Delighted to have been invited to participate in Deborah Kalb's Q&A about my first picture book, Who's Looking: How Animals See the World, and to reflect on the writing process for non-fiction picture books.
Monday, June 27, 2022
Q&A with Deborah Kalb
Sunday, May 29, 2022
A Struggle For Hope featured by CBC Books and the Canadian Children's Book Centre
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Happy to report that Who's Looking is featured in the May 2022 Hot Off the Press list by the Children's Book Council.
Monday, April 25, 2022
Starred review from School Library Journal!
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Who's Looking Book Launch Tuesday April 26
We have an all-star cast:
Cornelia Li, the illustrator of Who's Looking
Deborah Kerbel will launch two picture books
Mahtab Narsinhan as moderator
Hosted by McNally Robinson booksellers and Orca Books and Owl Books.
Who's Looking featured by Canadian Independant Booksellers!
Who’s Looking is featured in the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association Spring Preview for Young Readers ("a collection of new and forthcoming books to fill out your 'to be read' list this spring").
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Catch Me At Thin Air Kids Festival
I am thrilled to be part of Thin Air Kids Festival, part of the 2022 Winnipeg International Writers Festival. I have made two videos about my new novel A Struggle for Hope and one video for my novel Cloning Miranda. I hope you will check them out.
Plus the good people at Thin Air managed to describe A Struggle For Hope better than I could. Here is what they said:
"In A Struggle for Hope, Carol Matas shares the story of Ruth, a young Holocaust survivor caught in a war zone who tells stories to chart a path through memory, trauma, loss, and fear, to find a new way to live."
Five-star review from Canadian Review of Materials
"The conversational text is well-organized, succinct, child-friendly and inquisitive. Many interesting facts are woven throughout, such as owls have three eyelids; baby rabbits open their eyes when they are ten days old; and mice are colour-blind. Scientific vocabulary is explained in a crystal clear, easily-understood manner:
"Encouraging close obsevation Who’s Looking? is an eye-opening STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math) picture book."
Sunday, January 16, 2022
Join me on Jan. 27 for an International Holocaust Remembrance Day Webinar
Attention: Principals, Teachers and Parents
On January 27, I will be participating in a virtual event for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Hosted by Eric Walters and Sigmund Brouwer, the webinar will include presentations by Rabbi David Paskin, Eric Walters and Kathy Kacer (Broken Strings) and myself (A Struggle For Hope.)During the presentation, we will engage directly with students via a chatbox and a Q&A in a secure Zoom webinar format, so they’ll have plenty of chances to jump in with questions and comments.
Click here to register for an all-school pass at $150. If you put "Friend of Carol" in the notes field, the cost drops to $125. If you’d like to register a single classroom, the "Friend of Carol" rate is $40 instead of $65. Families are also invited to attend. Cost is just $15. Families can register here.
The webinar will last an hour. Teachers and students — either in the classroom or at home — can choose either the 11:00 a.m. (ET) session or the 1:00 p.m. (ET) session. A recording of the event will be available for up to a week after the event.
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
Debut Picture Book, Who's Looking, April 2022!
I am thrilled to say the ARC of my new picture book has just arrived! The book is now available for preorder!
Cornelia Li is the illustrator and I can't say enough about how she has imagined my text.
Since I was new to picture books and had never written non-fiction before, my learning curve was, well, ginormous! But my editor Liz Kemp at Orca book gently helped me through the process step by step. And my agent, Amy Tomkins, also contributed with some suggestions that changed the book entirely! So credit to them both. And to everyone at Orca who has been involved, especially Ruth Linka who helped me finish the project.
Who's Looking is a story about how animals see the world. It began as a conversation with my grandson, Kai, one day as we were walking home from the park. We paused to watch some ants scurrying around on the pavement and I asked Kai how he thought we would look to the ants?
By the time we got home the idea for the book was born!
I now have a dozen or more picture books at various stages so I hope this will be the first of many.
Monday, November 8, 2021
A Struggle for Hope officially launched Nov 4
First Review for A Struggle for Hope – Highly Recommended!
"The action keeps readers on the edge of their seats. A touch of romance softens some of the harsh realities the characters face. And the comfort, compassion and belonging to a communal family sustains their struggle for hope in the face of adversity."
Highly Recommended. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Click here for the full review from CM: Canadian Review of Materials.
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
A Struggle for Hope book signing
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Delighted to sign books at McNally Robinson Booksellers. |
Also available from other Canadian booksellers.
Thursday, September 2, 2021
Struggle for Hope Featured on the CBC's Fall 2021 Middle-Grades List
Thursday, July 8, 2021
Holocaust Education Week 2021
I am really honoured that my newest novel from Scholastic Canada will be launched as part of Holocaust Education Week, with the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada and the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg.
Saturday, June 19, 2021
Cloning Miranda Rights Sale to Korea/Sakyejul Publishing
This is our first big foreign rights sale and I couldn't be happier.
The novel asks some big questions – like, what does it mean to be human? It delves into the moral issues of genetic engineering and cloning and would be a fun book to read and discuss in schools.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Science Fiction can tackle the big questions.
Thanks so much to Lindsey Carmichael for hosting me on her blog so that I can talk about science fiction and how it is perfectly suited for tackling big questions like, "What does it mean to be human?"
The 2023 author edition of Cloning Miranda is available in Kindle and print.
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Teaching the Holocaust
Thursday, June 25, 2020
Past Crimes, a Paranormal Thriller for Adults!
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTjZHbStEjYZtSW-pKGvIw2aDpbrINbEteg0NS5zILbbv9D3TgfrqDHd6_oHPJtWjtWrcmVOyCFiU0XNQJTbDDWIPO8Zu7jGO66SLl33v84oJKX_0xV0T8k8iGwfQa-EcVrMMIM2ba3htW/s320/flame-cover-final.jpg)
I wrote Past Crimes a number of years ago as a thriller for adults. However, my publisher at that time decided that they could sell it better as a Young Adult novel, because that's what I am known for. The rights have now reverted to me because that publisher went under. And one of the publishers I now work with, Fictive Press, has decided to publish it as it was meant to be, for adults. Naturally I am thrilled, no pun intended.
So for anyone who wants to read a short thriller with paranormal elements, I encourage you to have a look. We all have assumptions about how the world works and sometimes we manage to get through most of our lives without those assumptions being challenged. The protagonist of Past Crimes has no such luck! All her assumptions about how the world works are blown up, literally and figuratively. And to save those around her she must open her mind to the idea that "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Please feel free to comment or email about my new venture into the adult thriller genre. I am already planning a new Ros Green sequel.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Voting! Elections! Democracy! Tyranny!
With elections coming up in the United States, in 2020, I will be available for school/ Skype visits to discuss civics, gun violence, feminism, and the importance of politics and voting in our lives.