Holiday Gift Ideas

This idea is courtesy of MotherReader (http://www.motherreader.com/), and a great one it is...

Looking for a great holiday gift idea? Give a copy of MS. ZEPHYR'S NOTEBOOK with a ticket to your nearest planetarium (or the Vancouver Space Centre!), so that your young reader can learn more about the world of telescopes and astrolabes and Carl Sagan.

Or how about a complete set of the Eagle Glen trilogy (SEEDS OF TIME, SECRET OF LIGHT & SHADES OF RED) along with a bag of peppermints -- sure to settle the time-travellers tummy!

Looking for more great ideas to make book-giving fun? Check out CWILL's blog this week. The link is just over there -- to the side of this posting, and when you hie yourself over there, you'll find a lot more ideas for BC book giving, courtesy of Adrienne Mason. (Thanks, Adrienne!)

If you'd like to get yourself a signed copy of any of my books, I'll be at the Park Royal Indigo store this Friday afternoon (December 14th) from 2:30 to 5 pm and at the Surrey Strawberry Hill Chapters store Sunday, December 16th, starting at 1:00 pm. As a special bonus, James McCann will be signing his books PYRE and RANCOUR right beside me. A great way to cross off a number of those difficult-to-buy-for teens on your list!

~kc

A Day with Anita...Day Two

Met up with my friend, Manitoba writer Anita Daher last night. Anita is the author of a bunch of great books for kids and teens including (most recently) SPIDER'S SONG and TWO FOOT PUNCH. She's touring Ontario during Book Week as well, and today was off to London and environs.

But last night we went for dinner at a Nepalese-Indian restaurant on Yonge Street. GREAT food. It turned out to be the first meal of the day for both of us, so we had quite a feast. I enjoyed a whole selection of vegetarian delicacies on my sampling platter (curried chickpeas, Gobi Aloo), and Anita bravely ate goat for the first time ever.

(This is NOT Anita's goat. She insists hers was much tastier... and I can vouch it had a little less beard and almost entirely no bell.)

Today we got a little lost in downtown Toronto (which, strangely enough, has happened before), finally found bookstores, signed whatever stock we could get our hands on to sign, (Eaton Centre Indigo and the World's Biggest Boookstore now have signed copies, if you are looking for 'em) and bid each other adieu until later in the week.

If you want to get your hands on Anita's fabulous new book TWO FOOT PUNCH, which is the only fiction out there right now on the subject of Parkour (and a fabulous book it is, I might add), my suggestion to you is to order it pdq from your nearest bookstore. While you are at it, you might suggest they bring in a few extra copies -- this book was sold out on Amazon before it even officially launched -- and the bookstore owners will thank you for the sure sales that will result.

Tomorrow brings an early start and four presentations, plus one tv interview. I'll let you know how it goes...

~kc