Search for "Children's Literature"

Eleanor Coerr, journalist, children’s author (born 29 May 1922 in Kamsack, SK; died 22 November 2010 in Princeton, New Jersey). An award-winning writer of children’s books, Eleanor Coerr is best known for Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (1977), the result of a childhood fascination with Japan and a reporting trip there in 1949. As the wife of a diplomat, Coerr spent many years abroad. Her travels inspired her writing, much of which focuses on historical figures and subjects from far-flung locales.

Craig Kielburger, CM, social entrepreneur, author, speaker (born 17 December 1982 in Toronto, ON). Craig Kielburger is best known for his activism as a young teenager and his work co-founding and leading ME to WE with his brother, Marc. ME to We is a business that links purchases to global social and economic development. Kielburger also founded WE Charity (formerly Free the Children), which focuses particularly on youth education and mobilization. Much of his work revolves around a conviction that youth are fundamental to creating systemic change.

Acceleration is a thriller about teenage slackers in Toronto who track down a mysterious psychopath. The mystery by Canadian author Graham McNamee was first published in hardcover by Wendy Lamb Books in 2003. It was released in paperback by Ember in 2012. Acceleration won a prestigious Edgar Award as best young adult mystery from the Mystery Writers of America, as well as an Arthur Ellis Award for excellence in Canadian crime writing from the Crime Writers of Canada. It was also included in the “Best Books for Young Adults” list compiled by the American Library Association in 2004.

Yann Martel’s third novel, Life of Pi (2001), follows protagonist Piscine “Pi” Patel on a journey of survival after the cargo ship carrying him and his family sinks in the Pacific Ocean. As the lone survivor, Pi spends 227 days on a lifeboat in the company of a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The fantasy-adventure novel explores the tensions between spirituality and practicality, and between reason and imagination. It also raises questions about the nature of stories. The international bestseller gained Martel global recognition and won a number of awards and accolades, including the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. The 2012 film adaptation, written by David Magee and directed by Ang Lee, grossed more than US$600 million worldwide and won four Academy Awards.

John Joseph Kelso, journalist and social reformer (born 31 March 1864 in Dundalk, Ireland; died 30 September 1935 in Toronto, Ontario). A lifelong advocate for the rights of children and animals, Kelso founded the Toronto Humane Society, Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, Fresh Air Fund and Santa Claus Fund. Kelso left a legacy as an early founder of the social services system in Ontario.

Barbara Godard, critic, translator, editor, educator (born at Toronto, 1942; died there 16 May 2010). Barbara Godard is one of Canada's leading authorities on literary theory, including her specialities in poststructuralism, feminism, avant-gardism, and translation studies.

Eric Walters’s young adult novel Shattered (2006) tells the story of Ian Blackburn. He is shaken out of his privileged life when he meets Jack, a homeless veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces. A member of the failed United Nations peacekeeping mission to Rwanda, Jack introduces Ian to some of humanity’s darkest moments. Shattered received the 2007 Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award for best Canadian children’s book and the 2007 National Chapter of Canada International Order of the Daughters of Empire Violet Downey Book Award.

Crow Lake is the debut novel by Mary Lawson, a Canadian-born author who lives in Britain. Set in a fictional community in Northern Ontario, Crow Lake tells the story of four children who are orphaned after their parents are killed in a traffic accident. Published in 2002, the novel was a best-seller in Canada and the United States. It has been published in more than two dozen countries and in several languages. It won the Books in Canada First Novel Award (now the Amazon.com First Novel Award) in 2003, as well as the McKitterick Prize for a first novel published in the United Kingdom by an author older than 40. In 2010, CBC Radio listeners selected Crow Lake as one of the Top 40 essential Canadian novels of the decade. It was also listed as one of 150 books to read for Canada’s sesquicentennial celebrations in 2017.

William Bell’s first novel, Crabbe (1986), tells the story of a disaffected teenager who escapes to the wilderness, only to learn that running away will not solve his problems. Crabbe has become a popular choice for school curricula across North America. A 2017 study found that it was among the 20 most-cited books in Ontario classrooms. It was one of only three Canadian books on the list, along with Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. The literary quarterly Canadian Literature attributed the book’s longevity to its “convincing narrative voice” and “precisely observed sense of detail.”

