Posts Tagged ‘margaret atwood’

Author Joyce Barkhouse Named to Order of Canada

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Also following the children’s book theme…

Children’s author, Joyce Barkhouse was named as a Member to the Order of Canada on December 30. The Order of Canada is the highest civilian honour within the country and recognizes a lifetime of distinguished service.

The Nova Scotia native is honoured for her contributions to children’s literature and the Canadian literary community.  The now 95-year-old Barkhouse is most recognized for her book, Pit Pony which was made into a CBC movie and a 44-episode TV drama.

Barkhouse published her first full-length novel, George Dawson: The Little Giant in 1974 at the age of 61.

Writing skills seem to be in the genes - Barkhouse is aunt to well-known Canadian author Margaret Atwood with whom she wrote Anna’s Pet.

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Canadians don’t know Canadian authors

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

According to this article in the National Post nearly half of Canadians can’t name a Canadian author…

Findings of the survey of 1,502 Canadians, aged 15 and older, suggest young Canadians are the most ignorant about Canada’s writers. Almost two-thirds (62%) could not name a Canadian author in an unaided exercise.

Among respondents who could name an author, Margaret Atwood was most often mentioned (22%). Among the 400 others, Pierre Berton (8%), Farley Mowat (8%) and Michel Tremblay (5%) received numerous mentions; no other author was cited by more than 4% of respondents.

Hopefully some of these people just thought some of Canadas super sellers like Eckhart Tolle, Robert Munsch, and William Gibson were of actually another nationality… much in the same way some people are surprised to find out film stars like Mike Myers, John Candy and Jim Carrey are all Canadian

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