Gold, silver, bronze! Canadian authors for pre-teens, young adults and poetry lovers proved their mettle in the 2012 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards. In the first round of awards, announced on October 3, 2012, authors Norma Charles, Jacqueline Guest, Penny Draper, Susan M. MacDonald Jean Rae Baxter, Kevin Fournier and Jocelyn Shipley garnered several prizes. In poetry collections, And the Crowd Goes Wild! A Global Gathering of Sports Poems scored a bronze.

In the Young Adult Fiction (General), the Gold Award went to The Green-Eyed
Queen of Suicide City by Kevin Fournier (Great Plains Teen Fiction).

In the Young Adult (Mature Issues), the Gold Award went to How to Tend to a Grave by Jocelyn Shipley (Great Plains Teen Fiction).

In the Pre-Teen Fiction (General) category, the Gold Award went to Run Marco Run, by Norma Charles (Ronsdale Press).

In the Pre-Teen Fiction (Historical/Cultural), Canadians walked away with two of the top three prizes. The Gold award was won by Outcasts of River Falls, by Jacqueline Guest (Coteau Books) and the Silver went to Day of the Cyclone, by Penny Draper (Coteau Books).

The Young Adult Fiction (Fantasy/Sci-Fi) Gold award went to Edge of Time, by Susan M. MacDonald (Breakwater Books). The Young Adult Fiction (Historical/Cultural) Bronze award was taken by Freedom Bound, by Jean Rae Baxter (Ronsdale Press).

The Children’s Poetry Bronze prize went to And the Crowd Goes Wild! A Global Gathering of Sports Poems (Friesen Press). Edited by Montreal poet Carol-Ann Hoyte and American poet Heidi Bee Roemer and illustrated by Kevin Sylvester, this collection features verse from Canadian and international poets as well as a preface from noted Canadian poet writer Priscila Uppal.