Deborah Ellis
- Looking for X (1999)
- The Breadwinner series (2001–2022)
Deborah Ellis CM OOnt (born August 7, 1960) is a Canadian fiction writer and activist. Her themes are often concerned with the sufferings of persecuted children in the Third World.
Early life
Born in Cochrane Ontario, Ellis and her family moved several times during her childhood due to her parents' work. Ellis started writing when she was 11 or 12 years old.[1]
Career
Much of her work as a writer has been inspired by her travels and conversations with people from around the world and their stories. She has held many jobs advocating for the peace movement and the anti-war movement.
She travelled to Pakistan in 1997 to interview refugees at an Afghan refugee camp.[2] From these interviews, she wrote The Breadwinner series, which includes The Breadwinner (2001), a book about a girl named Parvana;[3][4] Parvana's Journey (2002), its sequel;[5] Mud City (2003), about Shauzia, Parvana's best friend;[6] and My Name is Parvana (2011), the fourth book in the series. While The Breadwinner was inspired by an interview with a mother and a girl who disguised herself as a boy in a refugee camp,[7] the subsequent books in the series were more imaginative explorations of how children would survive.
In 1999, her novel Looking for X was published. It follows a young girl in her day-to-day life in a poor area of Toronto[8] and it received the Governor General's Award for English-language children's literature in 2000.[9]
One of her best-known works is the 2004 book The Heaven Shop, which tells of a family of orphans in Malawi who are struggling with sudden displacement as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The novel was written to dispel myths about HIV/AIDS and celebrate the courage of child sufferers.[10]
In 2006, she wrote the best-seller I Am a Taxi, which tells the story of a Bolivian boy named Diego whose family was accused of smuggling coca paste, which is used to produce cocaine. After an accident causes Diego's family to owe money to the prison in which they are incarcerated, the boy must earn them money. He ends up in the coca "pits" where the leaves of the plant are made into coca paste, and the story follows his adventures from there.[11][12] The sequel, Sacred Leaf, is about Diego's time with the Ricardos (a family who helped Diego) and a giant coca-leaf protest.[13]
In 2007, with Eric Walters, Ellis wrote Bifocal, a novel about racism and terrorists in Canada.[14]
In 2008, Ellis published Lunch with Lenin and Other Stories, a collection of short stories that explores the lives of children who have been affected, directly or indirectly, by drugs. The stories are set against backdrops as diverse as the remote north of Canada, the Red Square in Moscow, and an opium farm in Afghanistan.[15][16]
In 2014, she published Moon at Nine, a YA novel based on the true story of two teenage girls who were arrested and thrown in prison in Iran, a country where homosexuality is punishable by death.
The fifth book in Ellis's Breadwinner series, One More Mountain, was published by Groundwood books in 2022. It takes up Parvana's story as the Americans are leaving Afghanistan and the Taliban are regaining control in Kabul.
Honour
In 2006, Ellis was named to the Order of Ontario.[17]
Ellis is the recipient of the Governor General's Award,[9] the Jane Addams Children's Book Award,[18] the Vicky Metcalf Award for a body of work,[19] an ALA Notable,[20] and the Children's Africana Book Award Honor Book for Older Readers.[21]
In December 2016, Ellis was named a Member of the Order of Canada.[22]
Personal life
Ellis is a philanthropist, donating almost all of her royalties on her books to such organizations as "Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan" and UNICEF.[23] Due to this work, she has been threatened by the Taliban.[24]
Selected bibliography
These are some of the works of Deborah Ellis:[25]
The Breadwinner Quintet
- The Breadwinner (2001)
- Parvana's Journey (2002)
- Mud City (2003)
- My Name is Parvana (2011)
- One More Mountain (2022)
Other Works
- Looking for X (1999)
- Women of the Afghan War (2000)
- A Company of Fools (2002)
- The Heaven Shop (2004)
- I Am a Taxi (2006)
- Click (with David Almond, Eoin Colfer, Roddy Doyle, Nick Hornby, Margo Lanagan, Gregory Maguire, Ruth Ozeki, Linda Sue Park, and Tim Wynne-Jones, 2007)
- Jakeman (2007)
- Bifocal (with Eric Walters, 2007)
- Sacred Leaf (2007)
- Lunch with Lenin|Lunch with Lenin and Other Stories (2008)
- Off to War (2008)
- We Want You to Know: Kids Talk About Bullying (2009)
- No Safe Place (2010)
- No Ordinary Day (2011)
- True Blue (2011)
- Looks Like Daylight: Stories of Indigenous Kids (2013)
- The Cat at The Wall (2014)
- Moon at Nine (2014)
- Sit (2017)
References
- ^ Profile of Deborah Ellis Archived February 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, University of Manitoba. Accessed October 6, 2012
- ^ Meet Deborah Ellis, Children'sLit.org. Accessed October 8, 2012 Archived October 30, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The Breadwinner Trilogy by Deborah Ellis – review, The Guardian. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis Archived December 27, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, The Literate Mother. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ Review of Parvana's Journey Archived October 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, CM Magazine, University of Manitoba. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ Review of Mud City Archived February 9, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, CM Magazine, University of Manitoba. Accessed October 7, 2012.
