Joanne Schwartz author page

Joanne Schwartz biography

Joanne Schwartz is a Canadian children’s author and longtime children’s librarian. She grew up in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and has worked as a children’s librarian for more than 30 years. Her picture books include Our Corner Grocery Store, Town Is by the Sea, the Pinny books, and Head Full of Clouds.

Her first picture book, Our Corner Grocery Store, illustrated by Laura Beingessner, follows a child spending a busy Saturday helping at her grandparents’ neighborhood grocery store. The book was a finalist for the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award. Schwartz also wrote Pinny in Summer and Pinny in Fall, both illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant, which present small episodes from a young child’s everyday life.

Town Is by the Sea, illustrated by Sydney Smith and published by Groundwood Books in 2017, is set in a Cape Breton coal-mining community. A boy goes about his day beside the ocean while thinking about his father working in a mine beneath the sea. The book won the 2018 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, and received a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor. Smith’s illustrations received the 2018 Kate Greenaway Medal.

Schwartz’s Head Full of Clouds, illustrated by Afsaneh Sanei and published by Tundra Books in March 2025, follows a child whose lingering dream changes the way she notices the ordinary sights, sounds, and sensations around her. The book was shortlisted for the 2026 Sheila Barry Best Canadian Picturebook of the Year Award.