Goodbye, 2023! — What’s New with Owlkids?
We can’t believe the year is almost over! We’re so grateful for all the people who have a hand in helping share our books with the world: talented authors and illustrators, sales reps, booksellers, reviewers, and of course our readers. Your continued support means so much to us.
In our final blog post of the year, we’d like to share a few exciting updates about our books. First up, some awards news!
- Four of our books are nominated for the Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading Awards! How to Party Like a Snail by Naseem Hrab and illustrated by Kelly Collier and Princess Pru and the Ogre on the Hill by Maureen Fergus and illustrated by Danesh Mohiuddin are nominated for the Blue Spruce Award. Becoming Bionic and Other Ways Science Is Making Us Super by Heather Camlot and illustrated by Victor Wong is nominated for the Yellow Cedar Award, and Rock? Plant? Animal? by Etta Kaner and illustrated by Brittany Lane is nominated for the Silver Birch Express Award!
- 100 Chapatis by Derek Mascarenhas and illustrated by Shantala Robinson is a Toronto Public library First and Best pick for 2023!
- Dig, Dance, Dive by Etta Kaner and illustrated by June Steube is a EUREKA! Nonfiction Children’s Book Gold Award winner!
- A Star Explodes by James Gladstone and illustrated by Yaara Eshet and Becoming Bionic and Other Ways Science Is Making Us Super were selected for the National Science Teaching Association’s Outstanding Science Trade Book List!
We’ve also received some great recent reviews:
- Corner by Zo-O is a Kirkus Best Picture Book of 2023!
- Aliya’s Secret: A Story of Ramadan by Farida Zaman received a starred review from Booklist. The review calls the book “a wonderful story to celebrate or learn about Ramadan.”
- All the Faces of Me by Laura Alary and illustrated by Salini Perera received a starred review from Quill & Quire, who called it a “cozy, relatable book” that is “sure to generate interesting conversations between children and the adults who read to them.”
The rights team at Owlkids have also been busy over the last few months! In the last two months alone we’ve had successful trips to both the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Translation Rights Fair at the Salon du livre de Montréal, where we met with publishers from around the world and in the French Canadian market to discuss and present our amazing books.
One piece of rights news we’re excited to share is that three of our upcoming books for Spring 2024 are Junior Library Guild selections! JLG is a curated book club of top-quality new children’s books for librarians across the United States and Canada. Those books are:
- The Keeper of Stars by Jennifer Harris and illustrated by Dorothy Leung
- Otis & Peanut Forever and Ever by Naseem Hrab and illustrated by Kelly Collier
- Making Sense of Dog Senses by Stephanie Gibeault and illustrated by Raz Latif
We can’t wait to see what’s in store for us in the new year!
See you in 2024!
— The Owlkids Books Team
