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Nadia Wheatley

TREASURES AT THE CBCA CONFERENCE

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Last weekend at the CBCA Conference was one of the most wonderful experiences I have had yet as a writer. I met old friends and new, had wonderful conversations with intelligent, creative people, ate dinner in the War Memorial under the fighter planes, met so many inspiring teacher librarians passionate about reading, drank lots of bad coffee, was part of the ‘Local Treasures’ panel where we spoke about the crazy juggling act of being both a writer and a mother (more on that in another post), and laughed and laughed and laughed. I’m still trying to process everything that happened and have no idea how to capture it all in just one short post. So I thought that I would pick out some of the featured authors and share a few of my favourite books.

Glenda Millard_Tracey Hawkins_Michael Gerard Bauer_Irma Gold_Tania McCartney
Glenda Millard, Tracey Hawkins, Michael Gerard Bauer, Irma Gold, Tania McCartney

I have to start with Glenda Millard because I was a little star struck meeting her. In person she was beautiful — gently spoken, dressed in bold colours. Two of her picture books in particular have been treasured favourites in our house — Heart of the Tiger, which always makes me want to weep,  and Kaito’s Cloth which was Miss Ten’s favourite book for the longest time and still sits on her bookshelf despite the fact that she says she is far too old for picture books. Kaito’s Cloth was also important to me after I was told by both a publisher and an agent that they couldn’t sell Megumi and the Bear ‘because of its snowy setting’. At the time we were reading Kaito’s Cloth daily; it has snow on every page. If Glenda can do it, I thought, so can I. Thankfully the incomparable Walker Books agreed. I was too shy to tell Glenda how much she has inspired me at the conference, but maybe next time.

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