Being able to create books about history is a dream job for me since I’ve always been enthralled by the past.
My Childhood When I was growing up in Georgetown, Ontario, our house was just around the corner from the town library. And I haunted its children’s section—reading sometimes four or five books a week. Historical fiction titles by writers like Geoffrey Trease and Rosemary Sutcliffe were particular favourites. I still treasure a copy of Ernest Thompson Seton’s Two Little Savages that I was given as a prize in a library reading contest in 1960. |
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Becoming an Author
The first children’s book that I actually wrote was Anastasia’s Album: The Last Tsar’s Youngest Daughter Tells Her Own Story, which was published in 1996 and won a number of awards. In 1997 I penned the text for Inside the Titanic, which featured amazing cutaway illustrations by Ken Marschall. The next year, with Laurie Coulter, I compiled a book filled with fascinating facts about the Titanic entitled 882 1/2 Amazing Answers to Your Questions About the Titanic. Laurie and I went on to write To Be A Princess in 2001 which was a Silver Birch and Red Cedar nominee. In 2004, the 60th anniversary of D-Day, I wrote On Juno Beach which won the Children’s Literature of Canada Information Book Award in 2005. The success of that book encouraged me to write At Vimy Ridge which appeared in 2007 and won the Norma Fleck Award in 2008. |