Canada’s Tundra Book Group is set to launch a new children’s imprint called Swift Water Books. Headed by David Robertson and spotlighting Indigenous voices, the new imprint will cater to young readers through picture books, graphic novels, middle-grade stories and YA titles. 

“With a growing interest in Indigenous storytelling, there is no better time for this imprint than right now,” said Robertson, a member of Norway House Cree Nation who has overseen the development of this imprint since he joined Tundra as editorial director in 2022.  An acclaimed author, Robertson has previously won two Governor General’s Literary Awards and a TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award.

While there have been Indigenous publishers in Canada, Swift Water is billed as the first Indigenous children’s imprint within a major publishing house in the country. 

Slated to launch in spring 2026, the imprint’s initial titles include Canada (pictured), a picture book based on a poem by the late Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) author Richard Wagamese, that will be adapted by Robertson and illustrated by Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley, a member of the Wasauksing First Nation. Also planned for release under Swift Water is a YA novel called Here for a Good Time penned by Kim Spencer, an author from the Gitxaała Nation who has also won multiple awards including a TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award.

Launched in 1967 and owned by Penguin Random House Canada, Tundra is considered to be the oldest children’s book publisher in Canada. Some of the publisher’s bestselling books in recent years include the preschool-skewing Narwhal and Jelly series by Ben Clanton, the teen fantasy tale Iron Widow from Xiran Jay Zhao and the alien invasion story We Are Definitely Human by X. Fang.

Other writers and illustrators who will be releasing upcoming books with Swift Water include Yolanda Bonnell, Cherie Dimaline and Wenzdae Dimaline-Manchester, Falen Johnson, Autumn Peltier, Waubgeshig Rice, Tasha Spillett, Kirk Van Brunt, Chelsea Vowel, Luke Swinson, and August Swinson.