She's gone a little buggy...

But you all knew that already.

For the Silver Birch Awards, I was asked to create a short video about my nominated book, The Insecto-Files. My son, the aspiring film director, held the phone and shot the video. It's terribly embarrassing, if I had the capacity for embarrassment! But I don't. So enjoy.

Mad Scientist Explores MY Brain!

Last year, on a brilliantly sweaty summer day, I biked over to the Rotman Research Institute on Toronto's Bathurst Street. Not only is the Rotman Institute across the street from some of the best bagels in the city, but it is also home to cutting edge research in neuroscience and gerontology. My mission? A) to snag some great bagels and B) to volunteer as a study subject for some of their ongoing research projects.

I'm proud to say I have participated in two studies so far, and expect to volunteer again when my brain fits the criteria for another experiment.

Not everyone is keen to offer their noggins to science, mostly because its rough on the hair. For the EEG to work, you need to wear a cap that's filled with electroconductive gel. Also, if you work a regular day job, it's difficult to match your schedule with that of the labs'. But I'm not vain about my hair, and I can bugger off whenever I want to (or when deadlines allow). So for me, volunteering my brain is an easy to way contribute in a practical and necessary way to furthering the cause of science.

The importance of research studies conducted at the Rotman was driven home to me last night. I attended a panel discussion on the subject of women's brain health and Alzheimers that was sponsored by the Women of Baycrest. Dr. Jean Marmoreo and neuroscientist Dr. Tiffany Chow presented some of the latest research, and discussed strategies for reducing your risk for dementia.

You can watch the video of the panel discussion here.

The latest research can only happen if people are willing to volunteer for studies. Some are easy - you might only have to answer a questionaire. Others may take a few hours of your time. But I can tell you this for true - it's fun!

A Very Literary Dog

We only have the very smartest dogs in our house. Pulis, aka Hungarian sheepdogs. Our first puli, Marley, is featured in Boredom Blasters in her very own comic strip. She was famous around here not only for her totally fab dreads, but for the time she ate the Thanksgiving turkey. Frozen.

Ella is our latest puli addition. At two, she is proving herself to be a very feisty young lady! It must be all the reading that has made her so "uppity," like her very uppity mom. A little education, you know, is a dangerous thing.

Ella always helps me turn the pages whenever I read, and is my constant companion when I write too. Don't be surprised if you find her influence in my work. There are "doolves" - half dog, half wolves, more intelligent than both - in my WIP. There are a few dog-related facts in The Hilarious History of Hockey too, which is due out from Scholastic Canada in the Fall. For example...did you know that at least one NHL player let their beloved pooch eat out of the Stanley Cup?

Haunted House Under Construction...

I just got a hold of the jpeg for my upcoming picture book, The Haunted House that Jack Built.

Isn't it cute????? Illustrator David Parkins did a fabulous job, inside and out.

I sent a copy to my sister, who's name happens to be Jackie. Her comment is that there was a typo on the cover, as the book really should be "...House that Jackie Built."

She thought her comment was way funnier than I did.

The story is of course a riff on the old Mother Goose folk poem/song/chant, updated and twisted mercilessly into a macabre tale for only the stout-hearted.

Ok, maybe you don't have to be quite that stout-hearted. You just need a good sense of humor and plenty of those little candy corns to stick out of your mouth like fangs.

This book will be out in August, just in time for the annual back to school Halloween merchandising blitz. Order now, I say, to avoid the rush :)

If you are interested in folklore, you can find the original words to the tale here:

Interestingly enough, this isn't the first time I've knocked off the traditional rhyme. In Mother Goose Unplucked,  there's a cartoony puzzle in which readers have to find all the things that are wrong with the very messed up house that Jack built. It was fun to put that book together, so you can expect more fractured fairy tall stuff from me in the future.

If you like fractured fairy tales, let me know your favorite!

