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Jackie Halsey

Jackie was born in London, England. After several globetrotting years she and her family discovered Nova Scotia. They built a house by a lake in Beaverbank and have lived there ever since. Jackie is a writer, artist, potter and avid reader. She likes sailing, whale watching, cats and adventures.

For the last fifteen years, she has worked as a programmer in the youth services department of Alderney Gate Library, Halifax. Her days are filled with books, rhymes, songs, puppets and lots of children to share them with. How much fun is that?

Growing up in post war London meant walking to school past numerous bombsites and hearing stories of food rationing and air raids. Consequently, Jackie has always admired the courage of women and children coping with the tasks of everyday life in wartime situations. This courage is the inspiration behind her first book. Peggy's Letters is a historical novel for young readers, set in London at the end of the Second World War. Many of her mother's wartime anecdotes wove themselves around the characters in this story.

Peggy's Letters was a Canadian Children's Book Center 2006 Our Choice starred selection. It was nominated for both the 2007 Hackmatack Children's Choice Award and the 2007 Rocky Mountain Children's Book Award and was an Honour Book in the 2007 Silver Birch Express Award.

Her second book, The Gran Plan, placed third in the 2003 Atlantic Writing Competition / Joyce Barkhouse award for Children's Literature. Subsequently, it was published by Scholastic in the Fall of 2006 as part of their Literacy Place for the Early Years, School Reading Program.

Jackie also wrote two chapters of an online story for the award winning 2003 Halifax Regional library summer reading program: The Quest.