23. Standing Up for Ourselves

Middle school isn’t easy. Kids are learning how to grapple with serious issues—from insecurity and prejudice to making choices about who and what to believe. The characters in these page-turning middle grade stories demonstrate strength of all kinds. A fledgeling shapeshifter learns how to listen to the voice in her heart, in Kai Cheng Thom’s heartfelt and hilarious The Shapeshifter’s Guide to Gym Class. Jay Odjick’s kid hero fights crime and protects Indigenous artifacts in Kaboom! Volume 1: Blast Off. And Robin Stevenson’s The Book of Jupiter follows a girl who must wrestle with what comes next when she realizes she’s lived most of her life inside a cult. In an uplifting conversation, these authors will encourage young readers to believe in themselves and to build and trust their own instincts. Moderated by Shannon Ozirny. Grades 4–7.

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Event Participants:

Jay Odjick

JAY ODJICK is an artist and writer from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg Algonquin community, just outside of Maniwaki, Quebec. He has created comic books and produced the animated TV series Kagagi: The Raven, which airs in Canada, the US and Australia. He previously illustrated Robert Munsch's picture books Blackflies, Bear for Breakfast/Makwa kidji kijebà wìsiniyàn as well as The Ocean Goes on Forever, which appears in the anthology Munsch Mania. He is thrilled to be able to join forces with Robert Munsch to bring stories about today's Indigenous kids to a broad audience.

Shannon Ozirny

SHANNON OZIRNY is the Head of Youth Services at the West Vancouver Memorial Library. She has taught a children’s materials course as an adjunct at the UBC iSchool and has reviewed kids and teen books for The Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire. She has served as a juror for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes, Canadian Children’s Book Centre Best Books and Odyssey audiobook awards and moderates kidlit events for the Vancouver Writers Fest and Kidsbooks.

Robin Stevenson

ROBIN STEVENSON is an award winning author of more than thirty books of fiction and non-fiction for kids and teens. Her books have received numerous starred reviews, won the Silver Birch Award, the Sheila A. Egoff award and a Stonewall Honor, and been finalists for the Governor General's Literary Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, and many others. In 2022, she was the Book and Periodical Council's Champion of Free Expression, and in 2023, she was awarded the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence for her body of work and contributions to BC's literary community. Robin was born in the UK and lives on the west coast of Canada.

Kai Cheng Thom

KAI CHENG THOM is a Chinese-Canadian writer, performance artist, mental health community worker, youth counsellor, and former social worker. Thom, a non-binary transgender woman, has published five books. She won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Prize twice.