Quill and Quire

Awards

« Back to
Quillblog

Kit Pearson honoured with B.C. Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence

Kit Pearson

Kit Pearson, photo credit: Katherine Harris

Children’s author Kit Pearson is the recipient of the 11th annual B.C. Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence in honour of the author’s rich body of work, including 1996 Governor General’s Award winner Awake and Dreaming and the Guests of War trilogy.

The jury, comprising author (and 2013 recipient of the award) Sarah Ellis, Munro’s Books manager Jessica Walker, and CBC producer Sheila Peacock, notes that, “In both her fantasies and her historical fiction [Pearson] looks to the past: to Canada’s war guests, to the War of 1812, to Alberta in 1949, and to Mayne Island in the 1930s. She sees children as those residents of the past who are largely overlooked in the story of where we have come from.”

The jury citation further praises Pearson’s “meticulous research, her narrative skill, her imaginative choice of subjects from all across this country, and her clearly crafted prose…. Kit’s characters are never cute, generic, or remote. They are complicated, individual, and flawed. Sometimes they lie. Sometimes they are unkind. Sometimes they are unlikeable. In other words, they are real. Kit’s readers resonate to this honesty with deep enthusiasm.”

Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon will present Pearson with the award on May 3 at the B.C. Book Prize Gala in Vancouver, hosted by author, activist, and comedian Charles Demers.