• Age: 8 to 11
• Grade: 3 to 6
• Reading age: 8 to 11

Winner of the OLA's Forest of Reading Silver Birch Express Award

Sylvia Tull -- the girl whose very glance turns Owen's face into a burning tomato -- has moved away from the small village where Owen lives with his parents and two brothers. But he still has the birthday gift she gave him -- a stationery set, complete with stamped envelopes -- because she wants him to keep sending her stories.

So Owen nervously begins to write Sylvia about all the things that are going on in his life. How his little brother, Leonard, got his head stuck in the bannister. The disastrous camping trip with his irritating girl cousins. How his new baby cousin will only stop screaming if Owen carries her.

And he tells her about the most bewildering drama to hit the Skye household yet, when the boys' father quits his insurance job to write a novel, and all the Skyes have to cope with the consequences.

Alan Cumyn has written an irresistible epistolary novel. Owen is a true writer in his head -- but getting the right words onto the page is another story. Young readers will easily identify as he wrestles with his spelling, with his writer's insecurity, and with his deep desire to tell Sylvia the truth about what is going on in his life, and in his heart.

Alan Cumyn has written many highly acclaimed novels for both children and adults. His three Owen Skye books have won several major awards. The Secret Life of Owen Skye won the Mr. Christie's Award and was nominated for the Governor General's Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award and the Pacific Northwest Libraries Association Young Readers Choice Award. After Sylvia was nominated for the TD Children's Literature Award, and Dear Sylvia was shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association Children's Book of the Year Award. Alan is also a two-time winner of the Ottawa Book Award. Alan teaches in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is currently chair of the Writers' Union of Canada.

Alan Cumyn's profile page

• Winner, OLA Silver Birch Express
• Short-listed, Ottawa Book Award

Alan Cumyn again displays his superb writing chops and keen insights of children in a letter-writing tale that is eventful, funny, openhearted and wise...Cumyn's ear for the poetry of children's language...gives Owen's letters perfect comic timing...Dear Sylvia picks up on characters, feelings and images from its predecessors [The Secret Life of Owen Skye and After Sylvia]...in a way that's natural and illuminating.

Toronto Star

Cumyn...delivers enough Skye family drama...and love-is-a-many-splendoured-thing moments to more than satisfy.

Globe and Mail

...Dear Sylvia [is] a superb epistolary novel. Set in the 1960s, it pictures childhood in all its innocence and charm, as well as its messiness and awkwardness, even in the face of poverty and dissapointment. Children Ages 8 to 11 will find a friend in Owen. Adults iwll love him because he makes them remember their own childhoods. Cumyn...is fast becoming one of today's leading Canadian writers for children.

Montreal Gazette

Dear Sylvia

In this third installment of the Owen Skye series, Alan Cumyn gives us a characteristically unique epistolary novel, consisting of Owen’s letters to his true love – the fabulous Sylvia Tull. We follow Owen as he pours his heart out to Sylvia. He shares his excitement, hopes, and fears as the family survives on a shoe-string budget when his father quits his job selling insurance to write a novel. Owen writes of his disappointments, nervousness, mistakes, adventures, and undying devotion to Sylvia with admirable, endearing humour and profound honesty. His letters are full of spelling errors (including a repetitive tendency to begin most of his letters with ‘deer Sylvia'), but Owen is, as usual, all the more lovable for his imperfections.

There is certainly never a dull moment in Owen’s life. Whether he is imagining the plot of his father’s mysterious novel, attempting to learn Scottish dancing or the bagpipes to impress his one and only love, or discovering heartbreaking evidence of his father’s possible affair, Owen is often struggling to face his own fears.

Dear Sylvia has hilarious moments, such as Owen being summoned regularly to rock his baby cousin Phyllis to sleep at all hours of the night – since he alone appears to have a magic touch where she is concerned. But there are heartbreaking times for the reader to witness as well. We are with Owen as he walks in the awkward limbo between childhood and adolescence, as he deals with the berating discouragement of critical, narrow-minded teachers, and as he tries to recover personal treasures after the family home collapses in a freak accident. When all is said and done, though, Cumyn’s readers are privileged to be with Owen as his heart and life ride a rollercoaster.

Alan Cumyn’s latest absorbing novel grabs attention and holds on tight. All at once poignant, comical, heartwarming and thought-provoking, Dear Sylvia’s major victory is a very human Owen Skye who captures the insecurities and preoccupations of growing boys.

Dear Sylvia

Sylvia has moved away, but Owen still has the birthday gift she gave him — a stationery set, complete with stamps, so that he can keep sending her stories. And so Owen nervously begins his correspondence and tells Sylvia about all the things that are going on in his life.