Shelley Tanaka
Canadian children's writer and book editor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shelley Tanaka is a Canadian editor of numerous young adult novels, an author of non-fiction for children, a translator, and a writing teacher.
Biography
Shelley Tanaka was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She received an Honours bachelor's degree in English and German from Queen's University, and a master's degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto.[1][2] She lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.[3]
Tanaka began her editing career at Clarke Irwin.[4] She has been the fiction editor at Groundwood Books, a Canadian children's book publisher, since 1983 and has edited books by many Canadian writers, including Tim Wynne-Jones, Deborah Ellis, Martha Brooks, Sarah Ellis and Alan Cumyn. She is the editor of thirteen Governor General's Award winning books.[1][5][6]
Shelley Tanaka writes nonfiction for children, including books in the I Was There series and A Day That Changed America series. She has won numerous awards for her writing, among them the Orbis Pictus Award in 2009.[7] Her books have been translated into several languages: German, Danish, Spanish, French, Japanese, Portuguese and Thai.[8] Additionally, she has translated many children's picture books and novels from German and French into English.[2][8]
Tanaka teaches in the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.[3]
Awards
- Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator won the Orbis Pictus Award in 2009.[9]
- Translation of Good for Nothing by Michel Noël was on the IBBY Honour List for translation in 2006.[10]
- Secrets of the Mummies won the Science in Society Children's Book Award in 2000.
- Discovering the Iceman won the Mr. Christie's Book Award in 1997.[11]
- On Board the Titanic won the Silver Birch Award in 1997.[12]
- The Buried City of Pompei won the Information Book Award in 1997.
- On Board the Titanic won the Information Book Award in 1996.[13]
- On Board the Titanic and The Buried City of Pompeii were finalists for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.[4]
Bibliography
Novels
- Nobody Knows, Novelization of the Japanese film by Hirokazu Kore-eda (2012)[14]
Historical events
- Earthquake! (2004)
- Gettysburg (2003)
- D-Day (2003)
- The Alamo (2003)
- Attack on Pearl Harbor (2001)
- Lost Temple of the Aztecs (1998)
- The Buried City of Pompeii (1996)
- On Board the Titanic (1996)
- The Disaster of the Hindenburg (1993
Biographies
- Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator (2008)
- In the Time of Knights (2000)
- One More Border: The True Story of One Family’s Escape from War-Torn Europe, co-written with William Kaplan (1998)
Arts
- Footnotes: Dancing the World's Best-Loved Ballets, co-written with Frank Augustyn (2001)
Environment
- Climate Change (2006)
- A Great Round Wonder: My Book of the World (1991)
- The Heat Is On: Facing Our Energy Problem (1991)
Archaeology
Fiction
- "Ghost Town" a short story in Dear Canada – Hoping for Home: Stories of Arrival (2011)
Earlier works
- Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery, adapted for young readers (1998)
- The Illustrated Father Goose (1995)
- Mr. Dressup's Birthday Party Book (1988)
- Mr. Dressup's 50 More Things to Make and Do, written with Ernie Coombs (1984, 1991)
- Mr. Dressup's Things to Make and Do, written with Ernie Coombs (1982, 1991)
- Michi's New Year (1980)
Books translated into English by Shelley Tanaka
- French
- The Birthday Party by Michel Aubin (1987)
- The Secret Code by Michel Aubin (1987)[8]
- Himalaya by Tenzing Norbu Lama (2002)
- Secret of the Snow Leopard by Tenzing Norbu Lama (2004)
- Good for Nothing by Michel Nöel (2004)
- Broken Memory by Élisabeth Combres (2009)
- Grandfather and the Moon by Stéphanie Lapointe (2017)
- German
- The Fire: An Ethiopian Folk Tale by Heinz Janisch (Groundwood Books, 2002)[2]
- True Friends: Tales from Tanzania by John Kilaka (Groundwood, 2006), picture book OCLC 61300807
- Girl from Mars by Tamara Bach (Groundwood, 2009)[2]
- Definitely Not for Little Ones: Some Very Grimm Fairy Tale Comics by Rotraut Susanne Berner (Groundwood, 2009)[2]
- Hound and Hare by Rotraut Susannne Berner (Groundwood, 2011)[2]