Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Children's Fiction General

Raven Quest

by (author) Sharon Stewart

Publisher
Scholastic Canada Ltd
Initial publish date
Aug 2003
Category
General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780439989886
    Publish Date
    Aug 2003
    List Price
    $8.99

Add it to your shelf

Where to buy it

Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels

  • Age: 10 to 14
  • Grade: 5 to 9

Description

Though Tok is the best flyer of all the ravens – they call him Skydancer – he is banished from his flock and will be killed if he dares return.. To reclaim his honour andthat of his dead father he vows to reunite all raven kind with the Grey Singers, legendary beings who used to hunt with the ravens long ago – each helping the other. But to complete his quest, Tok must travel from the Raven Mountains… into the dangerous land of the Two-legs.

About the author

Sharon Stewart was born in Kamloops, British Columbia, in the shadow of World War II. During her childhood, the breathtaking beauty of the British Columbia landscape informed her earliest attempts at writing, particularly nature poetry. Her earliest memories were of the beach at Gonzales Bay where she spent every moment pottering about on the sand. When her father returned from the war in Europe, the family moved to Vancouver and later to the Fraser Valley and then to the Okanagan Valley. To this day, Sharon has trouble deciding which she loves best: sea or mountains” Sharon’s innermost literary fantasies were early stoked by her victory in her junior high school’s short story competition. However, she was soon sucked into the whirlwind of study and work. Her first high school job was in the West Vancouver Memorial Library and she was one of the first students in attendance when Simon Fraser University opened in 1965. She began her university studies in English and Modern Languages, but by third year, she had fallen completely in love with history. She found, however, that the more she got into academic writing, the less creative writing she did. In 1969 she won a Commonwealth Scholarship to do graduate work at University College of the University of London, England. After marriage and a move to Toronto, she also did graduate work at the University of Toronto where she completed a Master’s degree in French history, her Ph.D course work and became a teaching assistant. Midway through her thesis and the promise of publication in a scholarly journal, she realized she was no longer interested in strictly academic writing and research. She left the university sphere to become a Social Sciences editor at Gage Publishing. A second marriage to Roderick Stewart, biographer of Norman Bethune, gave her the opportunity to live and work in China’s far north, the city of Harbin, formerly in Manchuria. Adapting to life in a severe climate with no central heating, she learned to live with two layers of thermal underwear while pedalling to her work as a teacher of English to Chinese teachers. She and her husband wrote a series of articles on China which were published in newspapers across Canada in 1983-84. After the year in China, Sharon returned to editorial work at Ginn and Co. and is now a senior project editor in Language Arts at Prentice Hall Ginn where her job is to research, compile and write content for Language Arts anthologies. Many of her poems and articles have appeared in Ginn and Prentice Hall anthologies. Sharon’s employment as an editor re-ignited her passion for writing and her long-dormant ambition to write for young people. Napoleon Publishing’s The Minstrel Boy (1997) was Sharon’s first published piece of young adult fiction, although it is in fact her second novel. The first, The Dark Tower, was published by Scholastic Canada in 1998 and her third, Spider’s Web, by Red Deer College Press, also in 1998. Aside from writing, Sharon’s interests include reading (of course!), playing the piano, gardening and training squirrels to come when she whistles.

Sharon Stewart's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, Red Cedar Award (BC Young Readers' Choice)
  • Short-listed, Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award, Sundogs
  • Short-listed, Rocky Mountain Book Award (Alberta Children's Choice)
  • Winner, OLA Silver Birch Award, Fiction
  • Commended, Canadian Children's Book Centre, Our Choice

Editorial Reviews

“Raven Quest needs to be read by us all. Highly Recommended.” (CM Magazine)

Other titles by

Dear Canada: Banished from Our Home

The Acadian Diary of Angelique Richard, Grande-Pre, Acadia, 1755

by (author) Sharon Stewart

Canadian Cultural Heritage 4-Book Bundle

Molly Brant / Louis Riel / Harriet Tubman / Simon Girty

by (author) Peggy Dymond Leavey, Sharon Stewart, Rosemary Sadlier & Edward Butts

Canadian Cultural Heritage Bundle

Louis Riel / Harriet Tubman / Simon Girty

by (author) Sharon Stewart, Edward Butts & Rosemary Sadlier

Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 21–30

Louis Riel / James Wilson Morrice / Vilhjalmur Stefansson / Robertson Davies / James Douglas / William C. Van Horne / George Simpson / Tom Thomson / Simon Girty / Mary Pickford

by (author) Julie H. Ferguson, Tom Henighan, Nicholas Maes, Wayne Larsen, Sharon Stewart, Valerie Knowles, D.T. Lahey, Edward Butts & Peggy Dymond Leavey

Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 21–25

Louis Riel / James Wilson Morrice / Vilhjalmur Stefansson / Robertson Davies / James Douglas

by (author) Julie H. Ferguson, Tom Henighan, Nicholas Maes, Wayne Larsen & Sharon Stewart

Cher Journal : Récit de Noël : N° 8 - Le coffret à souvenirs

by (author) Sharon Stewart

Cher Journal : Adieu, ma patrie

Angélique Richard, fille d'Acadie, Grand-Pré, Acadie, 1755

by (author) Sharon Stewart

Dear Canada: A Season for Miracles

Twelve Tales of Christmas

by (author) Jean Little, Kit Pearson, Janet Lunn, Sarah Ellis, Gillian Chan, Carol Matas, Maxine Trottier, Julie Lawson & Sharon Stewart

Phoenix

The Life of Norman Bethune

by (author) Roderick Stewart & Sharon Stewart

Cher Journal : Le temps des réjouissances

Dix récits de Noël

by (author) Barbara Haworth-Attard, Carol Matas, Gillian Chan, Jan Andrews, Janet Lunn, Jean Little, Karleen Bradford, Kit Pearson, Maxine Trottier, Sarah Ellis & Sharon Stewart