Available for in-person visits: Quebec
Craft: Author
Genre: Early Chapter Books, Middle-Grade Fiction, Teen Fiction, Non-Fiction, Hi-Lo books for reluctant readers
Target Audience: Grades 1-8
Cost for School and Public Presentation: $250.00, plus applicable taxes
Biography
Sylvia McNicoll has written over 40 books for young people that are read all over the world. She’s visited classrooms and libraries to inspire readers as far away as South Korea and Colombia and recently was awarded a Platinum Jubilee Civic Hero Award for her part in gathering and editing stories for Writing the Rollercoaster: Stories of our Pandemic Experience. Attending and volunteering for HYP Slam events showed her how much poetry can empower youth and as result, she wrote Blue to the Sky in which Ella conquers her allergy-inspired anxiety with poetry.
Presentation Information:
Pets on Trial (Grades 1-3)
Sylvia would story-tell Dog on Trial (HIP Publishing; Grade 2 reading level). She would discuss the importance of names, and the story behind them. (The dog’s name in the book is Hero, the cat’s is Killer) She would discuss the problems pets create and how we can solve them and how we do the same in stories. Using crayons a simile team would be formed from the audience to invite colour comparison in descriptions. Sylvia would read the chapter where Hero finally earns his name.
Poetry and Story (Grades 3-6)
Talking about Blue to the Sky, the story of 12 year-old Ella who conquers her food allergy anxiety through poetry, Sylvia will speak on the story behind the novel: some of her experiences that inspired it, the research, the idea development, the writing process, as well as a PowerPoint presentation of images of draft covers and settings. She will perform poetry from the book and talk about some tricks to conquer speakers’ fear. She will do an interactive exercise to get students to create and perform some spoken word poetry. A short Q & A will follow.
The Best Mistake Presentation (Grades 3-6)
No story ever happens unless something goes wrong. To go along with the Great Mistake mystery series—kids are invited to share mistakes they’ve made recently, embarrassing whoopses, things that turned out badly, or even well. They get to choose a mistake that turned out famously well from the author’s X box. We discuss how it’s important to make mistakes in order to grow just as it’s important for a story to have problems in order to have an arc. We talk about beginnings and endings. With powerpoint slides of inspiring settings, characters (dogs) and developing covers, we also talk about structure, beginning, climax and end an how to turn some mistakes into a solvable problem that becomes a good story.
Beginnings, Endings and Mindreading with Pets (Grades 7-8)
Sylvia will discuss beginnings of stories to correspond with the beginnings of her writing career. Students will be called up to read and discuss first lines of various of Sylvia’s work with the idea of sharing technique for story writing. Besides discussing beginnings and endings from her various books, and where the ideas came from and how they developed into the stories, Sylvia will explain from What the Dog Know—how you can communicate telepathically with your pet. Students will be called on to act out a short script. A short Q & A will end the talk.
Book List
Blue to the Sky (DCB Young Readers, 2024)
What the Dog Knows (Dundurn, 2022)
Writing the Roller Coaster: Stories of our Pandemic Experience, Co-editing with Lynda Simmons (Bluefoot Press, 2021)
The Diamond Mistake Mystery (Dundurn, 2019)
Body Swap (Dundurn, 2018)
The Snake Mistake Mystery (Dundurn, 2018)
The Artsy Mistake Mystery (Dundurn, 2017)
The Best Mistake Mystery (Dundurn, 2016)
Best Friends Through Eternity (Tundra Books, 2015)
Survival (HIP Publishing, 2014)
Revenge on the Fly (Pajama Press, 2014)
Dog on Trial (HIP Publishing, 2013)
Dying to Go Viral (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2013)
Crush. Candy. Corpse (Lorimer, 2012)
Last Chance for Paris (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2008)
Beauty Returns (Fitzhenry Whiteside, 2006)
A Different Kind of Beauty (Fitzhenry Whiteside 2003)
Bringing Up Beauty (Fitzhenry Whiteside, 1994)
Grave Secrets (Stoddart Kids, 1999)
Caught in a Lie (Scholastic Canada, 2000)
Walking a Thin Line (Scholastic, 1997)
Facing the Enemy (ITP Nelson, 1992)
More Than Money (ITP Nelson, 1990)
The Tiger Catcher's Kid (ITP Nelson, 1989)
Slam Dunk Robot (Scholastic Literary Place for Early Years)
Smoky and the Gorilla (Scholastic, 1999)
Double Dribble (Scholastic, 1999)
The Big Race (Scholastic, 1996)
Project Disaster (Scholastic, 1990)