Shelley tanaka

Shelley Tanaka is a prolific author, chiefly of non-fiction for children and young adults.  She is also an editor, adapter, translator and even illustrator.  She was born in Toronto, completed undergraduate studies at Queen’s University and an M.A. in comparative literature at the University of Toronto. Tanaka was the fiction editor for Groundwood books for more than 35 years. She lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Fiction (Juvenile, picture book)

Michi’s New Year

Illustrated by Ron Berg.
Toronto: Irwin, 1980.

Publisher’s Synopsis

NA.

Fiction (Juvenile)

Nobody Knows

Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2012.

Publisher’s Synopsis

A powerful and moving novel about four children who are abandoned by their mother and forced to survive on their own. Based on the award-winning film Nobody Knows, inspired by actual events that took place in Tokyo.

Fiction (Juvenile)

Anne of Green Gables

New York: Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 1998.

Synopsis

An adaptation of the classic novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery featuring the spirited orphan who finds a ho

Shelley Tanaka

Shelley Tanaka is an editor, writer, teacher and translator of books for young readers. She is the long-time fiction editor at Groundwood Books, where she has edited more than a dozen Governor General’s Award-winning titles. She is the author of thirty books for young readers, including seven titles in the popular I Was There series. Honors include the Orbis Pictus Award (Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator), ALA Notable (On Board the Titanic), USBBY Outstanding International Book Honor List (Nobody Knows), as well as two nominations for Germany’s Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis and runner-up for the Texas Bluebonnet (Attack on Pearl Harbor).

For the past twelve years, Shelley has been on the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts, teaching in the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, where she has mentored more than a hundred MFA students.

Take a class with Shelley:

Mentorship Semester

Mini Master Series

BIO

Biography

Shelley Tanaka was born in Toronto, Ontario. She has a B.A. (Hons) in English and German from Queen's University and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto. For the past thirty-five years she has been the fiction editor at Groundwood Books, Canada's foremost children's book publisher, where she has worked with some of the country's finest children's book writers, including Martha Brooks, Alan Cumyn, Deborah Ellis, Sarah Ellis, Martine Leavitt and Tim Wynne-Jones. She has edited several dozen children's books, including thirteen Governor General's Award winners.Shelley is the author of more than twenty books for children and young adults. She has won the Orbis Pictus Award, the Mr. Christie's Book Award, the Science in Society Book Award and the Information Book Award, and she has twice been nominated for the Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis. Other honors include Texas Blue Bonnet runner-up, School Library Journal Best Books, ALA Notables and IRA Young Adults' Choice. She is also a translator (from French and German into English). Go

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