|
|
|
|
Eastword, September - October 2005imPRESSed!: The newest titles by WFNS members Budge Wilson began writing later in life, after teaching and working as a commercial artist and photographer and a fitness instructor. Since publishing her first book in 1984, Budge has published more than 29 books in Canada, the United States, Finland, Denmark, Italy and Australia. She lives in a fishing village on the South Shore.
In the days when the granddaughter of Rufik and Cossypha is Queen of Erythroth, Torrie sets out on another adventure, this time at sea. Anna is a young sea-captain on a mission to rescue her father from Nevilla the Pirate-Queen. She has a dozen retired pirates to crew her ship, the Shrike, and a secret weapon: Torrie, oldest of the Old Things of the Wild Forest. Originally from Kingston, Ont., K.V. Johansen studied English and History at Mount Allison, received a Master's in Medieval Studies from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, and another Master's in English, from McMaster. She held the 2001 Eileen Wallace Research Fellowship in Children's Literature from the Eileen Wallace Collection at UNB to work on a book on the history of children's fantasy literature, and received the 2004 Frances E. Russell Award for research in children's literature from IBBY Canada. She currently lives in Sackville, NB.
Hélico, monsieur guili et Fleurette vivent près de chez moi, au parc historique de Grande-Pré. Mais la nuit, ils n’arretent pas de cancaner, comme s’ils se racontaient des histories drôles. Ils dérangent tous les habitants des alentours! Maman et moi cherchons une solution pour les faire dormer la nuit. Alain Raimbault vit en Nouvelle-Écosse et enseigne à l’école francophone Rose des Vents. Près de chez lui, il y a une mare et trios canards…Tiens, tiens!
1970. A tiny fisherman’s shack on the dark Nova Scotia coast, eccentrically covered with folk art images (à la Maud Lewis), which are all the work of a benign, disfigured mute whom the locals dismiss as a misshapen nobody. Miss Elva. Only one man knows that the whimsical, primitive art old Elva painfully creates is her voice, damning the madness of love and lamenting decades of lies. Ontario-born, Montreal-educated, Stephens Gerard Malone has been a mortgage clerk in Calgary, a silver-service waiter in New Zealand, an envelope-stuffer in Toronto and a sex-advice columnist for Instinct magazine. He has written for a variety of media including television and periodicals. He continues a love affair with Nova Scotia, where he has lived since 1986, working as a technical writer and editor in the aerospace industry.
Norman Creighton, like many other young people, believed unquestioned nationalism caused World War I and unquestioned capitalism caused the Depression. Norm found answers in the Communist Party or in socialism. Norm wrote for CBC Radio Halifax from 1941 to 1955 and 1962 to 1983. He wrote to entertain the listener and to pay his bills. Underlining his words was a fight against apathy. His work was rich with stories of Maritimers whose actions reflected that they thought for themselves. Born in Ontario, Heather Davidson completed her graduate studies in History at Acadia, focusing on Planter or Horton Yankee architecture. She has published several articles on local history and she is a curator of the Randall House Museum in Wolfville. Norman Creighton was her neighbour on Avon Street in Hantsport for five years.
Sometimes it’s impossible to articulate the feeling of being trapped and the only thing to do is run away; this is the problem experienced by Willa Jackson. After a decade of marriage, the birth of one son, Alex, nine going on ten years old, a miscarriage, and a move to Halifax from Vancouver Island, Willa finds herself completely out-of-place, surrounded by seemingly happy wives at a military base in Halifax. After a Forces New Year’s Eve party in 1986, Willa becomes fascinated with the saxophone player from the band. Hugh, the sax player, is also the lightkeeper on an island in the middle of Halifax Harbour; he is everything her husband is not. Carol Bruneau is the author of Purple for Sky (2000), which won the City of Dartmouth Fiction Prize and the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize. She is also the author of two collections of short stories, Depth Rapture (1998) and After the Angel Mill (1995). She is a part-time faculty member of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, where she teaches writing. Carol lives in Halifax with her husband and three sons.
In the eleventh and final title in the Animal Behaviour series, kids will find out which animals hibernate and why, the difference between true hibernators and deep sleepers, where animals hibernate, what happens while they hibernate, and much more. Whether to avoid extreme weather, conserve energy or survive on meager resources, animals hibernate in some unexpected ways. Pamela Hickman is the author of several nature books, including Animals and their Young, The Jumbo Book of Nature Science and The Kids Canadian Tree Book. She lives near the shores of the Minas Basin in Canning, Nova Scotia with her husband and three teenage daughters.
