This has been a big week for Malaika's Costume. It still amazes me how many people have responded to this story and my book and now the children's book industry is starting to respond, too. I am honoured and humbled and feeling all kinds of things. Every time I receive news of one of these recognitions, I call the one person who "grounds me" and that is my Mummy. Like Malaika's Mummy in the story, my Mummy is thousands of kilometres (miles for the Americans) away except I am the one who is working far from home. My Mummy quickly reminds me that everything will be okay as she treats me exactly the same way that she always has which is sometimes annoying for the adult-me (the I'm-a-grown-up-now-me) but also a huge comfort at times like this. Usually Mummy says something like, "Congratulations" and "What does this mean?" or "How is the book selling?" or "That's good, Nadia. Congratulations." I can't tell you how much those words mean to me.
Thank you to all of the folks who helped to "birth" my story like my writing teacher Ted Staunton who gave me the picture book assignment in my George Brown College class years ago, my illustrator Irene Luxbacher, my publisher Sheila Barry, my editor Nan Froman, my publicist Cindy Ma, and the whole Groundwood Books team, as well as all the book store owners, reviewers, and librarians. Now, I sound like I am rehearsing for an acceptance speech... that would not be a bad idea. Not at all.
And now I present the recognitions:
Malaika's Costume, 2016 Ontario Library Association (OLA) Best Bets, Honourable mention
Malaika's Costume, 2017 USBBY 2017 Outstanding International Books List
Malaika's Costume, 2017 Notable Children's Books Discussion Titles by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) a division of the American Library Association (ALA) for the 2017 Midwinter Meeting
Thank you to all of the folks who helped to "birth" my story like my writing teacher Ted Staunton who gave me the picture book assignment in my George Brown College class years ago, my illustrator Irene Luxbacher, my publisher Sheila Barry, my editor Nan Froman, my publicist Cindy Ma, and the whole Groundwood Books team, as well as all the book store owners, reviewers, and librarians. Now, I sound like I am rehearsing for an acceptance speech... that would not be a bad idea. Not at all.
And now I present the recognitions:
Malaika's Costume, 2016 Ontario Library Association (OLA) Best Bets, Honourable mention
Malaika's Costume, 2017 USBBY 2017 Outstanding International Books List
Malaika's Costume, 2017 Notable Children's Books Discussion Titles by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) a division of the American Library Association (ALA) for the 2017 Midwinter Meeting
And there's a nice USBBY bookmark you can download here too.
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