Jessica Dee Humphreys


Jessica Dee Humphreys is a Canadian writer and researcher specializing in international humanitarian, military, and children's issues. Co-author of two books with Roméo Dallaire, she has also published a graphic novel for children, Child Soldier: When Boys and Girls are Used in War. She is currently writing a new book on global girls' rights and the UN International Day of the Girl Child, to be published in 2020. As an author, she has been collected by libraries, and her work has appeared in periodicals such as The Globe and Mail, the New York Times, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action magazine, and The Beaver, Canada's History Magazine.

Education

Humphreys received her Honours Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Linguistics from the University of Toronto in 1997, and the following year received her Master of Arts degree in English Literature from Queen's University. She then held an internship at the United Nations Development Fund for Women in New York.

Awards and recognition

Humphreys's work was included in the National Post's list of Best Books of 2016 and the 2010 Globe and Mail's Top 100: Non-fiction. Her work has been awarded the 2017 Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading Red Maple Award for children's non-fiction, the 2015 Best Bet for Junior Non-Fiction from the Ontario Library Association, the 2016 Skipping Stones Honour Award, the Children’s Literature Roundtable of Canada Honour Book of 2016, and starred reviews from the School Library Journal and Quill and Quire, plus nominations for the 2016 Eisner Award Best Publication for Kids, the 2016 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction, the 2016 Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year for Children, the Joe Shuster Dragon Award, the 2016-2017 Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award, the Young Adult Library Services Association's ‘Great Graphic Novel for Teens 2016’, the American Library Association’s 2016 Notable Children’s Book, and the 2017 Forest of Reading Golden Oak award for non-fiction. Her latest book, Waiting for First Light, was longlisted for the Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction and for CBC's Canada Reads competition.

Publications