This just in: Ramp Rats named to the Resource Links Best of List for 2008! This is very cool news for a couple of reasons. First, it’s always nice to have your work linked with the word “best” and second, it’s another sign that educators and book people are welcoming graphic novels into the realm of “stuff that is good for young readers.” Included in the list are some really good titles from fantastic Canadian authors. I’m honoured to included.

I say it’s another sign, because the first book in the Graphic Guide Adventure series, Wild Ride, is nominated for the 2009 Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award. This isn’t new news, but it is to my knowledge the first time a graphic novel has been nominated for one of the “Tree Awards” (Silver Birch in Ontario and more varieties in other provinces.) Sequential art FTW!

All this is a round-about way of saying that I’ll be heading out to Halifax for the Hackmatack Awards ceremony in May. Very excited about that. I’ll also be visiting schools in the run up to the awards, so I’m looking forward to meeting the readers and securing their votes by any means necessary (this stuff makes the US elections look like a tea party, let me tell you.)

Thanks to Resource Links and Hackmatack for including the GGA books and a big thanks to the creative powers of Michael Deas, illustrator extraordinaire who gives the whole serkies its fantastic look. Just check out the cover art for Soccer Sabotage, GGA #3 on the left. Kickin’! (in every sense of the word.)