TORONTO—The Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) held a ceremony on October 27 at DoubleTree by Hilton’s downtown Toronto location, bringing together seven unique categories and celebrating Canadian excellence in literature for kids and teens. There they announced the winners of each of the categories. The awards recognize the books’ creators for outstanding literary achievement. In total, $52,000 in prize money was awarded.
Mark Morton, a part-time Manitoulin resident, was among the recipients; his young adult novel ‘The Headmasters’ won the Arlene Barlin Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Here is what the jury had to say about Mr. Morton’s novel: “A new science fiction novel that feels like it’s already a classic… Morton’s ‘The Headmasters’ invites the reader into a dystopian future that is rife with traditional science fiction world building… This well-paced young adult novel captures the readers’ attention right from the beginning, engaging them in epic storytelling and reminding them that there is a time when it’s important to stand up and fight for what you believe in.”
“In a way it kind of felt like the culmination I was looking for,” Mr. Morton said. “When you’re writing a book, and editing and re-writing it, in that whole process there’s no big moment of closure…The winning was great because it wasn’t just a recognition of confidence in the book, but with the jurors and the CCBC itself, it feels like a broader, deeper affirmation.” He has noticed lots more traffic to his author Facebook page, the number of people visiting having jumped 100-fold. “Whether that translates into sales, we’ll have to wait and see,” he said.
Mr. Morton attended the awards ceremony along with his wife, author and poet Melanie Cameron, and their daughter, Rukhsana. In accepting his award, Mark Morton said: “I want to give thanks for two things in my life that shaped my writing of ‘The Headmasters.’ First, I want to thank the wood ticks that I greaw up with on the Saskatchewan prairies, which inspired (in a much-enlarged form) the creepiest alien creatures that I could ever have imagined! And second, I want to thank the four kids whom my wife and I adopted as older children — Brandon, Laika, Rukhsana and Matthew. The resilience and courage our children showed us, individually and collectively, as they overcame the challenges that they had been handed through no fault of their own, were the inspiration for the resilience and courage that characterize my novel’s protagonist, Maple.” For the young adult reader in your life. get your hands on a copy of this novel ASAP. Find it at Shadowpaw Press: shadowpawpress.com, Amazon, and coming soon to The Manitoulin Expositor bookshop.
by Margery Frisch
