Awards & Accomplishments

• Participating Writer, Ontario Writers-in-the-Schools Program
  

• Writers' Union of Canada Electronic Rights and Copyright Committee. Chair 2005 – present
  

• Chair, Writers' Union of Canada, 2005-2006
  

• Certificate of Commendation, Heritage Toronto, October 2000 for A Magical Place: Toronto Island and Its People
  

• Nominated for Silver Birch Award, 2000, Sioux Winter
  

• Award of Merit, Heritage Toronto, October, 1999, Casa Loma: Toronto’s Fairy-tale Castle and its Owner, Sir Henry Pellatt
  

• Prairie Fire selected for the Canadian Children’s Book Centre “Our Choice” list and nominated for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People, 1998
  

• Several other books in the Bains Series were selected for Canadian Children's Book Centre
  

• “Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature,” 1984 (for a body of work, Bains Series)
  

• Canada Council Award for Juvenile Literature, 1975 for Shantymen of Cache Lake. (This award is now called the Governor General's Award for English language children's literature)
  

• Member PEN Canada
  

• Founding member of CommunityAIR, an environmental group that opposes the expansion of a downtown Toronto airport and promotes quality of life in the city. Author of the group’s website www.communityair.org
  

• Founding member of VoteToronto.ca, a citizen group that researches and publishes information on financial donations received by candidates in the City of Toronto and surrounding municipalities. www.votetoronto.ca