CCBC Best Books for Kids and Teens Fall 2018, OCULUM makes the list!

Every spring and fall, the Canadian Children's Book Centre puts out their list of the 

Best Books for Kids and Teens.

So pleased that OCULUM made the list in the latest issue, Fall 2018! Thanks guys! 

I love the tags: Dystopia, Science Fiction, Adventure, Environment, Robots, Survival, Secrets. 

They could have added one more: Shakespeare 

The main characters in OCULUM are Miranda1 and Mann (remember The Tempest), and the main book that the children living in the domed world of OCULUM read is the WillBook, which is a collection of Shakespeare's plays and poems. 

Thanks to wonderful author Kate Blair for the picture (I still don't have my copy yet, due to a postal strike here in Canada).

Enjoy the full fall catalogue online at CCBC

Get a copy of OCULUM now

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Introducing OCULUM, a middle grade dystopia

AVAIL. APRIL 22/2018 from
Dancing Cat Books | ORDER NOW

Oculum (noun): Latin for eye; in architecture, a circular
oculus allows light through the top of the Roman
Pantheon and similar ancient domed structures.

Oculum aperui: I opened an eye.

I could NOT be more honoured to announce that my new
middle grade dystopia, Oculum (Dancing Cat Books) is now available! 

Here's the synopsis:

"I'm Mann, just Mann."

The world is slowly recovering after environmental collapse, and the children of the automated, domed city of Oculum have begun to awaken. Miranda, William and the 998 other children wake to tend the fruit trees and gardens behind the thick, opaque walls of their world. Some speak quietly of Outside, which is forbidden. Until William finds a door ...

The children outside the dome of Oculum — Mann, Cranker and others raised by Grannie — live in the rubble of the old destroyed city. They live with hunger, hard work, and stories about a time before the fall, of buggies without horses, light without fire and magical fruit called "peaches." But it must be lies, until one day Mann and Cranker get close enough to the ancient dome to find a door...."

I absolutely love the amazing cover of Mother of Miranda1 holding out a peach, by Emma Dolan. Thank you Emma! 

Thank you also to Barry Jowett and Marc Cote at Dancing Cat Books for inviting me in. And thanks once again to my intrepid editor, Allister Thompson, who was there from beginning to end (and that's eleven books we've created together now). 

More to come about Oculum in the weeks ahead, but for now ... love and peaches.

Oculum is now available everywhere 
For Media and Preview Copy Contact 
ORDER a copy now
For more about OCULUM on this blog

OCULUM, coming Spring 2018!

COMING SPRING 2018 from
Dancing Cat Books | PRE-ORDER NOW

Introducing OCULUM, my new middle-grade dystopia, coming from Dancing Cat Books, April 2018. 
Here's the back cover copy:

“William, you cannot go out that door. You have no idea what’s out there. If there IS anything out there!”

So says Miranda1 to William1 in their perfect, domed world of Oculum. They are the oldest children of the one thousand chosen, raised by robot Mothers, taught to read, write and tend the fruit trees, but in a closed world without love or freedom.

Then one day, William1 finds a hidden door. What awaits Outside?

A destroyed ancient city of rubble, where orphaned children like Mann and Cranker live rough with only Grannie to feed and protect them. It’s a world without beauty or fruit trees, plagued with death and hunger.

But change is coming, if only Miranda1 and William1 can find the way out of Oculum …"

New author photo! No one LIKES taking author photos,
I don't think, but this one is OK. 

Oculum is available SPRING 2018 
For Media and Preview Copy Contact 
ORDER a copy now