The Canadian Children’s Book Centre is thrilled to announce the title of the 2013 TD Grade One Book Giveaway. Over 500,000 copies of Boy Soup, written by Loris Lesynski and illustrated by Michael Martchenko will be distributed to Grade One students in schools across the country this fall.

As part of the TD Grade One Book Giveaway program, the author and illustrator will go on a Canada-wide tour later this year, visiting schools and libraries to meet children for a live reading. Author Loris Lesynski says, “I’m so happy to have so many kids get a copy of my book that I can’t even find the words for it! It’s an author’s dream come true: lots and lots of readers. And I’ll get to meet a whole bunch of those first-graders on tour – I can’t wait!”

Charlotte Teeple, Executive Director of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, is especially fond of this program: “Every year we receive hundreds of letters from parents, grandparents, teachers, principals and school board trustees, all telling us how much they love this program. At the same time, we receive home- made drawings, posters, post cards, videos and class projects as well as little notes and other messages from happy students who want us to know how much they love the book. For some students this will be the very first book of their own.”

“Children’s literacy is important and we’re proud to support the TD Grade One Book Giveaway encouraging reading at an early age,” says Frank McKenna, TD Bank Group’s Deputy Chair and Literacy Champion. “For the 14th year in a row the program helps put a book in the hands of grade one students across Canada, and this year with Boy Soup we hope that it continues to foster a love of reading and imagination.”

Boy Soup was originally published by Annick Press and has been translated into French for the first time by Marie-Andrée Clermont as La soupe de garçons.

Complete details of the TD Grade One Book Giveaway can be found at www.bookcentre.ca.

For further information and images contact:

Holly Kent
Sales and Marketing Manager
The Canadian Children’s Book Centre
416 975-0010 ext. 221
holly@bookcentre.ca