Pajama Press is proud to announce that One Step at a Time: A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch has won the Silver Birch Non-Fiction Book Award™ at today’s Festival of Trees in Toronto. The longest-running award in the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading® program, the Silver Birch Award is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
One Step at a Time is the companion book to Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War, which was an honour book for the Red Maple Non-Fiction Award™ last year. Last Airlift has also won the Red Cedar Information Book Award and been a Top-5 Finalist for the CYBILS Award, a Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice, and a Bank Street Best Book. One Step at a Time was also a finalist for the Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada Information Book Award, a Canadian Children’s Book Centre Best Books for Kids & Teens starred selection, and a Bank Street Best Book.
This is the second year in a row that a Pajama Press book has won the Silver Birch Non-Fiction Award™. Last year Rob Laidlaw’s No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs took home that honour. This year two other Pajama Press books were nominated for the Forest of Reading®: A Good Trade by Alma Fullerton and Karen Patkau for the Blue Spruce Award™, and Nix Minus One by Jill MacLean for the White Pine Fiction Award™.
The Forest of Reading® is a children’s choice reading program run by the Ontario Library Association. Each year, over 250,000 participants read a shortlist of books in their age category and vote for their favourites. Pajama Press is honoured to be a part of this important program, which brings excellent Canadian literature to more children than any other reading program in the country.
Congratulations, Marsha!