Hailed by Kids

    “How to Build Your Own Country,” a nonfiction children’s book by Karen Fredericks, an illustrator who lives in Northwest, East Hampton, and Valerie Wyatt, has won a 2010 Silver Birch Award from the Ontario Library Association, it was announced last week.

    Published by Kids Can Press, the book, which also won a Canadian Children’s Literature Roundtable information award, is part of a series designed to teach children about world events and inspire them to be better global citizens, according to the publisher’s Web site. The interactive book offers kids the “expertise and advice they’ll need to plant their flag in the backyard, in the bedroom, or online,” in topics ranging from history to government to geography.

    The award was the result of votes cast by thousands of young readers in grades three through six, a release said. Ms. Fredericks illustrated the book under the name Fred Rix.