Posts in Cantastic Authorpalooza

Be yourself. But dress how we say to dress. Your school clothes must cover up your shoulders, cleavage, and knees. Your sports uniform is a skimpy little number, but it’s no big deal. A teenage girl’s instructions for how ... Read More  

Because sometimes, laughing is the only way to keep from screaming. Read More  

Freedom to Read Week is a time to remember and preserve our intellectual right to read any book we wish to. But if the book doesn’t exist, how do we know what we don’t know? Since Russia launched its attacks on ... Read More  

Book banning has been accelerating in the USA for several years now, and their National Coalition Against Censorship has some excellent resources that can help Canadians fight for the freedom to read.  Read More  

In July 2025, Alberta’s education minister, Demetrios Nicolaides, issued a ministerial order that threatened to ban hundreds of books from the shelves of school libraries here in Canada. For Julie and I, the alarm bells went off immediately—we had ... Read More  

Learning to read is a rite of passage. Achieving this skill lets a child decipher a code that only bigger kids and grownups seem to know, and it opens a door to new worlds of fantasy, adventure, cultures, and ... Read More  

These days, we’re seeing increasing polarization—it’s becoming hard to even have a discussion with someone who doesn’t share your opinions or values. I wanted to help kids become aware of algorithms and “burst” their information bubble, to broaden their ... Read More  

“Why rats?” The man’s voice was thick with scorn, like he’d just stepped in something disgusting. It was 2017, and the first edition of my young adult novel, The Great & the Small, had just come out. Using dual narratives, ... Read More  

Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s book creators! Today’s guest: Stephanie Ellen Sy. Take it away, Stephanie! When my pandemic writing group challenged me to try fiction—specifically a children’s story—I knew exactly which ... Read More  

Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s book creators! Today’s guest: Karen Krossing. Take it away, Karen! Please take a moment to place both your feet flat on the floor. Can you feel the ... Read More  

Like a dog spotting a squirrel, I’m usually the type to be easily distracted by the next new shiny idea. But sometimes I come across a story and it won’t let go. That was the case when I met ... Read More  

Reach back into your brain and try to remember, who was your first comedic duo? Like many others, I think mine was Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street. Their Cookies In Bed sketch and Here Fishy Fishy sketch still ... Read More  

I woke up with two lines in my head: In the witching hour, The sky turns orange. Just those two lines—but I knew it was something good. Read More  

My earliest memories of books take me back to my hometown of Val d’Or, Quebec, lying in bed, reading Winnie the Pooh. In Toronto, when I was a bit older, I saved up my money (50 cents!), walked to ... Read More  

In our hyper-online world, we worry about the effect our devices are having on us—and especially on our children. We strategize ways to disconnect from social media, from apps, from the dopamine machines we carry around in our pockets. Read More  

Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s book creators! Today’s guest: Jennifer Maruno. Take it away, Jennifer! Chidori is the story of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, told from the point of view ... Read More  

Like many tweens, one of my biggest fears growing up was embarrassing myself. I was so scared of looking silly in front of my classmates that I often didn’t let myself try new things—from learning a new dance or ... Read More  

I was waist-deep in research about fourth industrial revolution technologies (4IR) when, many drafts later, I'd landed on the topic of wearables—technology that's on, in, or attached to your body. The topic cast a spell on me. I had to ... Read More