Iain Lawrence facts for kids

Iain Lawrence (born 1955) is a bestselling Canadian author for children and young adults. In 2007 he won a Governor General’s Literary Award in Children’s Literature for Gemini Summer, and in 2011, he was presented with the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People.

Biography

Lawrence was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in 1955. He has lived on Gabriola Island since 2000. Lawrence attended Langara College in Vancouver studying journalism. After school he worked for the Prince Rupert Daily News and other newspapers in northern British Columbia. In his free time he wrote a number of unpublished children's fiction books, and was able to publish two non-fiction books about sailing, his hobby. A Chicago agent encouraged him to concentrate on children's fiction so he reworked one of his earlier books, The Wrecker, and sold it to Random House in 1994. Since then he has published many more books, in 2007 Random House reported he had sold more than one million books in North America.

Selected texts

Gemini Summer

The book was reviewed in Publishers Weekly, Quill and Quire, Kirkus Reviews, CM Magazine, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, The Horn Book Magazine, School Library Journal, Booklist, Library Media Connection, Resource Links, and Books in Canada.

Awards and honours

Nine of Lawrence's books are Junior Library Guild selections: The Wreckers (1998), Lord of the Nutcracker Men (2001), B for Buster (2004), The Convicts (2005), The Cannibals (2006), The Castaways (2008), The Séance (2008), The Skeleton Tree (2016), and Deadman's Castle (2021).

In 2007, the Bank Street College of Education included Gemini Summer on their list of the best children's books of the year.

In 2011, Lawrence received the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People, an award presented to Canadian authors whose "body of work ... demonstrates the highest literary standards."