Everyone has a favorite author. Mine is award-winning Canadian young-adult novelist Deborah Ellis, who has more than 30 titles to her name
So for me, the past weekend’s Oscars wasn’t about the glamorous actors and actresses pausing on the red carpet, or the directors/special-effects people/costume designers and whatevers sashaying up to pick up their little Oscar men. It was about the thrill of seeing a favorite writer’s work honored.
Deborah’s international bestseller The Breadwinner was turned into an animated feature film in 2017. This past weekend, it was nominated for an Oscar.
She is known for writing “challenging and beautiful works of fiction and non-fiction about children all over the world.” Her more than thirty books have won the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, the Middle East Book Award, Sweden’s Peter Pan Prize, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award and the Vicky Metcalf Award for a Body of Work. She has received the Ontario Library Association’s President’s Award for Exceptional Achievement, and she has been named to the Order of Canada.
She donates most of her royalty income to such causes as Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, Street Kids International, the Children in Crisis Fund of IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) and UNICEF. She has donated more than one million dollars in royalties from her Breadwinner books alone.
And she was kind enough to write a testimonial for my novel First Descent in 2011 (“an exciting adventure, beautifully written”).
Her most recent book is Sit, which tells the stories of nine children and the situations they find themselves in, often through no fault of their own. In each story, a child makes a decision and takes action, be that a tiny gesture or a life-altering choice.
Remember that behind the glamorous scenes of the Oscars are hard-working, little-celebrated creators called writers, those who produce the books that sometimes get turned into big movies. Congratulations, Deborah, and keep them coming.
