Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Awards 2012 winners announced

Yesterday, the 2012 winners of the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards were announced at Toronto’s Parkdale Junior and Senior Public School. 

Administered by the Ontario Arts Foundation, the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards recognize artistic excellence in writing and illustration in English-language Canadian children’s literature. The award was established in 1976 by Sylvia Schwartz in memory of her sister, Ruth Schwartz, a respected Toronto bookseller.  In 2004, the Schwartz family renamed the awards to honour both sisters.

While funded generously by the Ruth Schwartz Foundation ($6000 for each award) and administered by the Ontario Arts Foundation, the awards are selected by two juries of young readers from Parkdale Junior and Senior Public School.  Five students from Grades 2 and 3 select the award-winning book for the Children's Picture Book Award, and five students from Grade 8 select the Young Adult/Middle Reader Book Award recipient.

The shortlists of nominees (posted on our home blog here) were announced in late April by the Ontario Arts Foundation, on behalf of the Ruth Schwartz Foundation.

• • •                                        

In the CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOK CATEGORY, the nominees were:

Along a Long Road

by Frank Viva

HarperCollins Canada

Loon

by Susan Vande Griek

Illustrated by Karen Reczuch

Groundwood

Migrant

by Maxine Trottier

Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

Groundwood

Picture a Tree

by Barbara Reid

Scholastic Canada

The Vole Brothers

by Roslyn Schwartz

Owlkids Books

The winner, as selected by Grade 2 and 3 students from Parkdale Junior and Senior Public School, is

Loon

by Susan Vande Griek

Illustrated by Karen Reczuch

Groundwood
978-1-55498-077-2
48 pp.
Ages 6-9
2011

Susan Vande Griek's poetic verse, richly illustrated by Karen Reczuch's acrylics on canvas, shares the story of two loon chicks from birth through their growth to fully-grown birds having chicks of their own.

• • •                                       

In the  YOUNG ADULT/MIDDLE READER CATEGORY, the nominees were:

Blink and Caution

by Tim Wynne-Jones

Candlewick Press

No Ordinary Day

by Deborah Ellis

Groundwood

Scribbling Women:True Tales 

from Astonishing Lives

by Marthe Jocelyn

Tundra

That Fatal Night: The Titanic Diary of Dorothy Wilton, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1912

by Sarah Ellis

Scholastic Canada

  

The Whole Truth

by Kit Pearson

HarperCollins Canada

The winner, as selected by Grade 5 and 6 students from Parkdale Junior and Senior Public School, is

The Whole Truth

by Kit Pearson

HarperCollins Canada

978-1-55468-852-4
261 pp.
Ages 9+
2011

The rules that ten-year-old Polly must remember, according to her fifteen-year-old sister, Maud, when they move from Winnipeg to the Gulf Islands to the guardianship of their grandmother, Noni,  include not telling anyone what happened; not thinking about Daddy and what happened; not to trust anyone but Maud; and to be brave and well-behaved.  But, even when you follow all the rules, truths find a way to sneak around them.

Congratulations to the winners and nominees