Free Classroom Activity Guide for Everton Miles is Stranger than Me

Pick a friend for the End of the World...

Draw like a 15th Century Creative Visionary (or just draw something)...

Villains have all the fun, who is yours? ...

Just some of the intriguing questions for kids in grades 6-9 from the new Classroom Activity Guide for my latest YA title, Everton Miles is Stranger than Me. This new book is the sequel to The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden, which was shortlisted for the OLA Red Maple Award in 2015. The series is called The Night Flyer's Handbook.

The Classroom Activity Guide is free on the publisher's site, thanks to Dundurn Press for putting it together and making it available.

Take a look at the guide now:  Everton Miles is Stranger than Me, Classroom Activity Guide.

Themes: loneliness, bullying, loss, family, friendship, community, volunteerism, teenage years, high school, parents, death, wisdom, bravery, self-esteem.

Reviews of Everton Miles is Stranger than Me:

Kirkus Reviews
Canlit For Little Canadians
Fab Book Reviews
Resource Links, (E for Excellent)
Goodreads

Introducing Everton Miles is Stranger than Me

I am SO HAPPY to introduce the amazing cover of my forthcoming book, Everton Miles is Stranger than Me, (Dundurn Press, Oct. 2016). This is the sequel to my Red Maple nomimated book, The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden. The series is called The Night Flyer's Handbook.

Here's a link to Dundurn Press for more information.

Much more to come in the months ahead, but for now, I just want to bask in how much I love this cover and how great it feels to finally have this magic realism YA story almost out in the world. Many, many readers (and librarians, teachers and friends) have asked me when the sequel is coming out, so now you know: October 2016.  Enjoy!

Thunder Bay Forest of Reading was GREAT!

 Oh, it's Forest of Reading month! My book, The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden, is nominated for The Red Maple award, the winner of which is going to be announced on May 12th at Harbourfront in Toronto. I'll be there on stage with the other nominees, can't wait. Here's a full list of the other great books.

On April 30-May 1 2015, I attended the first of the Forest of Reading celebrations up in Thunder Bay, that was really fun. Here's me standing in the Thunder Bay Silver City beneath my name in lights, getting ready to do my presentation (and I'm a 3D Avenger, apparently). And below is a photo of my presentation on the Silver City screen ... probably the only time my name will ever be on a 40-foot high movie screen! Pretty cool. (I asked the kids in the front row to stand up for some size context).

It's going to be an exciting month. Thank you to the Ontario Library Association for all their hard work, and all the librarians, teachers and young readers who love books, reading and authors.Wish Gwendolyn and I luck!

Here's me doing a library presentation on April 23 in Aurora, that was fun too!

Year in Review: nominations, book launches, and a magazine excerpt

Here it is, the last day of 2014. Like most of you, I have a Facebook page where I recently received my "Your Year in Review" compilation of photos. While I'm always creeped out when Facebook reaches into my life to show me who I am (weird hall of mirrors there), I did realize after looking at the photos that it was an amazing year for me. In fact, 2014 will be difficult to top. I'm very, very grateful for any successes that came my way, thank you to readers, voting committees, fans, and my publisher, Dundurn Press. Here's a brief rundown of an amazing year:

1. January: A book launch! The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden came into the world.
2. February: The Gargoyle at the Gates was nominated for 5 awards: the OLA Silver Birch Express award, the SYRCA Diamond Willow award, the Hackmatack and Red Cedar awards, and the Co-operative Children's Book Centre Award. It was also a White Raven Book from the International Youth Library in Munich, 2013.
3. March/April: I toured the Near North (North Bay and Parry Sound) with the OLA Silver Birch and Red Maple nominees. Won the Near North vote for best Silver Birch Express book (my first-ever win!), talked to 1500 kids in Nipissing University, had dinner with Kelly Armstrong (yes, THE Kelly Armstrong), and got to do 4 whirlwind presentations with my friend Rebecca Upjohn. Here's a video of kids' dancing to the gargoyle shuffle (that's me playing guitar) and a link to more about my Near North tour.
4. May: did the amazing OLA Harbourfront Festival of trees, where I whipped fake apples into the crowd (that was pretty fun!). Also my daughter and I toured New Brunswick and PEI with the Hackmatack award, which was fantastic. Met Dan Bar-El and Ashley Spires! I also won the Durham County Silver Birch Express vote for best book (my second-ever win).
5. June: Honoured to have an excerpt of Jake and the Giant Hand, published in the first-ever kids' issue of Taddle Creek Magazine. Have a read.
6. July/August: signed contracts for two new books, Myles and the Monster Outside, and Carter and the Curious Maze (the next two books in the Weird Stories Gone Wrong series, thank you to my publisher, Dundurn) coming Oct 2015 and May 2016, respectively.
7. September/October: A second book launch! Jake and the Giant Hand came into the world at Indigo Yorkdale. Shawna Daigle, the wonderful illustrator, and I signed books and answered many questions about our craft, really, really fun. (Her favourite illustration is the last one, of the giant hand, FYI).
8. November/December: An award nomination! Very, very honoured to say that The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden was nominated in November 2014 for an OLA Red Maple 2015 award, a first for me. Fellow nominees include Eric Walters, Kenneth Oppel, Richard Scrimger, Sigmund Brouwer, Jacqueline Guest, Caroline Pignat, Vikki VanSickle, Jess Keating and Sarah Ellis. Wow.

So, 2014 was a year of 2 new books, 6 award nominations, 1 magazine excerpt, and two author tours, plus two regional Silver Birch Express wins for The Gargoyle at the Gates. I'm very lucky, and very honoured, a banner year for sure. Happy New Year, and all the best to my readers in 2015!

It's a Red Maple nomination for The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden!

I could not be more honoured to announce that my 2014 novel, The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden, has just been nominated for a Red Maple Award by the Ontario Library Association. This is an annual Reader's Choice award, and young readers in grades 7 and 8 (ages 11-14) all across Ontario will be reading the book in school, and discussing it in book groups all winter, then voting on their favourite book out of the ten selected next spring.

Here is the amazing list of nominees: Kenneth Oppel, Eric Walters, Richard Scrimger, Vikki VanSickle, Jaqueline Guest, Sigmund Brouwer, Jess Keating, Sarah Ellis, Caroline Pignat, and me.

I'll be touring the province with many of these wonderful Canadian authors (cannot wait to meet Ken Oppel!), talking to young readers about the book, about writing, about my fascination with the gift of flight. Next spring, May 2015, the program culminates in a huge celebration of reading and books at Harbourfront in Toronto, at the Forest of Reading.

I'm so very honoured to be part of this in 2014-2015, it's a huge achievement and a remarkable program. Hundreds of thousands of children in Ontario take part, from ages 4-18, and all the authors are locally-grown Canadians, which is also wonderful.

Thank you to the Ontario Library Association, and to my publisher, Dundurn Press, for letting me tell a strange story about a girl who wakes up one morning floating on the ceiling of her bedroom. More to come, but for now, please have a look at some reviews and earlier posts about Gwendolyn Golden:

Starred Review in Quill & Quire
Goodreads reviews
Why I chose Gwendolyn MacEwen's poem for an epigraph
Earlier Blog Posts