how it ends?” I’d been reading from a short story in 101 Ways to Dance. (I’d waited till near the end of the session to introduce this book so I’d have a feel for the group and the teachers, and I could tell this was a book they’d welcome hearing about.) Eager to read how the game in “Chicken” would end, the students huddled together around my copy of the book so they could finish reading the story for themselves. As faster readers drifted away, others stepped in to take their places. Eventually one dark-haired teenage girl remained. The image of her bent over my book in that school library as she lost (or perhaps found) herself in something I’d written will most certainly help sustain me as I undertake revisions to my current ya novel in progress.
2. To a group of Grade Three kids, I was reading, in Seven Clues, the scene in which Matt’s elderly neighbour is introduced. “… His jowly cheeks pulled his mouth down in a permanent frown.” At this point, I glanced up and spotted a boy near the back of the room, his face contorted in a jowly frown, as he internalized the description he was hearing.
3. During a reading of A Pocket Can Have A Treasure In It with Grade One students in Chilliwack, a lively discussion took place about all the things a tree can have in it. (Right after I read, “Can a tree have a cow in it? No. A tree can have a bird in it and a tree can have a swing in it.”) Those kids returned to their classrooms keen to get to work on writing their own books or making a big mural of all the clever things they thought of that a tree can have in it. (Or was that the group that got excited about all the things a muffin can have in it? It’s hard sometimes to keep all the groups straight!)
It’s a real treat to meet with readers as enthusiastic (and well mannered) as those I met during my BC (Vancouver & Lower Mainland) Book Week tour. Thanks Canadian Children’s Book Centre for sending me there!
Add comment November 25, 2008
Children’s Book Week 2008 – A Breakfast Surprise
On Monday morning I walked into the dining room at the Sylvia Hotel. A woman at a table at the far end of the room waved. At me? I didn’t expect to see anyone I knew there; there must be someone behind me, I thought. But the woman seemed to be looking at me and I kept looking at her. Could this be Cynthia Nugent, the Book Week coordinator I’d met just recently and who was coming to drive me to my first school? She didn’t say she would be joining me for breakfast!
When I’d made my way half way down the dining room, with this woman (who wasn’t Cynthia) and I studying each other the whole time (it was probably ten or fifteen seconds), she spoke. “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“That’s okay,” I said, “I thought you might be someone else, too.”
At the same instant, we recognized each other’s voices.
2 comments November 24, 2008
A “Desert Island” Author
photo by Kirsti Wakelin
That’s how I was introduced last week before speaking to the Children’s Literature Roundtable in Vancouver. “The great thing about Kathy is that she is the ultimate desert island writer,” said Shannon Ozirny, a dynamic young grad student, soon to be fantastic librarian. “Now, I know you’re all wondering, ‘What the heck is a desert island writer?’ Well, let’s say that you’re stuck on a desert island with a baby. If you had to pick just one author’s books that would satiate that baby through all the years until it was big and strong enough to swim for help, well, you gotta pick Kathy Stinson.”
Shannon, with black hair and striking black-framed glasses, went on to very cleverly tie a number of my titles to a desert island experience: “That baby wonders why mommy and daddy look different under their coconut shells? You’ve got The Bare Naked Book. Baby grows into a toddler and refuses to (more…)
1 comment November 18, 2008
TPL’s First and Best!
Hurray! Toronto Public Library has chosen A Pocket Can Have A Treasure In It for their 2008 “First and Best” list. That’s a list of the best Canadian children’s books for building reading readiness in children birth to five. To see the 2007 list, click here.
2 comments November 4, 2008
