Victoria Miles

Readings

Old Mother Bear
Grades 1 – 5
Look up the word “bear” in any library catalogue and you could find hundreds of titles. But a book about an old bear? That would be a rare find. When Victoria Miles set her heart on writing a bear story, she had a particular bear in mind: an aged mother grizzly and her last litter of cubs. In writing Old Mother Bear, Victoria explored what it means to be an old bear, inspired by the real-life story of a grizzly tracked and studied by biologists in southwest British Columbia. Teamed with Caldecott-honor artist Molly Bang, Victoria and Molly viewed grizzly bears in the wild, a special experience she relates, along with the background of her inspiration, when presenting Old Mother Bear.

Magnifico
Grades 4 – 9
Sometimes, a good story is not further away that your own family. If you’re Victoria Miles, stories start from a place of curiosity. And if you’re looking for a curious musical instrument, it’s hard to beat the accordion. Tricky to learn and clunky to carry, nowadays many an old accordion lives a quiet life in the back of a closet, up in an attic, or out in a garage. But it wasn’t always that way. When Victoria discovered her mother’s 60-year-old Hohner accordion, she knew she had the beginnings of a story on her hands. In sharing chapters from her novel, Magnifico, Victoria shares what she’s learned about getting stuck with an accordion when all you ever wanted was a piano; growing up Italian-Canadian in the 1930s; and waiting, practicing and dreaming while your whole city prepares for the grand arrival of a king and queen.

Special Equipment:

Proxima projector (for use with my Mac laptop) and screen/white wall (preferred, can manage without visuals); CD player.

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed if requested in advance.

Workshops

Workshop/presentation
"Thinking like a writer: finding family stories"
Grades 4 – 9; 60 – 75 minutes

In elementary and high school, Victoria Miles (nee Candido) never had ambitions to be an author. But during a visit to Japan when she was 11, Victoria made friendships that could only be kept alive through writing letters. In this way, Victoria’s writing life began. Now the author of 10 books for children, and an award-winning business writer, Victoria’s life has been shaped by her writing, with some of her greatest satisfactions coming from recording the stories of her relatives, and helping others recognize and celebrate their own family lore. Beginning with a quick-to-complete questionnaire that helps students recognize their own inner writer, Victoria moves the group through to finding unique family stories, asking questions that complete the picture, and each creating a moving account of one special piece of their family history.

Workshop
"Sharing stories, making speeches"
Grades 4 – 12; 60 – 75 minutes

Many schools teach speech-writing in the curriculum, and include an evaluation at the end of the process. This workshop is ideal for classrooms that have reached the evaluation stage for their students, and would like a professional writer to offer individual feedback, coaching and inspiration for participants. An award-winning speechwriter, Victoria Miles has produced speeches and presentations for CEOs and community leaders. She is a great believer that the power of a good speech lies in storytelling and students at all skill levels take from the session a personal understanding of their own strengths as a speaker, and speechwriter.

Special Equipment:

Proxima projector (for use with my Mac laptop); CD player; white board and markers or flip chart and markers.

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed; ONLY if requested in advance.

Biography

Accordions, old bears, sea turtles, scientists, ancient trees and even chocolate…as the author of numerous books for children, Victoria Miles’ writing has taken her into grizzly bear country, up to marmot meadows and back hundreds of years in history to the beginnings of Canada.

Victoria’s Wild Science: Amazing Encounters Between Animals and the People Who Study Them was a finalist for both the 2005 Science in Society Book Awards and the Ontario Library Association’s Red Maple Awards. Magnifico, her juvenile novel set in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood in 1939, is currently a finalist in the Chocolate Lily, Rocky Mountain and Manitoba Young Readers Choice awards programs.

In 2007, Old Mother Bear, Victoria’s fictional portrait of an aging grizzly, was released by Chronicle Books in San Francisco. Featuring illustrations by multiple Caldecott-honoree Molly Bang, this critically-acclaimed picture book is Victoria’s tribute to both grizzly bears and good mothers everywhere. Old Mother Bear was chosen by the Vancouver Elementary Principals and Vice Principals Association as their 2007 gift to all Vancouver elementary schools.

In The Chocolatier’s Apprentice, released in 2007 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of Purdy’s chocolates, Victoria drew upon the memories and experiences of the people from Purdy’s to imagine the story of a boy who wanted nothing more than to make his mark in chocolate.

Victoria lives in North Vancouver with her husband, photographer David Nunuk, daughters Emily and Daphne, and their extended family of stuffed animals. Born in Vancouver, her family moved to Victoria when she was eight. Victoria has lived and worked in Japan and was an au pair to a family of seven in Ahrensburg, Germany. It was reading stories to the family’s six-year-old twins that reawakened Victoria’s love of children’s literature and sparked her inspiration to write.

OTHER PRESENTATIONS:
"Helping children cope with loss through literature" – a discussion about end-of-life themes in children’s literature and an introduction for educators and librarians to the authors own crtically acclaimed, cycle-of-life themed picture book Old Mother Bear.