Black History Month: The Bite of the Mango and Chanda's Secrets

February is Black History Month in Canada and the U.S. (in the U.K., it's in October), so today's blog post features two of our most popular books with African content.

Mariatu Kamara's powerful memoir The Bite of the Mango won the respected Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction last year, and continues to receive awards nominations and praise. So far, the foreign rights have been sold for Australia/New Zealand (Allen & Unwin), the UK (Bloomsbury), Germany (Droemer Knaur), Holland (De Fontein), Italy (Sperling & Kupfer), Spain (Intermon Oxfam), French North America (La courte échelle), Portuguese Brazil (Editora Planeta), Slovenia (Zaloba Alica), and Korea (BookInMyLife). We're thrilled to see Mariatu's story travel around the world in so many different languages.

Here's Mariatu on a trip home to Sierra Leone:


From previous blog posts, you'll remember that author Allan Stratton has been on-site in sub-Saharan Africa to watch as his novel, Chanda's Secrets, is transformed into a movie. He's recently updated his blog with the story of how his book got turned into a movie, more pictures of the actors on set, and a funny story about movie extras.

We'll leave you with this book trailer:


For Black History events, check a local newspaper or search online. (NOW Magazine has a good list of events in Toronto.)

Read to Your Pets for Literacy?

Sure, Apple might have gotten most of the media limelight on Wednesday, January 27 with its unveiling of the iPad, but there was another important event that day: Family Literacy Day. There were lots of events across Canada to celebrate the importance of literacy, and a few more events are coming up.

The organizers remind us that literacy is not limited to books--you can sing songs with your kids, follow recipes together, play games, etc.--but as a children's book publisher, we love to see families reading together!

On that note, our own Andrea Wayne von Königslöw has come up with a delightful picture book about a child who tries to read a book to all sorts of animals, only to realize that most animals really aren't well-suited to storytime. Find out who the best animals to read to are in How Do You Read to a Rabbit?, on shelves soon!

To find out more about this book and the other titles on our Spring 2010 list, click here to browse our catalog online.

Good Times in Boston: ALA Midwinter Wrap-up

My coworker Heather and I are back from the ALA Midwinter Meeting, where we proudly displayed our Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 titles (click here for a PDF of our Spring 2010 catalog). Here's a picture Heather took of our booth (er, and me):

That big, striking banner is for our new Single Voice series, which we're very excited about. We've acquired six short young adult novels from French publisher Actes Sud, and are releasing them as three flip-books, with two stories per book. We've also brought author/editor Melanie Little on board to develop more titles with Canadian authors. (We're just finishing up a podcast with Melanie, so I'll let her tell you all about it in her own words, soon!)

As always, highlights of the show included chatting with teachers, librarians, and other book enthusiasts (a lot of people recognized our books or were familiar with our press, which is always nice); visiting other exhibits to see what's coming out in 2010 (answer: lots of good stuff); and giving away posters and catalogs. (I'd love to see a picture of one of our posters in a school or library somewhere... does anyone have one they could send me?)

I also checked out the ALA Tweetup, organized by author Mitali Perkins and book marketer and promoter Deborah Sloan. As with the BEA Tweetup last year, it was pretty packed, but I did manage to meet lots of nice people and have some good conversations. Here's a look at the tweetup from above:

I hope everyone who attended ALA Midwinter had a great trip and brought back lots of new books, ideas, and contacts. For the rest of our ALA Midwinter photos, please visit our Flickr account.

Happy New Year!

I remember when the year 2000 was a huge deal... and now it's 2010! Time is just flying by.

Annick will have a booth at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston next week from Jan. 15 to 18. If you'll be attending, please drop by booth 1463 to say hi and browse our new books. Almost all of our Spring 2010 titles are now in, so this is a great chance to get some sneak peeks.

Exhibit times:
January 15 (Fri.): 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
January 16 and 17 (Sat. and Sun.): 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
January 18 (Sun.): 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

In other news, we're starting to see some early reviews for our Spring 2010 books: Chicken, Pig, Cow and the Purple Problem (third in the series!) received a starred review from Quill & Quire and our graphic narrative about adolescence, i.d.: Stuff That Happens to Define Us, appeared in the "Books for Young People" section of Q&Q's print edition. More news about our Spring 2010 books to come!

The Bite of the Mango European Tour!

Mariatu Kamara went on a three-week, five-country European tour in November to promote the launch of the British, Dutch, German, Italian, and Spanish editions of her memoir, The Bite of the Mango!

Co-author Susan McClelland joined her in London and Berlin while Mariatu's Auntie Kadi (whom you will know from the book) joined her in Amsterdam, Rome, and Barcelona and Madrid. It was a very successful tour all round, with Mariatu doing lots of print, TV, and radio interviews, in addition to school visits, bookstore signings, and more! Mariatu and her story are being embraced by people all over the world...

What's always interesting is to see the different covers that publishers produce for their editions. Here are a few samples:

UK Paperback cover (Bloomsbury, to be released June 2010)

Italian cover (Sperling & Kupfer, released November '09.)
Note title translates as Whose Hands Shall Wipe Away My Tears)

German cover (Pattloch/Droemer Knaur, released November '09)

Note, title translates as The Girl With No Hands

Dutch cover (De Kern/De Fontein, released November '09)

Note, title translates as The Taste of the Mango

French (North America) cover (La courte echelle, released November '09)

Note, title translates as The Blood of the Mango

Australian cover (Allen & Unwin, released May 2009)

Other foreign editions still to come include the Spanish, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Slovenian.

Olympic Torch Sighting!

Today was a very exciting day at Annick's Toronto office: the Olympic torch procession went by right outside! A few of us watched from the office, while others braved the cold and got a close-up look. (The Vancouver Annick office isn't missing out, of course, as the winter Olympics will be taking place right in their city next February!)

Here's one photo; you can check out the rest on our Flickr account.

Allan Stratton Blogs from Movie Set of CHANDA'S SECRETS

Allan Stratton, author of Chanda's Secrets and Chanda's Wars (among other books), has taken up blogging. He's fortunate to have some very exciting news to blog about, too: Chanda's Secrets is being turned into a film! And Allan has been on set in sub-Saharan Africa watching it all unfold.

I especially like the post in which he introduces us to some of the actors. He also explains why the director, Oliver Schmitz, and his crew had to switch from speaking German to English while on set. He's updating fairly regularly and includes lots of pictures (including pictures of his cats editors), so go to http://allanstratton.blogspot.com/ and check it out!