Book launch poster for Dear Flyary

Join Dianne Young as she launches her newest picture book, Dear Flyary, at the Saskatoon Primrose library branch on March 4, 2012.

Snowmobile Challenge, by Linda Aksomitis

Author: Linda Aksomitis

Format: e-book, available at Amazon or Smashwords

Snowmobile Challenge, an award-winning young adult novel, was first released in 2003. Judges at the Saskatchewan Book Awards wrote: The sixteen-year-old protagonist in Snowmobile Challenge looks deeply into himself after his best friend, Riley, dies in a snowmobile accident. Brad Klein comes to understand the difference between proving oneself in a race and proving oneself in life.

Now you can read Snowmobile Challenge as an e-book!

It is available from: Smashwords and Amazon .

To find out more about this book, visit Linda’s website.

Snocross, by Linda Aksomitis

Author: Linda Aksomitis

Reading level: Young adult (hi-lo)

Format: e-book, available exclusively on Amazon.

To learn more about this exciting book and to  find out how Amazon Kindle Prime members can borrow this book for free, visit Linda’s website.

Books are chosen for their literary merit and their appeal to their intended audience, in this case middle grade readers.

The OLA summarizes the book as follows:

Racing Home
Written by Adele Dueck | Coteau Books
Erik did not want to leave his grandfather’s farm in Norway. But he must adjust as his new stepfather moves the family to the Canadian west. This is a richly detailed and engrossing portrait of pioneer prairie life seen through a young boy’s eyes.

Dear Flyary, by Dianne Young

Dianne Young’s awesome new picture book Dear Flyary will be in the stores in March 2012. But you can get a preview of the story and the cute aliens that inhabit it at the Kids Can Press website.

After you go there, click on “Description” under the cover image to find out about the book, or click on “Spread” to see inside the cover.

Canadian Shield Alphabet Quilt

Myrna Guymer’s book The Canadian Shield Alphabet, which won a Science  Journalism award in 2008, has inspired the creation of an award-winning quilt!

Here it is, with one panel for each letter. Congratulations to both Myrna and the quilter.

Myrna dressed as Voyageur

Myrna with Canadian Shield Alphabet map

Myrna Guymer loves to do school readings with her book The Canadian Shield Alphabet. Here she is at a reading in Melville in spring 2011.

Myrna says “The costume is my voyageur shirt and Metis sash. I also wear beaded moccasins. I take samples from nature: birch bark and items made from bark; roots, spruce gum, deer moss, and many different rock samples, core samples, and I often give each child a chunk of rock with sparkles - pyrite – that they think might be gold (they love it).

Draco’s Child is an exciting adventure story that will appeal to fantasy lovers.

So says jen in her blog Posterous Spaces. Read the rest here.

Adele Dueck’s latest novel, Racing Home, is a fascinating work of historical fiction that explores the unique experiences of early twentieth-century immigrants in Saskatchewan through the character of 12-year-old Erik Brekke…While the main appeal of the story is in the details of settlers’ lives and their incredible daily experiences, the story is successful as a novel because of the realistic characters through whose lives the reader learns about the history.

CM says the novel is Highly Recommended.

Read the full review.

Building a sod house, digging a well, breaking the sod, ploughing the fields, fishing and snaring rabbits to supplement the diet are all skills that the reader learns about as Erik and his family adjust to their new life. This book would well support the study of pioneer life on the prairies, immigration to Canada, and many other areas of the Social Studies curriculum at multiple grade levels.

To find out more, read the full review.