- ^ About the authors[permanent dead link], Skokie Public Library, Skokie, Illinois. Accessed October 8, 2012 [dead link]
- ^ Review of Looking for X Archived October 6, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, CM Magazine, University of Manitoba. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ a b Governor General's Literature Awards: List of winners page 24. Accessed October 6, 2012 Archived May 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Review of The Heaven Shop by CM magazine of the University of Manitoba Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Accessed October 6, 2012
- ^ I am a Taxi by Deborah Ellis Archived March 9, 2012, at the Wayback Machine openbooktoronto.com. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ Review of I Am a Taxi Archived March 30, 2014, at the Wayback Machine by the Canada's Magazine of Book News and Reviews, Quill & Quire. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ Sacred Leaf: The Cocalero Novels Archived March 30, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, review on papertigers.org. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ Review of Bifocal Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, CM Magazine, University of Manitoba. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ Review of Lunch with Lenin and Other Stories Archived October 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, CM Magazine, University of Manitoba. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ Review of Lunch with Lenin and Other Stories Archived April 14, 2014, at the Wayback Machine by the Canada's Magazine of Book News and Reviews, Quill & Quire. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ Order of Ontario appointments announced 2006 Accessed October 7, 2012 Archived May 19, 2014, at archive.today
- ^ Previous book award winners Archived April 9, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Jane Addams Peace Association, pp. 6–7. Accessed October 7, 2012.
- ^ Prize History, Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ 2006 Notable Children's Books, Association for Library Service to Children. American Library Association. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ Past Winners, Older Readers Archived August 26, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Children's Africana Book Awards. Accessed October 7, 2012
- ^ "Order of Canada's newest appointees include Paralympian, Supreme Court judge and astrophysicist". CBC News, December 30, 2016.
- ^ Article on Quill & Quire Archived February 26, 2014, at the Wayback Machine Accessed on October 6, 2012
- ^ "Another disgraceful stigma on the face of the Taliban!". www.rawa.org. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
- ^ Page about Deborah Ellis' works Accessed October 6, 2012 Archived April 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
External links
- The Power of One Voice Interview with Deborah Ellis, The Cooperative Children's Book Center
- Personal website
- One More Mountain an interview with Deborah Ellis. Just Imagine Story Centre
- v
- t
- e
- Morgan Nyberg, Galahad Schwartz and the Cockroach Army (1987)
- Welwyn Wilton Katz, The Third Magic (1988)
- Diana Wieler, Bad Boy (1989)
- Michael Bedard, Redwork (1990)
- Sarah Ellis, Pick-Up Sticks (1991)
- Julie Johnston, Hero of Lesser Causes (1992)
- Tim Wynne-Jones, Some of the Kinder Planets (1993)
- Julie Johnston, Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me (1994)
- Tim Wynne-Jones, The Maestro (1995)
- Paul Yee, Ghost Train (1996)
- Kit Pearson, Awake and Dreaming (1997)
- Janet Lunn, The Hollow Tree (1998)
- Rachna Gilmore, A Screaming Kind of Day (1999)
- Deborah Ellis, Looking for X (2000)
- Arthur Slade, Dust (2001)
- Martha Brooks, True Confessions of a Heartless Girl (2002)
- Glen Huser, Stitches (2003)
- Kenneth Oppel, Airborn (2004)
- Pamela Porter, The Crazy Man (2005)
- William Gilkerson, Pirate's Passage (2006)
- Iain Lawrence, Gemini Summer (2007)
- John Ibbitson, The Landing (2008)
- Caroline Pignat, Greener Grass: The Famine Years (2009)
- Wendy Phillips, Fishtailing (2010)
- Christopher Moore, From Then to Now: A Short History of the World (2011)
- Susin Nielsen, The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen (2012)
- Teresa Toten, The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B (2013)
- Raziel Reid, When Everything Feels Like the Movies (2014)
- Caroline Pignat, The Gospel Truth (2015)
- Martine Leavitt, Calvin (2016)
- Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves (2017)
- Jonathan Auxier, Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster (2018)
- Erin Bow, Stand on the Sky (2019)
- Eric Walters, The King of Jam Sandwiches (2020)
- Philippa Dowding, Firefly (2021)
- Jen Ferguson, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet (2022)
- Sarah Everett, The Probability of Everything (2023)