Philippa Dowding's Blog, page 4

Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet a 49th Shelf MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK

Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet is a 49th Shelf Most Anticipated 2019 Young Readers Fall review book! It's also a Dewey Divas and the Dudes fall selection AND a @49th Shelf Book of the Week.

Whew! Can't wait to get my author copies. A-n-t-i-c-i-p-a-t-i-o-n.

This book is an environmental resistance dystopia for middle-grade kids, and is the 6th and final book in the award-winning Weird Stories Gone Wrong series. Ending with a bang!

Here's more info and how to get a preview copy: https://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/0...

49th Shelf Teachers uses Alex and The Other

How to get kids into storytelling, even the ones who aren't strong writers? This week blogger Allison Hall at 49th Shelf Teachers website has some great suggestions, with "Books to Inspire Storytelling (with tech tools to capture the tales)"!

Allison provides ideas, inspiring books, and technology to help student storytellers with Podcasting, StopMotion Animation, Ebook creation, Animation and Coding, Online StoryTelling, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Creation.

Here's the link to the full blog post on the 49th Shelf Teachers website: https://bit.ly/2LukmBL

In the "Video Creation" section, Allison suggests using my 2018 book, Alex and The Other to inspire kids to tell SPOOKY stories with green screen. Alex's is a doppelganger story, and is the 4th book in the award-winning Weird Stories Gone Wrong series, for kids grades 3-6.


These are great ideas, books, and technology to help inspire kids to tell their stories, however they do it. We need the next generation of storytellers, now more than ever!

OCULUM is on the Forest of Reading Kid Committee List!

"The Ontario Library Association is excited to announce the 2019 Kid Committee Summer Reading List in the Forest of Reading program! These are the books that you should be reading over the summer - as recommended by seventeen avid readers!"--Ontario Library Association

The Forest of Reading Kid Committee reading list is out! SO honoured (and excited) that OCULUM is selected by the kids as a great summer read in the Red Maple category (grades 7-8). That's really special, my first time on this list, thank you guys!

Here's the whole list of great books: https://bit.ly/2Z4sDiH

Here's a longer blog post with more resources about OCULUM: http://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/05...

Read Canadian this summer!

The Year's Best Books 2018, Resource Links Magazine

Love a good evil twin horror story? Resource Links magazine has named Alex and The Other as one of The Year's Best Books 2018!

Thank you, what an honour! It's a terrific list, with books from Eric Walters, Rachelle Delaney, Heather Smith, Cary Fagan, Arthur Slade and more great Canadian kid's authors.

Here's the whole list: http://www.resourcelinksmagazine.ca/a...

Here's a longer blog post about it: https://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/0...

Beware The Other!

More Free Gargoyle Stuff! Music, author readings AND Teacher's Guides!

The 10th Anniversary Gargoyle Extravaganza Continues! My first book, The Gargoyle in My Yard turns ten in April, 2019, and there's a lot of FREE GARGOYLE STUFF FOR YOU!

Like what you ask?

How about The Gargoyle Shuffle? Yep, that's me playing guitar. Here's a taste of the shuffle: https://philippadowding.bandcamp.com/...

Or recordings of the author (yep, also me) reading two chapters of the book live, the chapters that I read when I do class visits.

AND FREE Teacher's Guides for the entire Lost Gargoyle Series!

Find your free gargoyle stuff here, enjoy!: https://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/0...

It's a Diamond Willow Nomination for OCULUM!

I COULD NOT be more honoured to announce that my new middle-grade dystopia, OCULUM, has been nominated for the SYRCA Diamond Willow Award 2019-2020!

Thank you so much to the SYRCA, keeping kids reading and engaged with books throughout Saskatchewan. I'm really honoured. Thanks also to my wonderful publisher, DCB Young Readers, for believing in this strange dystopian story for middle-graders.

Here's a longer blog post with the complete list of nominees and more: http://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/04...

Introducing The Gargoyle Shuffle!

My first book, The Gargoyle in My Yard was published 10 years ago, on April 1, 2009!

To celebrate, I'm posting all things gargoyle on my blog this month. First up is music!

Enjoy The Gargoyle Shuffle, on Bandcamp, free: https://philippadowding.bandcamp.com/...

I wrote this song in 2014, and have played it to thousands of children across Canada since. This new version is recorded with the book's editor, Allister Thompson (we've edited 12 books together now!).

Here's a YouTube video of me playing the song, and kids dancing it, in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsVCI...

Thanks to author Rebecca Upjohn for the video!

Here's a longer blog post about gargoyles, publishing 10 years, music and more: http://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/04...

Hug a gargoyle today!

My Best Piece of KidLit Writing Advice Is ...

I'm honoured to be the guest blogger over on the Kick-Butt KidLit blog, with a spotlight on Canadian authors this month!

They asked great questions like...

What's the Most Canadian Thing You've Ever Put In A Book? (The Chi-Cheemaun Ferry)

What would you like to see more of in the Canadian kid lit world? (More review sites)

AND, What's your BEST PIECE of Kick-Butt KidLit writing advice?

Here's the answer to that last one, over on the Kick-Butt Blog. Go see! You could win a copy of OCULUM, plus more great prizes, enjoy: https://bit.ly/2Tt1vq4

The 5 stages of a Book Cover

Have you ever wondered exactly HOW a book cover comes together?

My next book, Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet, is the most beautiful cover yet, IMHO, in the award-winning Weird Stories Gone Wrong series. It's a series of horror stories for kids ages 9-12, and book 2, Myles and the Monster Outside, won the OLA Silver Birch Express Honour Book in 2017.

The series gets compared to Goosebumps a lot, which is amazing, and the covers and inside illustrations are all the creations of Shawna Daigle, a wonderful artist.

Anyway, if you're interested in how the covers come together, and want to see the 5 main stages (including the first hilarious "draft" from me, an author who truly CANNOT draw), then check out my other blog: https://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/0...

Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet is forthcoming from Dundurn Press, September, 2019.

Welcome Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet!

Well, it's official! Welcome to Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet, book SIX in the award-winning Weird Stories Gone Wrong series, horror stories for middle-grade readers!

The book comes out next fall, 2019, from Dundurn Press. It's a resistance dystopia for younger readers, ages 8-12, with robots, rampant consumerism, and Snow Creatures with blue-fire tongues!

Stay tuned for more about Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet, but for now, check out my other blog for a look at all the covers in the series, done so beautifully by illustrator Shawna Daigle: https://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/0...