To my great relief, Prisoner of Dieppe, a novel I’ve written for Scholastic’s new I Am Canada Series has been receiving excellent reviews. Quill and Quire gave it a starred review and said that it “makes history come alive through an expert mix of fact and fiction.” CM Magazine gave it 3 1/2 stars out of 4 and said that “its lively writing style will maintain reader interest throughout.” And Susan Perren in the Globe and Mail on Nov. 6 said it was “very good indeed” and “utterly engrossing.” Whew!
Scholastic Canada has prepared some excellent videos on Prisoner of Dieppe and the I Am Canada series that can be seen on their website.
On June 6th I took part in the hanging of 3,000 Chinese lanterns around the village of Broadway in Worcestershire, England. The lanterns were to launch the first Broadway Arts Festival which ran from June 11-20, 2010. The theme of the festival was a celebration of John Singer Sargent’s painting ‘Carnation,Lily, Lily, Rose’ which was painted in Broadway during the summers of 1885-86. I had suggested the idea of a festival to celebrate Broadway’s unique artistic heritage to local gallery owner John Noott in 2007 when I returned there with finished copies of my book Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose: The Story of a Painting. John promoted the idea, a committee was formed and the first festival took place this year and was a great success.
I took part in a performance of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose adapted from the book. There was a splendid exhibition of paintings by John Singer Sargent and members of the Broadway colony that was opened by Sargent’s great-nephew, Richard Ormond as well as a full complement of other exhibitions plus concerts, plays and tours. The next Broadway Arts Festival will take place in June of 2012.
Over a year ago, Scholastic asked me if I would be interested in writing a novel for a new historical fiction series they were starting for 9-12-year old boys. It would be similar in style to their Dear Canada series which has been very popular with girls. I’d never written much fiction but was pleased to be asked. Scholastic thought a war book might be a good idea and I instantly said I could write a novel about the Dieppe Raid. I had just done a non-fiction book DIEPPE: Canada’s Darkest Day of World War II for Scholastic and knew there were lots of stories told to me by veterans that I didn’t have room for in a 48-page book. I also knew that kids were fascinated by the stories about prisoner of war camp and how the men dug tunnels and made amazing escapes.
With Ron Reynolds at a Port Hope Book talk in September '09
So I submitted an outline and sample chapter for a book to be called Prisoner of Dieppe. Scholastic approved this and I spent most of ’09 working on it. And I found I really enjoyed doing it. I used a lot of dialogue for which which I think I have a knack. Having done a lot of Dieppe research for the non-fiction book I thought I would have a headstart. But I soon found I needed to do a whole lot more. Invaluable help in this was provided by my Dieppe veterans, particularly Ron Reynolds of Port Hope. I would call Ron several times a week with questions about tiny details (what kind of uniform did Lord Mountbatten wear?, did you have toilet paper in POW camp?) etc. Even at 90 Ron’s memory was crystal clear – and he never exaggerated or embroidered any of the details, he always told it like it was.
I had decided to dedicate the book to Ron but sadly, I had to change the dedication to ‘In memory of Ron Reynolds’ since he died on April 18th. I gave a eulogy at his funeral on the 22nd and read a few excerpts from the book that incorporated Ron’s experiences. Some men were broken or embittered by their POW experiences but Ron retained his kindness, sweetness and irrepressible high spirits through all his 91 years.
Prisoner of Dieppe will be available in September 2010.
I was thrilled to hear that BREAKOUT DINOSAURS: Canada’s Coolest, Scariest Ancient Creatures –Return! has been nominated for the 2010 Hackmatack Award. This marks the third of Canada’s ‘tree’ awards for which this book has been nominated. These hugely successful reading awards programs select a list of Canadian books for young readers and students are encouraged to read as many of them as possible and then vote on their favourites. Breakout Dinosaurs was nominated for the Silver Birch Express Award in Ontario last year, is up for the Red Cedar Award in British Columbia this year and is now nominated for Atlantic Canada’s Hackmatack Award for which the winner will be announced next spring. While it’s nice to win one of these awards, being nominated makes you a winner already since the schools and libraries purchase copies of your book and you receive fan mail from lots of young readers.
“Gee, you don’t ask for much!” was my reaction when I was contacted by the Forest of Reading Awards about making a video for their website. I’m delighted that my book DIEPPE: Canada’s Darkest Day of World War II has been nominated for the 2010 Silver Birch Award and am enjoying giving talks in schools that participate in this amazing reading program. But I’m a bit of a techno-peasant and had never made a YouTube video before. I asked my young nephew about this and he said: “It’s no big deal, you can do it with your MacBook.” He showed me how to do it and then wrote out instructions for me. I then spent a morning working on it and managed to succesfully upload it to YouTube.
gave it 3 1/2 stars out of 4 and said that “its lively writing style will maintain reader interest throughout.” And Susan Perren in the Globe and Mail on Nov. 6 said it was “very good indeed” and “utterly engrossing.” Whew!
On June 6th I took part in the hanging of 3,000 Chinese lanterns around the village of Broadway in Worcestershire, England. The lanterns were to launch the first Broadway Arts Festival which ran from June 11-20, 2010. The theme of the festival was a celebration of John Singer Sargent’s painting ‘Carnation,Lily, Lily, Rose’ which was painted in Broadway during the summers of 1885-86. I had suggested the idea of a festival to celebrate Broadway’s unique artistic heritage to local gallery owner John Noott in 2007 when I returned there with finished copies of my book Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose: The Story of a Painting. John promoted the idea, a committee was formed and the first festival took place this year and was a great success.
I took part in a performance of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose adapted from the book. There was a splendid exhibition of paintings by John Singer Sargent and members of the Broadway colony that was opened by Sargent’s great-nephew, Richard Ormond as well as a full complement of other exhibitions plus concerts, plays and tours. The next Broadway Arts Festival will take place in June of 2012.
Over a year ago, Scholastic asked me if I would be interested in writing a novel for a new historical fiction series they were starting for 9-12-year old boys. It would be similar in style to their Dear Canada series which has been very popular with girls. I’d never written much fiction but was pleased to be asked. Scholastic thought a war book might be a good idea and I instantly said I could write a novel about the Dieppe Raid. I had just done a non-fiction book DIEPPE: Canada’s Darkest Day of World War II for Scholastic and knew there were lots of stories told to me by veterans that I didn’t have room for in a 48-page book. I also knew that kids were fascinated by the stories about prisoner of war camp and how the men dug tunnels and made amazing escapes.