Skip to main content
Remember the feeling you had in school waiting for the cast list to come out, in the hopes you were on it? Or the posting of the honour roll? Making the first string of the basketball team? (I imagine this feels the same, but definitely can't say from experience). Well, when the 2008/09 Red Cedars were announced, that's how I felt. I've wistfully studied the annual Red Cedar poster for years now, hoping that Magnifico would share in the limelight one day. And it has!! I'm thrilled! Of course, the wonderful but dreaded "Cheese Pirates" have made an appearance as well. "Hamish X" won the Manitoba Young Readers Book Award, a well-deserved triumph, which nonetheless gave me my first experience with Magnifico in the truth that it's enough to be nominated. Same feeling with the outcome of the Chocolate Lily awards and Rocky Mountain Book Awards. Still, it's been a great ride for Magnifico, peaking with this year's Red Cedars--the fourth list of children's choice awards on which its appeared. It's great to be on the list with real imaginary Cheese Pirates and the other assorted characters created by this year's finalists. As a girl lugging her accordion through the streets of James Bay in Victoria, my Mum probably never dreamed that one day her story would be the inspiration for a book. She just wanted to make it to her lesson without getting hit by a rock.

I would go on, but the kids have discovered the hiding place of this year's Halloween candy and are making no attempts to hide the sounds of wrestling with packaging.

Thanks Red Cedar people! Thank you for what you do to get your recommended books in the hands of readers.
Labels:

Comments

hopeful md said…
I had no idea that Magnifico was based on your Mom!! Well done Vee. What a lovely way to honour her.
10:06 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Indian Horse" by Richard Wagamese

“You go somewhere when you’re on the ice,”  Virgil said to me after one practice.  “It’s like watching you walk into a secret place  that no one else knows how to get to.” Hockey is the saving grace of young Saul Indian Horse’s life. Lost to his family and orphaned in his grandmother’s arms, eight-year-old Saul is discovered at an icy railroad stop in northern Ontario and stolen away to spend the next six years at St. Jerome’s Indian Residential School. “St. Jerome’s took all the light from my world,” Saul remembers. He saw children die of abuse or suicide, with whatever they had to take themselves away from hell on earth: a pitchfork; rocks to weigh down a dress in water; rope to swing from the rafters of a barn. Anything, even death, was better than the despair of suffering the school’s daily humiliations. It is a hockey ice rink, built at St. Jerome’s during Saul’s second winter, that saves him. In the years that follow, the crack of light o...
35 comments
Read more

Leave Your Mark: Land Your Dream Job. Kill It In Your Career. Rock Social Media. by Aliza Licht

In the digital age, could success be just a tweet or two away? Probably not. Take it from Aliza Licht, senior vice president of global communications at Donna Karan International, a clear career path, perseverance, and passion matter as much as they ever did. It’s just that how to make (or break) a career online (“killing it” works both ways) is now an essential part of understanding the wired world of work. Licht has plenty to draw upon in Leave Your Mark: Land Your Dream Job. Kill it in Your Career. Rock Social Media. It took a detour out of med school and into fashion, first as a magazine intern and eventually up to the executive suite, for Licht to find her own brand within a brand and build a following more than half-a-million strong. The author and creator of DKNY PR GIRL® knows from experience that no matter how sharp and snappy your tweets, it’s sustaining a start-up spirit that counts more. Going above and beyond (think spending your unpaid weekends sorting shoe inve...
11 comments
Read more

"The Game of Life" by Rosalys Buckles Thorndike Wilson

“The game of life has been enjoyable and rewarding, and I have competed to the best of my ability.”—from The Game of Life by Rosalys Buckles Thorndyke Wilson A long life, as Rosalys “Rosie” Buckles Thorndike Wilson looks back upon it, is like a basketball game. It’s played in four quarters (a sport she learned growing up in rural Indiana, where all you needed was a was a hoop on a wall and a ball that had some bounce) with a little time-out in between. Rosie’s first quarter started out on a small, 20-acre farm near Etna, Indiana. Baths were taken once-a-week in a galvanized tub in front of the kitchen wood stove. There were the requisite chores including chasing down dinner (which, on a fried chicken night, involved catching and decapitating a hen before dipping it quickly in boiling water and then plucking off all its feathers). There was a pony named “Beauty”; “Fluffy” the long-haired cat; “Spot” the rat terrier; “Fuzzy” the baby raccoon and “Duke” a horse retired by the U.S...
7 comments
Read more