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Showing posts from May, 2013
May 9, 2013 If you are the principal of an elementary school, a husband, and a father of four, to describe your days as full would be an almost laughable understatement. It would be all too easy, and perfectly understandable, if you shelved that book project until your retirement or for pursuit when the kids are grown and out on their own. But some stories can't wait that long. So it was for David Starr , and elementary school principal and (award-winning writer) in Burnaby, British Columbia, when he began to learn more about the lives of some of the students attending his inner-city school. Every student has a story, but it was the refugee children who had come to Canada from some of the world's most dangerous places that needed Starr's voice. Before arriving in Burnaby, some had never been to school, or knew how to hold a pencil. If their parents were professionals in their previous lives, the affluence, comfort and status they once knew was long gone. Over time
May 6, 2013 Of all the photos taken at this year's BC Book Prizes at Government House in Victoria, this is one of my favourites. I believe we are all applauding Caroline Adderson in the moment it was announced that her novel, Middle of Nowhere (Groundwood, 2012) won the 2013 Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize. This picture (by David Nunuk, a.k.a Husband) captures the mood of the whole event, how happy we were to be there, and to be happy for each other.