Myra Paperny (née Green born 19 September 1932) is a Canadian author and former academic. After briefly reporting for the Vancouver Province and Vancouver News Herald in the early 1950s, Paperny taught creative writingatMount Royal College and the University of Calgary between the mid 1950s and mid 1970s. Upon leaving academics, Paperny wrote multiple books between the 1970s to 2000s. Of her works, The Wooden People won the 1975 Little, Brown Children’s Book Award and the 1976 Canada Council Children's Literature Prize in the English language category.
Outside of academics, Paperny edited Councilwoman from 1970 to 1973 before she published The Wooden People in 1976.[4] Paperny did not write another children's book until the late 1980s with Take a Giant Step in 1987 and Nightmare Mountain in 1988.[7] Her completed fourth book, The Greenies, was published in 2005.[8]
For the majority of her first works, Paperny used her and her family's recollections while incorporating detailed research on Alberta.[1] To write The Wooden People, Peperny used mail-order catalogsbyEaton's and had the story take place years before the Great Depression.[9] After the release of The Wooden People, Paperny said there was no connection between the similarities of her youth and her book.[10] With The Greenies, Paperny intended to set her story in British Columbia after World War II. She instead decided to write about Jewish children who moved to Canada after World War II as orphans.[8]
In 1975, Paperny won the 1975 Little, Brown Children’s Book Award for The Wooden People as an unpublished work.[11] Following publication, Paperny was awarded the 1976 Canada Council Children's Literature Prize in the English language category.[2]
^ abcJones, Jon C.; Stott, Raymond E. (2000). "Myra (Green) Paperny". Canadian children's books: a critical guide to authors and illustrators. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 378. ISBN0195412222.
^ abRempel, Else (21 April 1977). "Book award second fiddle to China trip". Edmonton Journal. p. 86.
^McDonough, Irma, ed. (1982). "Myra Paperny". Profiles 2: authors and illustrators, children's literature in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association. p. 113. ISBN0888021631. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
