She is the founder and former publisher of Groundwood Books, past president of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), former president of the IBBY Trust, and current publisher of Aldana Libros, an imprint of Greystone Kids.
[5] Under Aldana’s leadership, Groundwood was committed to finding, developing, and publishing authors and illustrators from communities who had been mostly absent from publishing programs in the past, including Chinese, Black, Sikh, Japanese and Hispanic Canadian communities.
[8] She also helped to train the editors and staff at the CCPPG in the elements of what makes a quality children’s book, and worked closely with particular authors.
She was the founding president of the Canadian Coalition for School Libraries and the Organization of Book Publishers of Ontario.
[10] Aldana and her colleague Rick Wilks of Annick Press founded and were co-Chairs of the National Reading Campaign from 2009 to 2014.
Their hope was for an organization that would bring policy focus in certain key areas, specifically reading for pleasure in schools, reading Canadian authors, and ensuring that Indigenous children had the same opportunity to become life-long readers as other Canadian children.