Philippa Dowding reads Moonlight Dance!

10 Years! Published April 2009

Have you ever seen a gargoyle dancing in the moonlight? 
Katherine has. In fact, she has quite a problem: there's a gargoyle dancing in the moonlight in her backyard!

Hear a new recording of me reading from The Gargoyle in My Yard: Moonlight Dance 

The month of April 2019 marks the 10th Anniversary of the publication of my first book, The Gargoyle in My Yard (April 2009)! Celebrations all month include a new recording of my guitar piece, The Gargoyle Shuffle.

AND I'll be reading chapters from the book over the next few weeks. This week, listen to Chapter 4: Moonlight Dance 

FREE Teacher's Guide: The Gargoyle in My Yard is a 49thShelfTeachers Canadian Kids Book of the Day for
April 8/2019, thanks! The post includes a FREE Teacher's Guide.

BONUS: Here's a link to my Dawg FM RADIO AD for The Gargoyle Overhead and the Forest of Reading, back in 2012. HAHA, that was a fun day. As I remember, the first take was the best one, even though we spent another hour trying to do another take that was as good. Beginner's luck!

Enjoy! More About The Gargoyle Series on this blog.

The Seepe Walters Writing Contest for Kids!

Ah, September with your lovely sun and calm sky. I took a walk along the Outer Harbour Marina "Rabbit Lane" a few days ago, (because, yes there are almost always rabbits in the grass), near my sailboat, and turned to see this lovely image of Toronto, through the early autumn foliage.

The Seepe Walters Writing Contest! Next week I'll be up north in Barrie and Innisfil presenting "The Writer's Life" to school-kids in the area. The idea is to get local kids interested in the Seepe Walters Writing Contest, for grades 3-12. There are real prizes, and the deadline is October 30/2017. Thank you to the librarians at Innisfil IdeaLab and Library for inviting me! I'm so honoured to be asked to talk to kids about the contest. It's always fun, a sacred trust, to talk about writing with the next generation of storytellers.

The kids always remind me of dandelion seed heads, about to be spread to the winds. Or, perhaps like the Wild Carrot/Queen Anne's Lace seeds above, taken on the same walk as the shot of Toronto.

There is potential all around us. And there are stories to be told, too! I can't wait to read them.

More About Presenting to Kids:

What's the Scariest Book You've Ever Read?
The Top 10 Weirdest Questions Kids Have Asked
Tips for Running a Kid's Writing Workshop
What's the Last Book You're Ever Going to Write?

Join me for a reading at Fort Rouille during the CNE!

My book, Carter and the Curious Maze, has been out for a year now. Somehow! It's a time-travel/historical fantasy for kids 8-12, set on the CNE grounds in Toronto, and is book 3 in the award-winning Weird Stories Gone Wrong series.

Last summer I read from the book on the CNE stage, and at Fort York. Now, in the last leg of a reading triumvirate, I'm reading at Fort Rouille, twice during the CNE 2017. Many thanks to the wonderful York Pioneer and Historical Society for the time slot, and the encouragement!

Fort Rouille was the first European settlement in the Toronto area, 1750-1759, a French trading post set strategically near the Humber River, to combat the English fur trade in the area. The original site still sits at the foot of Dufferin Street and Lakeshore Road, on the current CNE grounds.

Part of Carter's time-travel story is set there. It's a fascinating, little-known part of Toronto history that kids won't learn about in school.

Come join me at Scadding Cabin, for a little history and fun on Family Mondays (kids get in with adults for $2):

August 21, 1-3 p.m.: Fort Rouille with Philippa Dowding
August 28, 1-3 p.m.: Fort Rouille with Philippa Dowding

Carter and the Curious Maze Book Trailer
All posts about Carter and the Curious Maze on this Blog

Carter and the Curious Maze at the CNE!

I'm really pleased to say that I'll be reading from my new book, Carter and the Curious Maze, on the Kids World Stage at the Canadian National Exhibition this weekend (Sat. Aug 27/2016)!

A thousand thanks to the Fort York and CNE staff for all the support, and for helping me to arrange the reading.

Here are the details:

Event: Philippa Dowding at the CNE
Place: Kids World Stage (CNE, near Dufferin Gates)
Date: Saturday, August 27th
Time: 4 pm - 4:30 pm
FREE with admission to the CNE. The author and the illustrator Shawna Daigle, will be selling/signing books after the reading.

I hope you'll come and join us.

The book is a time-travel story set on the CNE grounds. Young Carter is bored with the CNE this year, until he enters the curious maze, and travels back to 3 time periods on the same spot: the CNE in 1903, the Battle of York on April 27, 1813, and then back to a fur-trading day at little-known French Fort Rouille, in 1750. The Fort Rouille monument still stands at the foot of Dufferin Street, behind the bandshell and next to Scadding Cabin. I've lived in Toronto all of my adult life, and had no idea that it existed, and that Fort Rouille was actually the first European settlement in the area.

Me signing books at Fort York, thank you for having me!

I had so much fun writing this book, although it was an incredible amount of work for 20,000 words. But as I delved further into the 3 time periods, there was more and more I wanted to say. It was tough to keep the word count for each chapter to about 1,000 words and to say what I wanted to say in 3 chapters per period. I also needed to keep the tension high, since the maze is actually another midway ride, after all, with chills, thrills and scream-inducing moments. Just like any good roller-coaster.

The next stage, the getting-the-word-out stage, has been fun, too. I was lucky enough to read at Fort York twice in August 2016 to summer camp kids, that was pretty special. Many thanks to the Fort for having me. (Note: a room of kids yelling KA-BOOM makes me laugh, apparently, every time.)

Fort York 2016

The book isn't really a history lesson, although it was my hope that the mystery of the maze will pique young reader's interest in the historical aspects of the story. And certainly it isn't didactic, it's a yarn about growing older and the infinite mysteries of the world around us as we leave childhood. I leave it to the reader to form their own impressions of the awful practice of freak shows in the last century, the terror of the Battle of York, or to recognize that the fur-trade was the sad first step in the European domination of First Nations people. The information is all there, Carter is sympathetic and curious, and it's my hope that teachers and librarians will open the conversation with their students, and use this book as a jumping off point for further inquiry and critical thinking.

I also wrote Carter and the Curious Maze because I have lived in and around Toronto most of my life, and I have the fondest memories of travelling to the CNE on the GO train from Oakville as a young teenager (one of a gaggle), and wandering through the CNE until the last train left for home. The words "Doggie Doggie" will mean something to a few readers of this piece, and send anticipatory shivers down a few spines, like they still do for me.

A trip to the CNE was, for most of my friends and certainly for me, our first taste of real freedom, through a world of wonder, strange and luminous to us. I wrote Carter and the Curious Maze to share some of that wonder with the next generation of readers, a sort of love song if you like, to Toronto. Finally, to be able to read this book at Fort York and now the CNE this weekend ... how lucky am I? Thanks to all who made it happen.

Recent reviews of Carter and the Curious Maze:

"This original take on time-travel historical fiction is a sure bet" Kirkus Reviews
"Readers will be compelled by historical tales of Toronto's past" 4/4 Stars, Highly Recommended, CM Magazine
Goodreads Reviews

Find a few more thoughts about why I wrote the book here: AUTHOR ARC LETTER

And to showcase illustrator Shawna Daigle's fantastic art, here is the BOOK TRAILER

Enjoy!