NOT SUITABLE FOR FAMILY VIEWING and RES JUDICATA were both chosen for CCBC’s Best Books for Kids and Teens 2010 magazine. (On newsstands now. Pick up your copy today!)

Thanks to the editors at CCBC for picking my books – and thanks to my editors and HarperCollins and Orca for making them happen.

Looks like Ben’s getting started early.

This award recognizes an author of an outstanding English-language Canadian work of fiction published in 2009 that appeals to readers between the ages of 13 and 18.

The winner of the award and the Honour Books will be announced prior to the Canadian Library Association National Conference and Trade Show. The award will be presented on June 3 at the CLA conference in Edmonton.

The finalists for the 2010 CLA Young Adult Book Award, in alphabetical order by author, are:

• Poster Boy by Dede Crane (Groundwood)
• Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Not Suitable for Family Viewing by Vicki Grant (HarperCollins)
• Haunted by Barbara Haworth-Attard (HarperCollins)
• Girl on the Other Side by Deborah Kerbel (Dundurn)
• Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston (HarperCollins)
• The Gryphon Project by Carrie Mac (Puffin)
• Dragon Seer by Janet McNaughton (HarperCollins)
• Vanishing Girl by Shane Peacock (Tundra)
• The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade (HarperCollins)

Not Suitable for Family Viewing  has done all right by itself lately.

Last week at the Ontario Library Association Superconference in Toronto, it was one of ten novels chosen  as a 2009 OLA Best Bets for Young Adult Readers.

Today, it was nominated for the 2010 Snow Willow Awards in Saskatchewan.

The Snow Willow is  given through the Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Award program (SYRCA), which promotes reading among the province’s children and youth.  Ten books written by Canadian authors and aimed at kids in grades 7 to 9 are nominated. Any student who has read the minimum number of books can vote for their favourite. The winning book will receive the Snow Willow award next Spring.

Not quite the cover of The Rolling Stone but I'll take it.

Not Suitable for Family Viewing managed to get a recommendation and a very nice review from Canadian Children’s Book News. Reviewer Rachel Seigel said:

“What really makes this novel work is the humour that Grant infuses into the story. With so many heavy, issue-based books on the market for teens, it’s refreshing to read a book that makes you laugh out loud, without becoming silly or losing sight of the message…Teens who are looking for a lighthearted and entertaining read will enjoy this novel, and thanks to Grant’s mastery, will come away having learned some valuable lessons as well.”

That's what I like to see

While in Alberta for Children’s Book Week, I visited ten schools, three libraries and any number of book stores. I talked to close to a thousand kids between the ages of ten and eighteen. I learned about pump jacks and stubble and why everybody in Alberta has a cracked windshield.

And I had a very, very good time.

I want to thank all the teachers, librarians, students and book-sellers who made me so welcome.

Would I go back again? As they say in Alberta – “You betcha!”

(This candid photo was sent to me by teacher/librarian Donna Alden after my visit to Calgary Science School. Does my heart good…)

What if no one turns up?

What if the few people who are there boo when I start to read or show more interest in the cheese plate than in what I’m saying?

What if my fly’s down or there’s pasty, mushed-up cracker between my teeth?

After seven launches, I’ve learned my lessons. I wear a long sweater now, always hold off on the snacks until after I’ve done my schtick – and only invite people I know who will laugh at my jokes. Luckily, over the years, I’ve managed to collect quite a few of them.

How I did it, I don’t know but I’m very, very, very grateful.

Thank you to everyone who came to the launch of NOT SUITABLE FOR FAMILY VIEWING – and especially to those who laughed at the appropriate moments.

So please join me tomorrow night at the historic Council of Women House on Inglis Street for readings and refreshments. Hope to see you – and your friends – there… 

 The comic legal thriller for teens, Quid Pro Quo, will soon be available in Korea. It’s currently available in France under the title Sur la Liste des Suspects. Rageot, the French publisher has also picked up the rights to Res Judicata.

My new YA novel, Not Suitable for Family Viewing, is finally in bookstores. Just two reviews so far but they’ve both been pretty good.

Atlantic Books Today said: “Part mystery and part family drama, this book is an altogether enjoyable story of discoveries…self-discovery, the discovery of long-hidden family secrets and the discovery of numerous truths, both of a deeply personal and also an utterly universal nature.”

CM Magazine gave the book four out of four stars and called it: “an excellent teen novel with interesting characters and a complex plot tinged with both romance and mystery.”