Beat the Winter Blahs - Toddler Edition

Last month I was interviewed by the awesome Shelley White over at Parentdish. She wanted to know how I managed to survive the brutal Canadian winters when my kids were little. After I told her all about the Becker school of toddler management (its curriculum is very hands-off), I did share with her some of my tips from the days before my guys discovered World of Warcraft.  To read them, and find out other great indoor and outdoor play ideas, check out Shelley's article, How to Shake the Winter Blues.

Attention Librarians! Sixth Annual Mass Book Launch at OLA Superconference!

CANSCAIP OLA Book Launch!


If you’re at Ontario Library Super Conference February 26, 2010 join CANSCAIP for our annual book launch.

CANSCAIP and the Ontario Library Association join together to present their sixth annual mass book launch Friday February 26, 2010 at Expo Stage in hall C in the Toronto Convention Centre during the OLA Super Conference from noon to 2:15. Twenty authors and illustrators will introduce their 2009 titles in entertaining five minute infomercials. Sylvia McNicoll, Book Launch Coordinator of CANSCAIP will act as emcee and official timer. Enjoy the personalities behind the creations as well as their behind-the-creation stories. Buy a raffle ticket to win some of these stories. Picture books, middle reader age as well as young adult novels will all be available on site for purchase and the authors and artists will happy to autograph them for your collection.

CANSCAIP is the Canadian Society of Authors, Illustrators and Performers, of which I am a proud member (and former member of the exec.) We not only network and provide info and support to each other, but host a fantastic conference on the business of children's writers, for beginners and pros, every autumn called Packaging Your Imagination.

The OLA, among its many notable projects, sponsors Ontario's amazing Forest of Reading program, which includes the Red Maple, Blue Spruce, Silver Birch and White Pine children's choice awards. I'm proud that my kooky bug book, The Insecto-Files has been nominated in the Silver Birch Non-Fiction category this year.

How Does Your School Library Stack Up?

If your school is like many North American schools, it's not up to scratch. As school budgets are relentlessly cut, more and more boards start viewing their schools' media centres as a "frill." Less books get purchased, and teacher-librarians are replaced with less expensive library techs. When the straitened libraries don't "perform," - and how can they once they are gutted? - administrators then use that lack of performance to justify yet another round of cuts.

The irony is, though, that a well-maintained school library, staffed with trained teacher-librarians, is an integral component of a quality school. Information literacy is key in all other learning areas. Yet the only people who are trained to deliver it are frequently splitting their time between 3 or even more schools (I'm now thinking of the lovely TL I met in Long Beach, California last fall, who was responsible for five inner city school's library programs...Five!!!).

To put it bluntly, anyone who spouts platitudes about how important literacy is for their students, but who doesn't demand a top-notch library program, is blowing smoke. 

Many administrators, teachers, and parents may agree with me that a good school library should be a priority. At the same time, however, they may not have the tools to evaluate their own media centre. A contemporary school library is and should be a very different place than the library we remember from our childhoods.

A few years ago, I was on the board of the Ontario Coalition for School Libraries. Sadly, the condition of school libraries has deteriorated even further in the years since I first became involved in this issue (and now I'm thinking about the Canadian public school library I also visited this past fall that had books on the shelves about "Red Indians" - eek! and had two biographies of  "Young John Kennedy.") At that time, I prepared a document that will enable anyone to clearly assess the quality of a school library. It's in the form of a questionaire that describes some of the key features of a quality library, and gives standards to measure a library against in quantifiable form. Anyone can review a library and its collection, given enough basic information about its holdings and set up.

The questionaire follows the standards outlined by the Canadian School Library Association. Those standards are very similar to the ones set out by the American School Library Association.

Download the School Library Assessment Questionaire Here

Please feel free to pass this questionaire on to anyone who has a stake in a school library - a parent, a teacher, a principal, school board member, or the teacher-librarian herself! If you'd like to update this questionaire or use the basic format to create a new form that aligns with the US standards, please feel free to do so.

Support Your School Library! Tomorrow's adults will thank you!