Shelley Tanaka

Shelley Tanaka is a Canadian editor of numerous young adult novels, an author of non-fiction for children, a translator, and a writing teacher.

Shelley Tanaka was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She received an Honours bachelor's degree in English and German from Queen's University, and a master's degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto.^[1][2] She lives in Ontario, Canada.^[3]

Tanaka began her editing career at Clarke Irwin.^[4] She has been the fiction editor at Groundwood Books, a Canadian children's book publisher, since 1983 and has edited books by many Canadian writers, including Tim Wynne-Jones, Deborah Ellis, Martha Brooks, Sarah Ellis and Alan Cumyn. She is the editor of thirteen Governor General's Award winning books.^[1][5][6]

Shelley Tanaka writes nonfiction for children, including books in the I Was There series and A Day That Changed America series. She has won numerous awards for her writing, among them the Orbis Pictus Award in 2009.^[7] Her books have been translated into several languages: German, Danish, Spanish, French, Japanese, Portuguese and Thai.^[8] Additionally, she has translated many children's picture books and novels from German and French into English.^[2][8]

Tanaka teaches in the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.^[3]

• Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator won the Orbis Pictus Award in 2009.^[9]
• Translation of Good for Nothing by Michel Noël was on the IBBY Honour List for translation in 2006.^[10]
• Secrets of the Mummies won the Science in Society Children's Book Award in 2000.
• Discovering the Iceman won the Mr. Christie's Book Award in 1997.^[11]
• On Board the Titanic won the Silver Birch Award in 1997.^[12]
• The Buried City of Pompei won the Information Book Award in 1997.
• On Board the Titanic won the Information Book Award in 1996.^[13]
• On Board the Titanic and The Buried City of Pompeii were finalists for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.^[4]

• Nobody Knows, Novelization of the Japanese film by Hirokazu Kore-eda (2012)^[14]

• Earthquake! (2004)
• Gettysburg (2003)
• D-Day (2003)
• The Alamo (2003)
• Attack on Pearl Harbor (2001)
• Lost Temple of the Aztecs (1998)
• The Buried City of Pompeii (1996)
• On Board the Titanic (1996)
• The Disaster of the Hindenburg (1993

• Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator (2008)
• In the Time of Knights (2000)
• One More Border: The True Story of One Family’s Escape from War-Torn Europe, co-written with William Kaplan (1998)

• Footnotes: Dancing the World's Best-Loved Ballets, co-written with Frank Augustyn (2001)

• Climate Change (2006)
• A Great Round Wonder: My Book of the World (1991)
• The Heat Is On: Facing Our Energy Problem (1991)

• Mummies: The Newest, Coolest & Creepiest from Around the World (2005)
• New Dinos (2003)
• Secrets of the Mummies (1999)
• Graveyards of the Dinosaurs (1998)
• Discovering the Iceman (1996)

• "Ghost Town" a short story in Dear Canada – Hoping for Home: Stories of Arrival (2011)

• Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery, adapted for young readers (1998)
• The Illustrated Father Goose (1995)
• Mr. Dressup's Birthday Party Book (1988)
• Mr. Dressup's 50 More Things to Make and Do, written with Ernie Coombs (1984, 1991)
• Mr. Dressup's Things to Make and Do, written with Ernie Coombs (1982, 1991)
• Michi's New Year (1980)

French

• The Birthday Party by Michel Aubin (1987)
• The Secret Code by Michel Aubin (1987)^[8]
• Himalaya by Tenzing Norbu Lama (2002)
• Secret of the Snow Leopard by Tenzing Norbu Lama (2004)
• Good for Nothing by Michel Nöel (2004)
• Broken Memory by Élisabeth Combres (2009)
• Grandfather and the Moon by Stéphanie Lapointe (2017)

German

• The Fire: An Ethiopian Folk Tale by Heinz Janisch (Groundwood Books, 2002)^[2]
• True Friends: Tales from Tanzania by John Kilaka (Groundwood, 2006), picture book OCLC 61300807
• Girl from Mars by Tamara Bach (Groundwood, 2009)^[2]
• Definitely Not for Little Ones: Some Very Grimm Fairy Tale Comics by Rotraut Susanne Berner (Groundwood, 2009)^[2]
• Hound and Hare by Rotraut Susannne Berner (Groundwood, 2011)^[2]

• Ward, Barbara A. and Terrell A. Young. "Talking with Shelley Tanaka." Booklist Online. 2 June 2009. [1]

• Canadian Children's Book Centre. The Storymakers: Writing Children’s Books. Pembroke. 2000. ISBN 978-1-55138-108-4
• Gertridge, Allison. Meet Canadian Authors and Illustrators. Scholastic Canada. Revised edition 2002. ISBN 978-0-439-98780-6
• Rockman, Connie C., editor. Ninth Book of Junior Authors & Illustrators. New York: H.W. Wilson. 2004. ISBN 0-8242-1043-3.

• Shelley Tanaka at Library of Congress, with 25 library catalogue records