MONARCH BOOKS

Three great bunny-themed books for Easter!

Springtime is upon us (even though the weather isn’t quite there yet) and with spring comes all things Easter, including bunnies! With Easter less than two weeks away, here are three bunny-themed titles to celebrate. And check back on Wednesday for titles that celebrate Passover!

Five Funny Bunnies Three Bouncing Tales

Three hilarious stories capture the joys and challenges of family life with five energetic siblings!

Bunnies are for Kissing

What are bunnies for? Kissing, of course! From the break of daylight to nighttime follow along with a little bunny and his parents who give big hugs and kisses throughout the day.

The soft padded covers, rounded corners and sturdy board pages make this title a perfect fit for preschoolers!

Rabbit Pie

The perfect recipe for bedtime! Six adorable rabbits are just one ingredient needed for sweet Rabbit Pie! Combine with a sprinkling of kisses and some warm milk for the ideal bedtime story. Told like a recipe, with delightful illustrations showing the preparations for bedtime, this charming picture book will enchant parents and children alike.

QUICKSILVER interview with author R.J. Anderson

QUICKSILVER, companion novel to the critically acclaimed ULTRAVIOLET, is launching tomorrow (for more information click here) and available for purchase now in bookstores across the country and online. Author R.J. Anderson was nice enough to answer some interview questions for us via email.

Monarch: When you wrote ULTRAVIOLET, were you always planning on writing companion novel QUICKSILVER?

Anderson: About halfway into writing ULTRAVIOLET, I realized that one of my secondary characters was going to demand to tell her own story, and I hoped she’d get the chance. I even had a tentative title in mind. But at the time I wasn’t sure how ULTRAVIOLET would fare with publishers, so the idea had to stay on the back burner until my editors decided the first book was doing well enough to ask for a second.

Monarch: How did you come up with the concept for both ULTRAVIOLET and QUICKSILVER?

Anderson: ULTRAVIOLET grew out of my fascination with synesthesia, a phenomenon I first learned about some twenty years ago. I wrote a short story about a girl who could hear colours and see sounds, who ended up in psychiatric care after being wrongly accused of murder, and I thought that would be enough. But the idea kept coming back to me over the years until I finally took that story apart and rebuilt it into a novel.

QUICKSILVER, on the other hand, evolved primarily from the character of Niki. She turned out to be such an unexpectedly dynamic part of ULTRAVIOLET, and so different from the way I’d originally envisioned her, that I knew I had to give her a plot worthy of her mettle. It was daunting having to research all the things that Niki is good at, such as math and engineering and electronics, because those are really not my personal strengths. But the more I studied, the more interested and excited I became, and the easier it was to enter into Niki’s world.

Monarch: Both ULTRAVIOLET and QUICKSILVER take place in Ontario. Why did you select Ontario as the setting for your novels? Do you identify yourself as a Canadian author?

Anderson: I am certainly a Canadian author, born and bred. My family moved several times as I was growing up, but aside from the few weeks I spent in Uganda as a baby and the year I spent going to school in the US, I’ve never lived outside of Ontario. So it seemed only natural, when choosing a setting for my novels, to pick cities or areas that I knew from personal experience. But I confess to having another motive in choosing those settings, as well. Growing up as a fantasy and science-fiction loving teen, it seemed to me that nearly all the books I’d read that were clearly set in Canada were rather dull, depressing literary novels with very little action in them, and I couldn’t see why that should be the case. If extraordinary adventures could happen in New York or London, why couldn’t they happen in places like Sudbury and Kitchener too? It was a bit of a risk trying to sell these books because of that, but I’m very grateful to both my US and UK editors for having the courage and far-sightedness to embrace the Canadian setting and not ask me to change it in either ULTRAVIOLET or QUICKSILVER.

Monarch: How did you prepare yourself to write QUICKSILVER?

Anderson: To get a feel for the kinds of projects Niki would be working on, I followed MAKE Magazine and several other maker-focused blogs online, as well as browsing engineering and science magazines whenever I got the chance. I read three different biographies of Nikola Tesla, Niki’s namesake, and borrowed bits I found particularly interesting (like the “white lightning” that accompanies some of Niki’s more dramatic flashes of inspiration). I also visited Kwartzlab Makerspace in Kitchener on two or three occasions to get ideas for the makerspace Niki visits in the book, and finally my family and I drove to the Algonquin Radio Telescope and took a tour of the facility there to help me develop its fictional counterpart in the novel. There were many other bits of research I did along the way into things like Korean culture and cooking, asexuality, soldering techniques, private investigation, DNA analysis and so on, and I also consulted with a physics professor and a number of electronics engineers to help me get the science and technology right. Between this book and ULTRAVIOLET, I’ve never done so much research in my life!

Monarch: ULTRAVIOLET received a starred Kirkus review, and was shortlisted for both the Andre Norton award and the Sunburst Award here in Canada. Were you surprised by the strong response ULTRAVIOLET received?

Anderson: Definitely. ULTRAVIOLET was very much the book of my heart, but I knew it was unusual and genre-bending and that it might be a tough sell to anyone else. Finding the book so warmly welcomed by many readers, and even some notoriously tough and exacting reviewers, has been a huge thrill for me. And to be nominated for two such prestigious science fiction awards was a great honour.

