Critteraweek's 2024 kids picturebooks have been awarded Animal Series Book of the Year Gold by Creative Child Magazine

GUELPH, ONTARIO, CANADA, December 7, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Critter-a-week's January, 2024 picturebook will be Ookpik the Snowy Owl. This magnificent bird nests on the ground because there are no trees in the arctic. It has a wing span of up to 5 feet 5 inches (165 cm) and defends its nest vigorously, even attacking and injuring humans, although there is no record of it killing a human intruder.

About the picturebooks

In critter-a-week picturebooks the critters tell own their life-stories in their own words (fiction), but their stories are based on true facts and realistic life-circumstances.

Critter-a-week picturebooks won a 2023 Book-of-the-Year Gold Medal from Creative Child Magazine. They have 5-star reviews from Readers’ Favorite Book Reviews, Readers’ Choice Awards, and The Online Book Club. Quoth the Raven was a finalist with Readers’ Choice Awards. Igor Beaver was one of three finalists with the Canadian Book Club Awards. Two of their picturebooks, Rudi Caribou and Lonely Luke the African Elephant, have been awarded gold seals by Moms Choice Awards^®.

Critter-a-week is planning to publish thirteen picturebooks a year, with their 2023 collection now complete. The most likely buyers of their picturebooks are grandparents and primary grade schoolteachers.

Critter-a-week is giving Rudi Caribou away as a downloadable pdf copy from their web site www.critteraweek.com They noticed that people who have one critter-a-week story often want more critter-a-week stories, so Rudi Caribou is their ambassador to the world.

About the Authors

Critter-a-week’s authors met in a seniors’ centre’s creative writing group organized by Marilyn Helmer. Marilyn is a storyteller. She submits to magazines, newspapers and wherever else stories are accepted, with remarkable success. She has over thirty children’s books in print. Marilyn loves writing critter stories and holding the finished books in her hands. She is critter-a-week’s language guru and editor.

Paul Hock is the youngest at 73. A musician, storyteller and artist, Paul is happiest showing at country fairs, selling critter-a-week picturebooks and a couple of his beautiful art prints, and schmoozing with the locals. His critter-a-week illustrations are amazing. Paul immerses himself in dozens of photographs of the current critter and somehow relies on those images to develop accurate, true-to-life illustrations that support the stories.

Don Smith is the oldest at 90. He has retired from three careers, a senior business manager, a university business teacher, and a business consultant. In those roles he wrote proposals, reports, cases, and teaching notes, all fact-based. Small wonder critter stories are fact-based. Don took up creative writing to fill the empty hours after losing his beautiful wife of 63 years, Jean Isobel, to leukaemia. Don organizes critter-a-week's business interests.

One of Marilyn’s and Don’s goals is to introduce the world to Paul and his amazing talent. In each story one of the three takes the lead research and author role, but all of them are involved in that story’s development.

There is nothing magical about writing and publishing true-to-life animal books. That part is easy. The high hurdle for the competition will be trying to match Paul’s illustrations.

As well as English language countries, they believe there is a market for critter-a-week English language books in places where primary grade students are learning English as a second or a third language. They also want their books translated into other languages, to travel to faraway places.

For more information go to [email protected]

Donald B Smith
Critteraweek Inc.
[email protected]
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