Award-wining writer Don Aker’s The First Stone tells the story of Reef, an embittered and troubled young man who, in a mindless rage, hurls a rock from an overpass and injures Leeza, who is in mourning for an older sister. The two teenagers unexpectedly come together to begin the slow process of healing. The First Stone was first published in 2003 by HarperTrophy Canada. It won the Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award and Atlantic Canada’s Ann Connor Brimer Award in 2004. It was also one of five young adult novels selected for CBC Radio’s “Young Canada Reads” series in 2006.

Howard Engel, novelist, cartoonist (under the pen name “Foo”), story writer, poet (born 2 April 1931 in Toronto, ON; died 16 July 2019 in Toronto). Howard Engel was raised in St. Catharines, Ontario, and educated at McMaster University and the Ontario College of Education. During his career as a producer of literary and cultural programs at the CBC, Engel published a few stories and poems, but he did not begin to write seriously until he became interested in detective fiction.

Jean Little, CM, writer, lecturer (born 2 January 1932 in Taiwan; died 6 April 2020). Jean Little was best known for her children’s books. She wrote more than 50 books. Little won the Canada Council Children’s Literature Award as well as foreign acclaim. Little’s books are widely translated. Her novels and poetry treat such themes as loneliness, alienation, intolerance, family stress and the difficulties in interpersonal and intercultural relationships. (See also Children’s Literature in English.)

Robert “Robbie” Baldwin Ross, journalist and art critic (born 25 May 1869 in Tours, France; died 5 October 1918 in London, United Kingdom). Ross is best known for his association with dramatist Oscar Wilde.

Partially inspired by the Columbine High School massacre, The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen won the 2012 Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature. Susin Nielsen’s 2012 youth novel tells the story of Henry Larsen, a teenager who is forced to confront his feelings and learn how to carry on after his bullied, outcast brother commits a school shooting. It was also named the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children and received the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award.

Robertson Davies’s landmark novel Fifth Business (1970) explores the life and psyche of a seemingly ordinary history teacher, Dunstan Ramsey, who has unwittingly played a key role in some remarkable events. It was the first book of Davies’s Deptford Trilogy, which also includes The Manticore (1972) and World of Wonders (1975). Fifth Business became arguably Davies’s most recognized novel and catapulted him to international recognition.

William Bell’s historical novel Forbidden City (1990) tells the story of Alex, a teenager who accompanies his father on a trip to Beijing, China. Alex’s initial excitement at exploring the history of the city turns to horror when he becomes trapped near the Forbidden City during the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The most popular novel of Bell’s career, Forbidden City was published in 11 countries and eight languages. Reviewers praised its depiction of the on-the-ground reality of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The novel received Ontario’s Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, the Ontario School Librarians Association Award and the Belgium Award for Excellence.  

Eric Walters’s novel Run (2003) is a fictionalized account of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope. The book follows troubled youth Winston Macdonald, who is inspired to stop running away from his problems after he befriends Fox in 1980. Run is both the first book for young adults and the first fictionalized book about Terry Fox endorsed by the Fox family. Author royalties from the sales of Run are donated to the Terry Fox Foundation. The novel’s audio version received the 2004 Torgi Award for Books in Alternative Formats.

Joseph Rosenblatt, poet, artist, editor (born 26 December 1933 in Toronto, ON; died 11 March 2019 in Qualicum Beach, BC). Joe Rosenblatt was a prolific and influential poet who published 18 books of poetryand several works of fiction. According to Quill & Quire, Rosenblatt’s poetry was known for its “signature combination of formalism, syntactic wildness, bizarre and often threatening nature imagery, and an undercurrent of Jewish spiritualism.” His poetry collection Top Soil won the Governor General’s Literary Awardin 1976. Rosenblatt was also a literary consultant and an editor of literary magazines, as well as an accomplished illustratorand writing teacher.