Budge Wilson Books In Order

Publication Order of Lorinda Dauphinee Books

Publication Order of Our Canadian Girl: Izzie Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Collections

Budge Wilson
Author Budge Wilson was born on May 2, 1927 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her dad, Maynard Brown Archibald, was a judge and her mom was Helen MacGregor Archibald.

Wilson studied psychology and philosophy at Dalhousie University and graduated in the year 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts. Then she undertook postgrad studies at the University of Toronto from 1949 until 1951. While here, she illustrated three books for the University of Toronto Press. In 1953, she obtained a Diploma of Education, and a certificate in physical education.

Her first job was as an English and art teacher at Halifax Ladies’ College for a year beginning in 1951. From 1953 until 1957, she was employed by the Institute of Child Study at the University of Toronto. While here, she was responsible for editing, filing, and art work.

After different stints at the Toronto Public Library and Acadia University nursing school, she returned to teaching in the year 1968. She became a fitness instructor at the Peterborough County Board of Education and Young Women’s Association in Peterborough where she worked in this capacity until the year 1987.

Budge, a Nova Scotia resident and native, had also worked as a commercial artist, teacher, photographer, and fitness instructor. All before she began devoting her time to her writing, which was her true love.

In the year 1978, she began writing full time. She published her first book in the year 1984, called “The Best/Worst Christmas Present Ever”, when she was 56 years old. She recounted that writing during this six-year interval was tough, describing how she was starting to get pretty discouraged during that fifth year.

Since publishing that first book, her work has been released in seven languages and ten countries. She wrote juvenile and adult fiction, and by 2011, had released 33 books.

One of these books includes “Before Green Gables”, which was a celebratory centennial release to the “Anne of Green Gables” series. It became the biggest-ever foreign rights sale for Penguin Canada, and was later adapted into an animated series in Japan, called “Kon’nichiwa Anne: Before Green Gables”.

Her final book, which was called “After Swissair” and released in the year 2018, was a collection of poetry that chronicled the aftermath of the crash of Swissair Flight 111 off the coast of Nova Scotia on September 2, 1998.

“The Leaving” won first prize in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Literary Competition for Adult Short Story in 1991. It also won the City of Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award. It went to being listed as one of the 75 best children’s books of the previous 25 years by the American Library Association in the year 1994. It got shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in the Canada-Caribbean Region.

She married Alan Wilson in the year 1953, having met while they studied at Dalhousie together. He was the founding chair of the History Department and Canadian Studies at Trent University. Together they had two kids: Andrea and Glynis.

After they had lived in Peterborough, Ontario for 33 years, they moved back to Nova Scotia in the year 1989 and lived in Northwest Cove on St. Margarets Bay. During her later years, they moved into a retirement home in Halifax.

Budge died March 19, 2021 at a hospital in Halifax at the age of 93. She had suffered from complications from a fall earlier that same month.

“Oliver’s Wars” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1992. It seems that everywhere Oliver Kovak, age twelve, turns, there is some battle to be won, or lost. When his dad, who is a nurse, gets assigned to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, and Oliver, Jerry (his brother), and his mom move East to live with his grandparents.

There, not only does he learn to get along with his grumpy grandpa, however he also has to cope with all the cruel put downs of a gym teacher and some taunts of new schoolmates. However his biggest “war” is really a personal one. Oliver, who always looks like nothing bothers him, has to learn how to let people know when he is actually hurting.

“Sharla” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1997. Sharla is incredibly angry with everybody at the moment. At her parents for moving to Churchill, Manitoba. At the tourists that flock the polar bears, the teachers at her new school, and even at Theo and Collette who are better friends than she likes to admit.

When it starts feeling like nothing in this cold and tiny town could be of any interest, in walks an older, attractive kid named Jake who is looking for somebody to help him on his photography shoot. Against her better judgment, and what would be her parents’ wishes, if they only knew, Sharla agrees to work for the boy.

All of a sudden, she feels alive once more until a horrifying and magnificent polar bear threatens both of their lives. In a matter of moments, she is faced with some revealing and new realities.

“Before Green Gables” is a story about Anne Shirley that was released in the year 2008. This is the story about Anne Shirley’s life before she showed up at Green Gables. It is a heartwarming story about one precocious kid whose own lively imagination and relentless spirit help her in overcoming tough circumstance and a young girl’s ability to learn, love, and above everything else, to dream.

“Anne of Green Gables” is the story of the spunky red-haired orphan that comes from Prince Edward Island, a story known to millions, adults and kids. When readers first met Anne, she is eleven, and has been sent from the orphanage to meet her new family. Nobody ever knew the events of Anne’s life before she showed up at Green Gables. Until now.

This is the account of how one of the most beloved heroines in all of literature became the girl who captivated the whole world.