Sask., Man. writers win for children's books

Saskatoon writer Arthur Slade and Winnipeg writer Colleen Sydor have won awards from the Canadian Children's Book Centre, which annually honours the best in Canadian children's writing.

Slade's The Hunchback Assignments won the $25,000 TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, the centre announced Thursday.

The Hunchback Assignments is a mystery thriller about a hunchback child who has special powers to change his appearance and is trained as a secret agent.

Sydor's Timmerman Was Here, about a girl whose house takes in a mysterious boarder who wanders the city each night, won the $20,000 Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award. The illustrator was Nicholas Debon.

Other winners of children's book awards are:

• $10,000 Norma Fleck award for children's non-fiction: Adventures on the Ancient Silk Road, written by Priscilla Galloway of Penetanguishene, Ont., with Dawn Hunter of Toronto.
• $5,000 Geffrey Bilson Award for historical fiction: Vanishing Girl, the third book in the Boy Sherlock Holmes series by Shane Peacock of Baltimore, Ont.