Bio
Helaine Becker is the bestselling writer of more than 50 books of children’s and YA fiction, non-fiction and verse. Her 2010 Christmas book, A Porcupine in a Pine Tree, was a National Bestseller 3 years in a row, and won The Picture Book of the Year Award from the CBA. Her Scholastic chapter book series, the Looney Bay All-Stars, has sold over 185,000 copies to date, making her one of Canada’s best-known authors among boys ages 7-10. She also is a two-time winner of the Silver Birch Award; for Boredom Blasters in 2006, and Secret Agent Y.O.U. in 2008(What's the Big Idea? received the Honour Award in 2011). The Insecto-Files won the prestigious 2009 Lane Anderson Award for Science Writing for Children, which comes with one of the richest cash prizes in children’s publishing.The Big Green Book of the Big Blue Sea won the Outstanding Youth Book Award from the CSWA.
In addition, she is in high demand as a presenter and performer at schools across North America. She has twice been selected for the Canadian Children’s Book Week Cross Country tour, travelling to both Yukon and Nunavut to present to school children. She has been a featured speaker at the Frye Festival in New Brunswick, Aloud International Children’s Festival in Ontario, Weaving Words Conference in Alberta, Literacy for Life Conference in Saskatchewan, the Hackmatack Awards in Nova Scotia, and the Red Cedar Awards in British Columbia. She was also a featured speaker at the 2009 Orange County Children’s Book Festival in Costa Mesa, California and the Literary Guild Festival in Irvine, California. Helaine has worked in children's television as well, writing Dr. Greeny's Mad Lab for Planet Echo, an environmental-themed TV show that airs on APTN. She has also written extensively for educational publishers; she is the author of nine phonic-based picture books published by Learning Resources (Vernon Hills, IL, 2004) for beginning readers and contributed to Learning Resources' Phonics Program (2005), writing poems and stories for beginning readers for whom English is a second language. Spelling Puzzlers for Grade 1 was published by Rigby Publishers in 2000. Collaborative Teaching in the Middle Grades: Inquiry Science was published in 2005 by Libraries Unlimited; Daily Skill Builders: Science and Technology was published in 2004 by J. Weston Walch.
A New York native, she has lived in Toronto for more than 20 years. She has been on the executive board of CANSCAIP (the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors and Illustrators), and is a member of the Writers Union of Canada, the Canadian Children's Book Centre, SCBWI and CSWA. She is a passionate and vocal support of school libraries and an active promoter of literacy through initiatives such as the "Air Lift to LA. "She is married with two teenage sons and has the cutest dog in the world, Ella.
