I was so excited when teacher, writer and reviewer Spencer B. Miller chose my new book Sixties Girl as one of his top five picks for middle graders from all the new Canadian novels that have come out this spring. What a thrill to hear his endorsement of my novel and to be in the company of four other great books.
Spencer Miller talks about why he selected Sixties Girl as a Top Grade book for his Canadian Lit in the Classroom video
You can hear all the nice things Spencer said about my book here (Sixties Girl is reviewed at the 4:15 mark). One of his statements that really resonated with me was………..
Sixties Girl has this great message about the value of spending time with older generations. If we will sit down and listen to their stories there is so much they have to teach us.
Tessa Riggs a librarian from Toronto wrote the review of Sixties Girl for the Canadian Review of Materials. She had lots of nice things to say about the book but I really loved this paragraph.
By using a beloved grandparent’s recollections as a framing device, Driedger makes moments in local and global history real and rooted in a perspective children can understand. While the topics broached are serious, Driedger tells them with compassion and understanding, softening the subject matter for younger readers without robbing them of their significance.
The 49th Shelf asked me to curate a list of books titled Sharing Stories Across the Generations after they read my novel Sixties Girl. It was a delight to put together this list of books about grandparents that are all connected to me in a personal way.
I was in Canmore for my niece’s wedding last weekend. My nephew Beau who was also at the wedding and is a librarian in Ontario told me how beautiful the library in Canmore was and said I should check it out. So I did.
And guess what? They have both of my novels Sixties Girl and Lost on the Prairie in their collection.
Sixties Girl had been checked out by a library patron but I found Lost on the Prairie on the shelf.
Sixties Girl has already made the bestseller list at McNally Robinson Booksellers three weeks in a row. This past week it was #1 at the top of the kids’ book list.
After reading Lost on the Prairie Kathy Kyle a rancher in Saskatchewan decided to name a cow after me. Read all about that here.
I have made a couple of school visits for Lost on the Prairie recently and have two more booked for the month of May. You can see the events page of my website to find out all the places I’ll be.
If you haven’t already seen the interview I did about Sixties Girl with CTV News you can watch it here.
As you can see lots of things are happening for me as an author and if I don’t round them up and post about them it’s easy for them to get lost or forgotten. I promise I won’t always be writing about my novels in the future.
Other posts…….