share!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Last week, I ran the first session of my four week Writing Comics Workshop for Kids aged 8 – 12 years, at the Toronto Public Library. It was a lot of fun meeting the kids and discovering all the great ideas they had for comics.

As I promised in previous blog posts and to the good people who subscribe to Reading Change, my monthly newsletter, here’s a quick rundown of the activities we did during Session 1.

If you’re a teacher, you could adapt these activities to use in your own classroom.

Here are the activities for Writing Comics for Kids: Session 1. Enjoy!

Continue Reading »

share!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

share!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Digital Stories for Digital Readers

I’m excited to announce the arrival of Tech Tales, a brand new series of short stories for middle grade readers available exclusively as digital downloads.

Written for Reluctant Readers, Designed for Teachers

Reluctant readers will enjoy the Tech Tales’ short length, brief chapters and high interest topics told with with fast action, spooky mysteries and gadgety weirdness.

Teachers, librarians and home schoolers will love the easy DRM-Free license that comes with each story that allows unlimited:

• sharing of digital files with colleagues or students
• printing for in-class group reading or offline reading
• access to unique Teacher’s Guide with questions and activities individually tailored for each story

Get Unplugged and New Stories Every Month

Unplugged, the first Tech Tale story, is available now and more stories will be arriving monthly.

Learn more about Tech Tales and watch out for a new story each month!

share!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

share!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Steampunk goes west in Modo: Ember's End

Earlier this month, I wrote about some Canadian authors mixing it up with traditional publishing and independent, or self publishing. If you missed it, check out Five Canadian Kids Authors Rocking it as Hybrids, to get caught up.

One author mentioned was Arthur Slade, you know the Governor General Award-winning author of Dust, Tribes and the rollicking steampunk series The Hunchback Assignments. Arthur is also a pioneer with going hybrid. He recently self-published his Northern Frights series as ebooks and now Art is pushing the boundaries of Canadian publishing by crowdsourcing his new project Modo: Ember’s End on Indiegogo.

Illustrator Christopher Steininger’s artwork looks amazing and coupled with Arthur’s writing, you know this book is going to kick some Steampunk butt. They just cracked the $5000 mark but need more support to make it all happen.

That’s where you come in.

Whether you’re an Arthur Slade groupie (he has them), a teacher or just a graphic novel fan, there are some great perks for pledging your support including signed artwork and even a virtual author visit to your school from Arthur himself.  Visit the Modo: Ember’s End Indiegogo page and see them all.

Arthur was kind enough to answer some questions for me about his new project and the future of Canadian kids publishing for schools and libraries. I think after you’ve heard what he has to say about Modo: Ember’s End, you’ll want to grab some of those perks for yourself.

Continue Reading »

share!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

share!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Max and Alison circa 2002

Tomorrow, I’ll be heading downtown and traveling back in time.

I’ll be joining the Owlkids team to talk about the history of the Max Finder Mystery comic I created ten years ago. It’s all part of the Comic Arts for Kids Expo (CAKE) happening at 12:45 on March 23rd, 2013 at the Lillian H. Smith Library (239 College Street, at Spadina.)

I still can’t believe it’s been over ten years since I sat down and ripped off, er, was inspired by Encyclopedia Brown and created Max Finder and Alison Santos and a little town called Whispering Meadows. Every month since around 2002, Max and Alison have stumbled into a fresh mystery and middle grade readers across North America have joined them in cracking the case. Now, Max and Alison have their own European editions and soon they’ll be translated into Spanish and Dutch. More on that later.

In the meantime, if you and your favourite comic fan are looking for some mysterious fun, come on down to CAKE and check out the whole day of activities.

In honour of the time traveling fun, I’ve included a vintage Max Finder Mystery below the jump. It was illustrated by Michael Cho that appeared in Owl Magazine back in 2002, I think.

Enjoy!

Continue Reading »

share!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
•