The Biggest Poutine in the World

by Andrée Poulin

Translated by Brigitte Waisberg

Annick Press

978-1-55451-825-8

160 pp.

Ages 9-12

March, 2016

Reviewed from advance reading copy 

Using food to fill the void of loneliness and to quench the anguish of abandonment would not be unusual but using a 650-kilogram poutine to smother the emptiness of a cold, distant father and an absentee mother is definitely unique.  But that’s what twelve-year-old Thomas Gagné of Sainte-Alphonsine believes might offer his pathetic life some hope.

A glimmer of hope lights up in my mind.  A tiny, fragile, trembling glimmer.  I try not to pay too much attention to it. I’ve tasted disappointment before, and it doesn’t taste good. (pg. 11)

Though it has been seven long years since he’s seen his mother–and yet he does receive  very brief notes with cash from her at his birthday–Thomas has fond memories of her making poutine for him: peeling whole bags of potatoes, buying cheese curds together, making the gravy and cooking the fries.  Taking a cue from his favourite website, the Guinness World Records, Thomas concocts the idea of making a giant poutine and feeding hundreds of people so that he might earn a world record and become worthy of the attention of his parents.  So begins the Phenomenal Poutine Project, PPP, for which Thomas enlists the help of his best friend, Sam Bernier; Sam’s godfather and French fry truck owner Fat Frank; and Irene Ladouceur, who runs the local cheese shop and insists Thomas include her daughter Elie in the project.  But things run amok when the mayor, Thérèse Tartatcheff, refuses to rent the arena to Thomas for the event.

Thomas is not deterred, however, and cooks up a plan to kidnap the mayor’s Senegal parrot and then recover the bird, all to sway Tartatcheff into relenting to his PPP.  But, as with so many good plans, things go awry.  His friendships with Sam and Elie, his missing mother, his aloof father, an allergic reaction, a wayward parrot, and a candy-pink note all get heaped on top of each other and smothered in emotions.  Fortunately, all culminates in a satisfying fusion of humour and coming-of-age drama, with a side order of dysfunctional family.

The Biggest Poutine in the World is the English translation, by Annick Press’s Brigitte Waisberg, of Andrée Poulin’s La plus grosse poutine du monde (Bayard Canada, 2013) which won the 2014 Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse and the 2015 Le Prix Tamarac of the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading.  The story is a visually-appealing mixture of graphics, including fun text messages between Thomas and Sam, drawings of emails between Thomas and Elie, an album of types of poutine (who knew there were so many!), and black-and-white sketches, with text set in large font and broken into small chapters with massive titles.  Young readers will undoubtedly appreciate the organizational format of the book but it’s the story line with which they will empathize.  Thomas is a boy with much resentment, anger and jealousy and yet he can still see the potential for hopefulness.  He even has a willingness and positivity to accept a challenge to captivate that hope although obstacles and self-doubt test him.

With The Biggest Poutine in the World, Andrée Poulin demonstrates an understanding of the complexities of a child’s mind when faced with familial conflict.  Being an accomplished author of over 30 French-language picture books and children’s novels, Andrée Poulin effortlessly translates that strife with compassion and humour into an uplifting tale of friendship and determination and emotional growth.  It does pull a bit at the heart, but no more than the occasional high-cholesterol poutine might.

(A version of this review was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)

Kubiw, H. (2016, January/February). [Review of the book The Biggest Poutine in the World, by Andrée Poulin]. Quill & Quire, 82 (1): 44.

Superheroes: Born and Made: A youngCanLit book list

Superheroes are all the rage on TV, in the movies and in books.  We all like to believe that there is someone extraordinary who can save the day when ordinary just isn't enough.  Some superheroes are born but some are made and some are created from the ordinary that often seems to be insufficient to deal with the challenges of life, real or imagined.  Some are embedded in the myths of the ancients but their superhero status cannot be denied.  Their gifts go beyond the extraordinary and are necessary to make things right.  See if you don't agree.

Allow me present to you my 

Superheroes: Born and Made 

youngCanLit booklist!

(drum roll, please)

PICTURE BOOKS

Eliot Jones, Midnight Superhero
by Anne Cottringer
Illustrated by Alex T. Smith
Scholastic Canada
32 pp.
Ages 3-7
2008
By day, Eliot is a quiet boy who likes to read and play with his toys. But when the clock strikes midnight, Eliot is transformed into a hero. And his mission is to deal with a giant meteor hurtling towards Earth.

