Sunday, November 22, 2009

December Roundtable Meeting

Please join us for our next Roundtable Meeting on Monday, December 7, 2009 at 7:30pm. Our presenter will be Penny Draper.

Penny is an author, a bookseller, and a storyteller who lives in Victoria, BC. Originally from Toronto, she received a degree in Literature from Trinity College, University of Toronto and on the side, attended the Storytellers’ School of Toronto. For many years, Penny shared tales as a professional storyteller at schools, libraries, conferences, festivals, and on radio and television. She has told stories in an Arabian harem and from inside a bear’s belly – but that is a story in itself.

Penny Draper’s first juvenile fiction novel,Terror at Turtle Mountain was a finalist for the Silver Birch Young Reader’s Choice Award in Ontario, as well as the Diamond Willow Award, the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People and Book of the Year for the ForeWord Magazine Awards in the USA. It is part of Coteau Books for Kids Disaster Strikes! Series. The series also includes Penny’s second book, Peril at Pier Nine, and her latest, Graveyard of the Sea.

Penny will show slides and tell us about her research for the Disaster Strikes! series. She is also going to treat us to some storytelling.

In the Spirit of the Holidays...

There will be Christmas goodies to enjoy and please don't forget to bring gently used children's books to donate to a literacy project of our choice.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

November 16, 2009 Roundtable Meeting: Adrienne Kress

Our next Roundtable Meeting is taking place on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 7:30pm and will feature Adrienne Kress.

Adrienne Kress is a writer and actress born and raised in Toronto, Canada. It was only natural that Adrienne, the daughter of two high school English teachers, should fall in love with both creating and performing the written word. Adrienne wrote her first novel, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, while living in the UK.

Although Alex is Adrienne’s first book, it was snapped up almost immediately by publishers around the world. It earned a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, and Adrienne was featured in the New York Post’s “Post Potter Picks” column (August 18, 2007) as one of six authors who have a chance to fill the void left by J.K. Rowling.

Timothy and the Dragon’s Gate was released in January 2009. It is both a sequel to Alex and the Ironic Gentleman and a stand-alone novel. The protagonist, Timothy, has his adventure at the same tome as the Alex has hers, meeting up with her halfway through the novel. It is being published by 5 publishers in 4 languages (so far) and has garnered rave reviews from Quill and Quire and Publisher’s Weekly.

Her short story “The Portal” is a part of the Wow! 365 anthology published by Scholastic, UK.