April is the month for books in Canadaùit's National Poetry Month, Canada Book Day and International Children's Book Day. April 2nd will see a coast-to-coast reading of Dennis Lee's classic Alligator Pie, and kids and adults across the country will hear Toronto's Poet Laureate in a nationwide reading of a great kid's classic! And Dennis Lee will be waiting for the announcement in April respecting the Hans Christian Andersen Award by the International Board on Books for Young People which is given out every other year at the Bologna Book Fair. It's the children's literature version of the Nobel Prize, and Lee, along with award-winning illustrator Michele Lemieux, are the Canadian contenders for this very prestigious award. The new books are also beginning to fill the shelves at bookstores across Canada and over the next two months, readers will have a chance to dive into some extraordinary new picture books by writers as diverse as Ian Wallace, the late Dayal Kaur Khalsa, Robin Muller and a host of others.

Happy International Children's Book Day!

Jeffrey Canton, Editor, Children's Book section