Meet different families and cultures whose traditions create a loving home for kids through these colourful picture books for young readers. Cemetery Game by author Alan Woo, with illustrations by Rachel Wada, explores the ancestor-honouring rituals of the Chinese spring festival Ching Ming, and how to find fun in them, too. Eat and explore with a young Indigenous girl visiting her family’s reserve in Kim Spencer’s Springtime in Kitkatla. A boy learns how to say goodbye to a member of his own family—the koi fish he’s always cared for—in Jack Wong’s Goodbye, Koi, illustrated in the tradition of Chinese brush painting. This cozy storytime with sequential presentations will inspire little ones to reflect on their own family traditions and approach others’ with curiosity. Grades 1–3.
More information about the Festival:
Venue Map and Addresses | Box Office | Accessibility
Event Participants:
KIM SPENCER is an award-winning, bestselling author. Her debut novel, Weird Rules To Follow, won multiple awards, including a 2024 Pacific Northwest Book Award, a 2023 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, and a 2023 Jean Little First-Novel Award. Named both the USBBY Outstanding International Book and an IBBY Honour List. The book also received a Kirkus starred review and was a 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award finalist. Kim is from the Gitxaala Nation and lives in northwest BC.
JACK WONG was born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His acclaimed picture book When You Can Swim, published by Scholastic, has won the Governor General's Award for Illustration, the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. He is also the creator of the picture books All That Grows and The Words We Share. Jack lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
ALAN WOO is an enthusiastic teen-services librarian with the Surrey Public Library. Maggie’s Chopsticks, his first picture book, won the Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize and was shortlisted for the Chocolate Lily Award. Alan’s writing has appeared in Ricepaper and Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, among other publications. Alan lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
