BA (Honour’s Psychology) University of Waterloo, BEd (Education) and MEd (Sociology and Equity Studies in Education) Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT), MFA (Creative Writing) University of Guelph
Nadia L. Hohn is a Canadian educator and children's book author. She has earned critical acclaim for her books for young readers, including her debut picture book, Malaika's Costume.
Born in Canada to Jamaican immigrant parents, Hohn grew up and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, where she is an elementary school teacher.[1][2] At age 6, she began writing and illustrating her own books. As a high school student, she wrote for her school paper, and later began contributing to university and community newspapers. At age 20, she obtained an internship in New York City, writing articles for Psychology Today.[2]
In 2001, Hohn founded and organized the first ICED IN BLACK: Canadian Black Experiences on Film, film festival. This festival focussed on films by and/or about Black Canadians. She turned this event into an annual nationally touring festival which went to 7 cities in 2002 and by 2003, its final year, 9 cities (Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Victoria). Hohn worked and volunteered with other film festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), TIFF Kids (formerly Sprockets Film Festival), and Get Reel Film Festival. In 2009, Hohn became one of the inaugural teachers at the Africentric Alternative School in Toronto. This was Canada’s first publicly-funded school of its kind.[citation needed]
In 2010, Hohn enrolled in a course on writing for children at George Brown College in Toronto, where she wrote a first draft of Malaika's Costume.[2] Later that year, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, an experience she has said spurred her ambition to have her writing published.[2] Her first two books, Music and Media, were published by Rubicon as part of its Sankofa Series in 2015.[3]
Hohn's debut picture book, Malaika's Costume, was published in 2016. The book, illustrated by Irene Luxbacher, tells the story of a young girl preparing to celebrate Carnival in the Caribbean, while her mother is away working in Canada.[4][5] The manuscript for Malaika's Costume won the Helen Isobel Sissons Canadian Children's Story Award, which recognizes diversity in children's literature.[4] The book also earned an Honourable Mention at the 2017 Américas Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, from the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs.[6][7]
In a follow-up, Malaika's Winter Carnival, the protagonist adapts to a new life in Canada. A Kirkus review of the book wrote that Hohn "contrasts Caribbean and Canadian cultures tenderly, with deep understanding of both".[8]
From 2016 to 2017, Hohn went to teach in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and travel. During this time, she worked on drafts of Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighter, an early reader published by Harper Collins Children's Books in 2018. In 2019, Hohn's picture book biography of Jamaican poet Louise Bennett Coverley, A Likkle Miss Lou: How Jamaican Poet Louise Bennett Coverley Found Her Voice, was published by Owlkids.[9] It was named one of the best Canadian children's books of 2019 by CBC Books.[10]
Hohn has instructed creative writing for children courses at the University of Toronto School for Continuing Studies (UTSCS), University of Guelph Open University, and Centennial College. She has presented at schools, libraries, conferences, festivals, and bookstores in Jamaica, Trinidad, UAE, UK, US, and across Canada.[citation needed]
Sheree Lynn Fitch is a Canadian writer and literacy advocate. Known primarily for her children's books, she has also published poetry and fiction for adults.
The Toronto Caribbean Carnival, formerly and affectionately known as Caribana, is a festival of Caribbean culture and traditions held each summer in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a pan-Caribbean Carnival event and has been billed as North America's largest Festival, frequented by over 1.3 million tourists each year for the festival's Grand Parade and an overall attendance of 2.3 million.
Pamela Claire Mordecai is a Jamaican-born poet, novelist, short story writer, scholar and anthologist who lives in Canada.
Louise Simone Bennett-Coverley or Miss Lou, was a Jamaican poet, folklorist, writer, and educator. Writing and performing her poems in Jamaican Patois or Creole, Bennett worked to preserve the practice of presenting poetry, folk songs and stories in patois, establishing the validity of local languages for literary expression.
Suzy Lee is a Korean picture-book illustrator and author. She is critically acclaimed as an artist who explores the pleasures and tensions that lie between reality and fantasy. She is also known for her remarkable achievements in the field of wordless picture books, or silent books. She gained global attention for her three works – Mirror (2003), Wave (2008), and Shadow (2010), known collectively as "The Border Trilogy" – using the center binding of the pages of a book as a means to create a narrative crossing the boundaries between reality and fantasy. Wave and Shadow were respectively named by The New York Times as Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2008 and 2010. Wave was also awarded the gold medal for Original Art by the Society of Illustrators in 2008. In 2016, Suzy Lee was shortlisted for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, regarded as the Nobel Prize for children's literature, an award which she received in 2022. Lee has received a number of other prestigious awards from around the world including the FNLIJ Award Luís Jardim for the Best Book without Text in 2008 and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Children's Literature in 2013.
Willow Dawson is a Canadian cartoonist and illustrator known for her contributions to graphic novels, picture books, and illustrated fairy tale collections.
Irene Luxbacher is a Canadian artist, an author and children's book illustrator.
Lynn Joseph is an author of children's books and an American lawyer. Her novella The Color of My Words won an Américas Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature and a Jane Addams Children's Book Award.
Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian artist and writer. She is known for her graphic novels Skim, Emiko Superstar, and This One Summer. In 2016 she began writing for both Marvel and DC Comics. She has twice been named a runner-up for the Michael L. Printz Award.
Kyo Maclear is a Canadian novelist and children's author.
Susin Nielsen is a Canadian author for children, adolescents and young adults. She received the 2012 Governor General's Award for English-language children's literature and the 2013 Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award for her young adult novel The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen, which deals with the aftermath of a school shooting.
Shilpa Ranade is an Indian designer, animator, illustrator, filmmaker and academic. She has been faculty at the Industrial Design Centre at IIT Bombay since 2001. She has directed animated short films for Channel 4, UK and her films have been screened all over the world, winning accolades in some of the most prestigious film festivals. The award-winning animation movie Goopi Gawaiya Bagha Bajaiya was her last full-length feature film which world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Her other films are Naja Goes to School and Mani's Dying.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America is a non-fiction book about race in the United States by the American historian Ibram X. Kendi, published April 12, 2016 by Bold Type Books, an imprint of PublicAffairs. The book won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Teva Harrison was a Canadian-American writer and graphic artist. She was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer at age 37, and began to document her experiences with the terminal illness using illustrations and essays. Her works were compiled into a graphic memoir called In-Between Days. The book was a finalist for the 2016 Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction, and put Harrison on the list of 16 Torontonians to Watch. Harrison won the 2016 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and was a finalist for the 2017 Joe Shuster Award for Cartoonist/Auteur.
Ashley Spires is a Canadian children's book author and illustrator. She is the creator of the Binky the Space Cat graphic novels series and the 2014 bestseller, The Most Magnificent Thing.
Thao Lam is a Vietnamese-Canadian children's author and illustrator who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Her works are completed in a collage style.
Tyler Clark Burke is a Canadian artist, illustrator, designer, and writer based in Toronto, Ontario. She is the co-founder of Canadian independent record label Three Gut Records. She has written and illustrated two children's books.
Joyce Viola Hansen is an American writer and retired schoolteacher. She has earned recognition for her books for children and youth, particularly her historical fiction and non-fiction works about African-American history.
The Magical Reality of Nadia is a 2021 children's book by Bassem Yousef and Catherine R. Daly, published by Scholastic Books. The illustrator is Douglas Holgate.
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