Governor General's Award for Children's Literature - Illustration nominee, 1999Wherever my father puffs out his cheeks and plays the bagpipes, my brothers go to visit a friend. Our dog creeps under th
Governor General's Award for Children's Literature - Illustration nominee, 1999
Wherever my father puffs out his cheeks and plays the bagpipes, my brothers go to visit a friend. Our dog creeps under the bed, the horses flatten their ears, the hens cluck. And I cover my ears.
But one special night everyone listened when my father played his pipes.
For the youngest member in the family, the ceilidh is almost spoiled. She has been judged old enough to help, but too young to stay up like her brothers, or wear a kilt, or dance until dawn.
But when the bagpipes sound from the far hills she is there - hiding in the hay- watching, listening.
And on a night twinkling with fireflies, one small girl's brave Highland heart responds to her father and the ancient spell his music weaves.
Heather Kellerhals-StewartHeather's love of storytelling began on her parents' farm in Ontario where the animals were great listeners and the source of many stories. After Heather graduated from university, she moved west with fellow mountaineer Rolf Kellerhals to the mountains they loved. Working with children in group and foster homes and then having a family kept Heather busy, but she kept one ear tuned to storytelling until her first book was published. Eventually Heather and Rolf waved goodbye to big city life in Edmonton and Vancouver and moved to Quadra Island where they have a farm and woodlot. And what stories of forest, mountains and sea are waiting there to be told!
Heather's dad also played the bagpipes!
Werner Zimmermann
is a well-known illustrator whose works include the bestselling A Porcupine in a Pine Tree, which won the 2010 CBA Libris Picture Book of the Year Award. He has been nominated twice for the Governor General's Award Including for Brave Highland Heart. Werner lives in Guelph, Ontario. Visit his website at www.wernerzimmermann.ca
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1999 Governor General's Award for Children's Literature nominee for Illustration
Part of Vancouver's 2016 Reading Lights program
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