Swimming Through Stories with Kallie George!

The North Shore Writers Festival’s first ever event for kids was a resounding success!

Author and editor Kallie George shared her book, The Melancholic Mermaid, with a roomful of rapt children and adults. The book is published by Vancouver publishing house Simply Read Books, where Kallie also works as an editor. Kallie read and discussed the first section of her book, in which a young mermaid is born with two tails. Her parents are sure she is destined for greatness – but all she can think about is how she just doesn’t fit in. An encounter with a fishing boat whisks her away to the circus – for the adventures that await her there, well, you’ll have to check out the book (which Kallie is signing today in West Vancouver Memorial Library’s Welsh Hall).

Kallie shared some of her personal history with the children, including her father’s contribution to the creation of The Melancholic Mermaid (to cheer her up one day while she was sad, he started joking about what sort of tears a mermaid might cry – and an idea was born). She also encouraged the children present to express their own creativity, showing examples of some of her youthful forays into writerdom (including Christmastime adventure stories starring her very own friends and family). She talked about how growing up wandering the woods of Sechelt, as well as having an illustrator live with her family for a while when she was a child, helped her catch the writing bug, and led her to UBC and finally to Simply Read. And after sharing some images and animations from upcoming books by her and her fellow Vancouver authors and illustrators, she guided the group through creating their very own misfit creatures!

Storytime with Kallie George was great fun, and the organizers are grateful to her for helping to involve the library’s smallest patrons in today’s festivities!