Monarch: How do you think your fans will react to QUICKSILVER?

Anderson: Judging by the advance reviews, those who’ve read the book are often surprised by the premise and the change of narrator at first, but I’m happy to say that they’ve been almost universally enthusiastic about Niki and her story. And even those who didn’t love Niki as much as they did Alison in the first novel have spoken very favourably about QUICKSILVER on the whole. So that gives me hope that the majority of my readers will feel the same way.

QUICKSILVER launch and upcoming blog interview with author R. J. Anderson

R. J. Anderson’s new contemporary young adult thriller, QUICKSILVER, companion novel to the much acclaimed ULTRAVIOLET, is set for launch on February 26, 2013 at Kwartzlab Makerspace in Kitchener, Ontario starting at 7 p.m.. Anyone in the area is welcome to attend. Further details can be found on the Facebook event page here and on the invitation below. 

We are also lucky enough to have an interview with R. J. Anderson that we will post on our blog on Monday February 25^th. 

Spider-Man’s Sam Raimi to Produce Angelfall Movie Adaptation

Good news from a couple of months ago for Susan Ee’s Angelfall, Good Universe and Sam Raimi are teaming to develop an adaptation of the postapocalyptic angel-themed young-adult book.

Originally self-published in 2011, Angelfall was picked up by Amazon Children’s Publishing for a re-release in August 2012.

EW.com Exclusive interview with Susan Ee, Angelfall

Angelfall

SmartSeries reviewed on leading Canadian homeschooling blog

Monarch’s SmartSeries was reviewed today on a leading Canadian homeschooling blog, The Canadian Homeschooler:

SmartSeries Books {+Giveaway}

Four titles included on the ALSC’s 2013 Notable Children’s Books list

Each year a committee of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) identifies the best of the best in children’s books compiling the 2013 Notable Children’s Books list. Congratulations to the four books that have been included:

Infinity and Me

Iceberg, Right Ahead!

Zombie Makers

A Game for Swallows

The complete 2103 list is here: http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/notalists/ncb

Things to Learn and Things to See boasts attractive photos of favourite items

Although brightly coloured drawings are attractive to babies and toddlers, photos of different but familar objects are an especially big hit at our house. That meant that My First Book of: Things to Learn and Things to See were an instant success with my almost two-year-old. With helpful photo tabs down the side that are the perfect size for little hands, both books feature sections that are much loved for those under three including Animal Noises and At my Party.

Things to Learn

This engaging introduction to first concepts, like colors,
shapes, and numbers, features sturdy, tabbed pages
that are perfect for little hands. The bright, appealing
photographs and simple labels will help build your child’s
vocabulary and encourage them to discover the world
around them.

Things to See

Discovering individuality in Harold Finds a Voice

At this dreary time of year, a colourful book might just help brighten up a gray afternoon, especially a book  with a great message. Harold Finds a Voice is just that kind of book. Written and illustrated by Courtney Dicmas, this is a tale of Harold the parrot who is a master mimic, but has no voice of his own until he goes looking to discover it. A vibrant and interactive book that will get the whole house squawking (and making all sorts of other noises)!

Harold Finds a Voice 

Harold is an amazing mimic, and can imitate the sound of everything in his home. Tired of repeating the same old noises, he yearns to find out what other voices there are in the big, wide world. But what happens when he suddenly realises that he doesn’t yet have a voice of his own? 

Making Spring feel a little bit closer with What’s in the Garden?

Though we’ve been pretty spoiled here in Toronto with some spring-like weather in the recent past, it is now cold, cold, cold. What better way to warm up than to think ahead to spring and of course, this forthcoming book and your forthcoming garden! What’s in the Garden, written by Marianne Berkes, illustrated by Cris Arbo is a thoughtful book on growing different items in the garden accompanied by recipes using those items. One of the best aspects of this book is that the recipes are designed for younger children to follow by illustrating the ingredients right next to the text. What’s in the Garden will help bring a little warmth in your house as you plan your spring garden and help little ones recognize where all the produce you eat comes really from.

What’s is the Garden?

Good food doesn’t begin on a store shelf with a box. It comes from a garden bursting with life, color, sounds, smells, sunshine, moisture, birds, and bees! Healthy food becomes much more interesting when children know where they come from. So what’s in the garden? Kids will find a variety fruits and vegetables, and a tasty, kid-friendly recipe for each one to start a lifetime of good eating. A “food for thought” section presents interesting facts about each fruit and vegetable, and a “how does your garden grow?” section explains facts about gardening and the parts of plants. Author Marianne Berkes consulted with nutritionists and personally made every recipe in the book, to be sure they are both tasty and kid-friendly.

And now for some Canadian content, Hoop Genius

If you’ve ever seen the Canadian Heritage commercial that details the invention of Basketball (luckily if you haven’t, youtube has it, click here) by Canadian James Naismith, then you know the premise of this book. Beautifully illustrated by Canadian Joe Morse and wonderfully told by author John Coy. A great Canadiana history lesson tie-in, or just a great read for all those basketball fans out there.

 Hoop Genius