A children’s book written by an Oakville-based author-illustrator has been shortlisted for the 2021 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards, a Canadian literary award where student jurors work together to choose the winning books. Golden Threads, written by Oakville’s Suzanne Del Rizzo, and illustrated by the Japanese-Canadian artist Miki Sato, will be competing in the Children’s Picture Book category with four other Canadian English-language children’s books.
The award is worth $6,000, and is presented annually to recognize artistic excellence in Canadian children’s literature. Student juries from Admiral Collingwood Elementary School in Collingwood, ON, will meet by videoconference to debate and come to a consensus on the 2021 winners. The winning books will be announced later in June.
The Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Awards were established in 1976 by the Toronto photographer Sylvia Schwartz in memory of her sister, Ruth, a respected Toronto bookseller. In 2004, the family renamed the awards to honour both sisters.
Golden Threads is the tale of a little girl who breathes life back into a castaway stuffed fox was inspired by the Japanese art form of kintsugi, or golden joinery, where broken pottery is repaired with resin painted gold. Kintsugi values repairing, rather than replacing, believing that the cracks give the broken item its story. This book is also a warm celebration of wabi-sabi, the Japanese idea that there is beauty in things that may be incomplete or imperfect.
Del Rizzo began her career in picture books as the illustrator of the award-winning Skink on the Brink. She left scientific research to make children’s books, creating illustrations with polymer clay and mixed media. The first book she wrote and illustrated, My Beautiful Birds, became a New York Times Notable Book and won the Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children’s Literature.
The Ontario Arts Foundation administers the awards with the support of Ontario Arts Council, which manages the nomination and jury process. The awards are funded through the Ruth Schwartz Foundation.