In the devastation of wartime London, Peggy makes an unexpected friend. In the final months of World War II, ten-year-old Peggy shelters with her mother and baby brother in a London butcher’s shop during an air raid. They survive, but their home and everything in it are lost, including Peggy’s most treasured possession, a biscuit tin of letters from her father. Their lives change dramatically and Peggy makes friends with a boy named Spud who has a passion for scavenging bombsites, leading to more than one surprising discovery. Originally from the United Kingdom, Jackie Halsey moved to Nova Scotia twenty years ago. In recent years, as she watched images of war on television, she realized that her mother and brother were living in a war zone in London back in the ’40s. Peggy’s Letters is her way of weaving her mother’s wartime memories into a book for today’s children.
In Where Sound Pools, Lynn Davies awakens a hidden sensory world. It is filled with songs for movement — for old boots, skis, ice roads, a canoe — and acutely perceptive poems about people in action: children building snow tunnels, Giotto paint-ing a fresco, a parking lot attendant retelling the stories she’s heard. Davies’ poems acknowledge how breakable human beings are and how easy it is to get lost, but they encourage us, too, to “try empathy.” Lynn Davies works as a private tutor for children with reading and writing problems, and also conducts workshops on creative writing and book making for children at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and in schools. Her first collection of poetry, The Bridge that Carries the Road, was published in 1999 (Brick Books). She lives in McLeod Hill, New Brunswick.
Delicious sights and sounds for babies and toddlers. In Peek-a-Little Boo, twenty-six babies and toddlers from all over the world romp and revel in the twists and turns of language, real and imagined. The pictures are big, bright and bold. And the language is guaranteed to appeal to babies’ ears and grown ups’ tongues. Sheree Fitch is an award-winning poet and author whose playful approach to language has brought joy to thousands upon thousands of children and to many adults as well. Sheree is the Honorary Spokesperson for the IWK Read to Me program in Nova Scotia and the Honorary Patron for Literacy New Brunswick. Laura Watson had lots of models for Peek-a-Little Boo in the many babies of her friends and cousins. Laura works in colorful acrylics. Peek-a-Little Boo is Laura’s first book for Orca.
Abby hates visiting the second hand clothing shop with her mother – until she meets Joanna and Charlie. Charlie is Joanna’s guide dog, a loyal fiend and worker who helps her to see, but he’s no help in picking out clothes for a very special event. With Abby’s assistance, a wonderfully colourful outfit is soon ready for Joanna. What a surprise for the young girl when she sees Joanna at a concert recital, wearing the clothes she helped to choose! Joanna’s gift of music and magic creates a perfect ending and proves that there is no harm in wishing for rainbows. Jan Coates lives and writes in Nova Scotia. This is her first book. Alice Priestley has illustrated more than 12 picture books, children’s
novels, textbooks and anthologies. She lives in Toronto with her husband
and their two children. All 11-year-old Jared St. George can think about is making his school basketball team. What Jared refuses to think about is math, and the fact that he’s failing it. The problem is tough: a poor math grade plus an unsympathetic coach equals no basketball team. Jared’s only hope is peer tutoring from Ellie Brejovic, the weirdo classmate whom everyone teases. To his surprise, Ellie makes math make sense, except that Jared would rather admit to cheating than let the guys know about her. Turns out that’s the really big mistake, one that could cost Jared not just a spot on the team, but something far more valuable. Don Aker is the author of The First Stone, winner of the Ann Connor Brimer Award and the White Pine Award. His first novel, Of Things Not Seen, also won the Ann Connor Brimer Award and the Canadian Authors Association Lilla Stirling Award. Stranger at Bay, his second novel, was shortlisted for several major awards. Don Aker has worked as a teacher for over 20 years and lives in Nova Scotia with his family.
|
|
Last Updated:
|
©WFNS
|
Izzie:
Book 2: Trongate Fury 
Torrie
and the Pirate-Queen
Dodo,
les canards!
Miss
Elva
CBC
Radio Broadcaster Norman Creighton: Rejecting the American Dream
Berth
Animals
Hibernating
Peggy's
Letters 
Where
Sound Pools
Peek-a-Little
Boo
Rainbows
In The Dark 
One
on One