Sea turtles are an integral part of the ocean and shoreline ecosystem. Taking Turns with Turtles — A Rescue Story by Shari Becker (Groundwood, 36 pages, hardcover, $22) is an interesting, educational science picture book for children ages 3-6 about turtles that become cold-stunned when chilly fall weather hits too quickly along the east coast of the U.S.

Becker reminds us of the contributions turtles make to the ecosystem — they eat jellyfish, which protects fish populations, and their eggshells and waste fertilize beach plants, which prevents sand erosion. She also writes about the important role that dedicated volunteers play, nursing stranded turtles as they recover from their trauma and later returning them to the sea.

Brittany Lane’s pretty pastel watercolours show both detail and imagined underwater scenes.

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David Jón FullerIn the gapOn the icy shore of a glacier-scraped lakefir and jack pine crowd poplar and birch,roots grow no deeper than ancient rock allows,enough to obscure this life’s thinness —shallow soil accruing over centuries.

Beneath it, stone strata straddlingmultiple extinctions, outlasting them,which bore an Ice Age weight so heavythe old stone is still rebounding, eventhough all that’s left of the ice are lakes.

The Norse once thought:before people, or gods, there was ice.Frosty giants and an unformed earth,a middle-ground for those who would come later.But a spark was needed from a world of flame.

Now, in a still-cool springtime,we have worked such wicked wondersthe world changes again. Those giants of icelong-gone — while a hotter world breedsblackened forests. Rains are scant, lakelevels lower. After the fires,some may remain to remember,but far too much will burn.

After a two-year hiatus, the Manitoba Book Awards are returning in 2026.

Founded in 1988, the awards were last presented in 2023, after a feasibility study that year recommended the awards, and the governing coalition made up of Plume Winnipeg, the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, the Winnipeg Public Library and the Manitoba Writers’ Guild, be dissolved. An August 2024 announcement made the news official.

In an April 9 press release it was announced the returning 2026 Manitoba Book Awards will be run by an independent board of arts workers and writers including board president David A. Robertson as well as Rowan McCandless, Colleen Nelson, Chimwemwe Undi, Seyward Goodhand and others.

For 2026, three of the six returning awards will be funded by the Manitoba government — the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction, the Margaret Laurence Fiction Award and the Prix Littéraire rue-Deschambault. The other three returning awards are the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book and the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry.