2016 was an amazing year at Groundwood Books, and while we prepare for our new titles releasing over the next few months, we’re also reflecting on all the wonderful books we published last year.
We’d like to celebrate the books (and their wonderful authors and illustrators) that have received starred reviews in 2016, in addition to acknowledging some additional awards and accolades that were picked up along the way. Thank you to everyone — librarians, teachers, authors, illustrators, reviewers, booksellers, and, of course, parents, children, and readers everywhere — for making 2016 such an incredible year.
Awards
- Bologna Prize for Best Children’s Publisher of the Year (North America): Groundwood Books
- Alcuin Society Book Design Awards: Art Director Michael Solomon for A Year Without Mom by Dasha Tolstikova
- Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award: Sidewalk Flowers
- Booksource Scout Awards, Favorite Picture Book: Sidewalk Flowers
- Canadian Library Association Young Adult Award: Calvin by Martine Leavitt
- Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada Information Book Award: West Coast Wild
- Cybils Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards: Sidewalk Flowers
- Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario Children’s Literature Award: Malaika’s Costume by Nadia L. Hohn and Irene Luxbacher
- Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Canadian Picture Book Award: Sidewalk Flowers
- Governor General’s Literary Award for Young People’s Literature (Text): Calvin
- Governor General’s Literary Award for Young People’s Literature (Illustrated Books): Tokyo Digs a Garden by Jon-Erik Lappano and Kellen Hatanaka
- Hans Christian Andersen Award nominee: Linda Wolfsgruber
- Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award: Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox
- Michigan Library Association’s Mitten Award: Sidewalk Flowers
- New York Times Best Illustrated Books: The White Cat and the Monk
- Okra Pick: The King of the Birds by Acree Graham Macam and Natalie Nelson
- Prix des Mini-Zinzins: Once Upon a Northern Night by Jean E. Pendziwol and Isabelle Arsenault (French edition)
- Quebec Booksellers Grand Prize for Best Children’s Book: Any Questions? by Marie-Louise Gay(French edition)
- Reuben Award (National Cartoonists Society): Sidewalk Flowers
Starred Reviews
A Boy Named Queen
Sara Cassidy
Starred Review in Kirkus
Evelyn is both aghast and fascinated when a new boy comes to grade five and tells everyone his name is Queen. Queen wears shiny gym shorts and wants to organize a chess/environment club. His father plays weird loud music and has tattoos.
How will the class react? How will Evelyn?
A Family Is a Family Is a Family
Sara O’Leary and Qin Leng
Starred Reviews in Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal
When a teacher asks the children in her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different in many ways — but the same in the one way that matters most of all.
A Small Madness
Dianne Touchell
Starred Review in Booklist
Rose and Michael are good students with bright futures. They are also in love. But when Rose gets pregnant, her behavior becomes increasingly strange as she pulls away from her best friend, and from Michael, while she struggles to cope with her predicament.
Book Uncle and Me
Uma Krishnaswami
Starred Reviews in Kirkus and School Library Journal
Every day, nine-year-old Yasmin borrows a book from Book Uncle, a retired teacher who has set up a free lending library next to her apartment building. But when the mayor tries to shut down the rickety bookstand, Yasmin has to take her nose out of her book and do something. But what can she do? The local elections are coming up but she’s just a kid. She can’t even vote!
Buddy and Earl and the Great Big Baby
Maureen Fergus and Carey Sookocheff
Starred Reviews in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly
Mom’s friend Mrs. Cunningham is coming for a visit, and she’s bringing her baby! While Buddy tries to explain the ins and outs of babydom to Earl, neither of them is prepared for the chaos the small and adorable creature brings with him.
Flannery
Lisa Moore
Starred Reviews in Kirkus, CM Magazine, Quill & Quire, School Library Journal, Horn Book, and Shelf Awareness
Sixteen-year-old Flannery Malone has it bad. She’s been in love with Tyrone O’Rourke since the days she still believed in Santa Claus. But Tyrone has grown from a dorky kid into an outlaw graffiti artist, the rebel-with-a-cause of Flannery’s dreams, literally too cool for school.
Which is a problem, since he and Flannery are partners for the entrepreneurship class that she needs to graduate. And Tyrone’s vanishing act may have darker causes than she realizes.
Kabungo
Rolli
Starred Review in Kirkus
Ten-year-old Beverly is an ordinary girl with an extraordinary best friend. Her name is Kabungo, and she lives in a cave on Main Street. No one knows where she comes from or who she really is, but life is never dull when Kabungo is around.
Malaika’s Costume
Nadia Hohn and Irene Luxbacher
Starred Review in CM Magazine
It’s Carnival time. The first Carnival since Malaika’s mother moved to Canada to find a good job and provide for Malaika and her grandmother. Her mother promised she would send money for a costume, but when the money doesn’t arrive, will Malaika still be able to dance in the parade?
Snow Summer
Kit Peel
Starred Review in Kirkus
Massive climate change has caused a winter that will not thaw, and it seems that the forces of nature have turned on humanity itself. But in the sleepy British village of Pateley, one special girl may hold the key to the earth’s survival.
Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds
Jorge Argueta and Alfonso Ruano
Starred Reviews in Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Horn Book
Why are young people leaving their country to walk to the United States to seek a new, safe home? Over 100,000 such children have left Central America. This book of poetry helps us to understand why and what it is like to be them.
The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk
Jan Thornhill
Starred Reviews in Kirkus, Booklist, School Library Journal, and Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books
For hundreds of thousands of years Great Auks thrived in the icy seas of the North Atlantic, bobbing on the waves, diving for fish and struggling up onto rocky shores to mate and hatch their fluffy chicks. But by 1844, not a single one of these magnificent birds was alive.
Turn On the Night
Geraldo Valério
Starred Reviews in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly
A little girl falls asleep and in her dream becomes a huge gray wolf, like the one in her bedtime story. Out the window she leaps, and a marvelous nighttime adventure unfolds. She visits the rooster in his coop, and invites him to hop upon her back and together they run through the night. A reindeer joins in the fun, until the three are suddenly stopped in their tracks by a giant dazzling star. The reindeer climbs upon the wolf, and the rooster upon the reindeer to reach the star, then they carry it home, where it brings all kinds of light to the little girl’s world.
The White Cat and the Monk
Jo Ellen Bogart and Sydney Smith
Starred Reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal, Quill & Quire, Booklist, and CM Magazine
A monk leads a simple life. He studies his books late into the evening and searches for truth in their pages. His cat, Pangur, leads a simple life, too, chasing prey in the darkness. As night turns to dawn, Pangur leads his companion to the truth he has been seeking.
