OAKVILLE, ON — Rubicon Publishing Inc./Plumleaf Press has won gold at the 2020 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards. Willa’s House written by the late David Booth and beautifully illustrated by the talented Renia Metallinou won the Gold award in the picture book category for all ages.

From the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards website: Creating books that inspire our children to read, to learn, and to dream is an extremely important task, and these awards were conceived to reward those efforts. Each year’s entries are judged by expert panels of youth educators, students, librarians, booksellers, and book reviewers of all ages. Award recipients receive gold, silver and bronze medals and stickers depicting a mother and child reading and silhouetted by a full moon.

Willa’s House was inspired by David Booth’s friend Willa Pauli, a teacher who lived a contented life in the house in which she was born in Stratford, Ontario. David used Willa’s house (which still stands in Stratford, Ontario) as a metaphor for the quiet joys of a life well lived in a small town. In telling the story of Willa, a woman who found fulfillment and contentment in her life as a teacher and in the house she lived in for 80 years, readers are taken on a nostalgic journey back to their own past, and children are reminded of what is important to treasure in life.

Unfortunately, David did not see the finished book, but in these uncertain times of COVID-19, David’s message of quiet comfort, joy, and stability of life in a small town could not be more welcome reading for children and adults alike. David lives on in the many books (too many to count) he wrote, from professional learning resources for teachers to always engaging books that helped students learn to read to picture books and poetry.

To view all the winners of the 2020 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, click here.

To purchase or learn more about Willa’s House, click here.