Perfect Man
by Troy Wilson
Illustrated by Dean Griffiths
Orca Book Publishers
32 pp.
Ages 4-8
2004
Michael's superhero abandons him, leaving him to discover his own super powers with the help of a wonderful teacher.

Superfab Saves the Day
by Jean Leroy and Bérengère Delaporte
Illustrated by Bérengère Delaporte
Translated by Sarah Quinn
Owlkids
40 pp.
Ages 4-7
2014
Superfab's stylish sense usually makes him late for superhero-fighting of bad guys but his fashion sense becomes a strength when faced with one monster.

Super Red Riding Hood
by Claudia Dávila
Kids Can Press
32 pp.
Ages 3-7
2014
When her mother sends her on a "mission" that takes her into the deep, dark woods, Ruby puts on her red cloak and becomes Super Red Riding Hood, a superhero who is scared of nothing--except coming face-to-face with a big, bad wolf.



NOVELS

Blac Ice
by Anthony Stanberry
Freeze DNA
Ages 8-12
2007
Three brothers discover they have the ability to assume the powers of the elements, due to genetic experiments performed on them as part of a military program to create the ultimate soldier.

The Blackwell Pages
Books 1 and 2 Reviewed here

Loki's Wolves
by K. L. Armstrong and M. A. Marr
Little Brown and Company
364 pp.
Ages 10-14
2013

Odin's Ravens
by K. L. Armstrong and  M. A. Marr
Little Brown and Company
352 pp.
Ages 10-14
2014

Thor's Serpents
by K. L. Armstrong and  M. A. Marr
Little Brown and Company
368 pp.
Ages 10-14
2015
Matt Thorsen, descendant of Thor, must work with the descendants of other Norse gods to be the champion who will save the world from Ragnarök, and work against those who want to see him fail.

The Chemo Kid
by John Lipsyte
HarperCollins Canada
167 pp.
Ages 12+
1992
When the chemotherapy drugs he takes transform him from wimp to superhero, sixteen-year-old Fred and his friends plot to rid the town of its most lethal environmental hazard: the toxic waste contaminating their water supply.

The Comic Book War
by Jacqueline Guest
Coteau Books
190 pp.
Ages 11-14
2014
Teen Robert gets a job delivering telegrams for Canadian Pacific in Calgary during WWII in order to buy comic books that he believes will help superheroes protect the soldiers, including his own brothers, fighting in Europe.

Heck, Superhero
by Martine Leavitt
Red Deer Press
144 pp.
Ages 11-14
2004
In order to help him deal with his mother's mental illness, thirteen-year-old Hector imagines himself as a superhero and pretends things are manageable.  But, when they end up on the street and his mother goes missing, Heck only begins to recognize their need for help when he meets a boy dealing with his own mental health issues.

Jake Reynolds: Chicken or Eagle?
by Sara Leach
Orca Book Publishers
101 pp.
Ages 8-11
2009
Eleven-year-old Jake Reynolds dreams of being a superhero, but he's not exactly brave, especially when it comes to the wolves on the island where he and his family are staying.

Kung Pow Chicken

Let’s Get Cracking
by Cyndi Marko
Scholastic Canada
72 pp.
Ages 5-7
2014

Bok! Bok! Boom!
by Cyndi Marko
Scholastic Canada
80 pp.
Ages 5-7
2014

The Birdy Snatchers
by Cyndi Marko
Scholastic Canada
80 pp.
Ages 5-7
2014

Heroes on the Side
by Cyndi Marko
Scholastic Canada
80 pp.
Ages 5-7
2014
Gordon Blue and his brother Benny are superheroes Kung Pow Chicken and his sidekick Egg Drop, whose first adventure has the two looking to save Fowladelphia from Granny Goosebumps, who has filled the city with cookies that cause chickens' feathers to fall off.

The Last Superhero
by Kristin Butcher
Dundurn
118 pp.
Ages 8-12
2010
Seventh-grader Jas is working on an adventure comic he hopes will be his ticket into an elite summer art program. But  then he meets Wren, an eccentric, crusading grade seven girl, who is determined to avenge the victims of school bullies and to save a local heritage firehouse from demolition.

Project Superhero 
by E. Paul Zehr
ECW Press
224 pp.
Ages 8-12
2014
Story of a class assignment in which students get to create their own superheroes, while examining what makes someone a hero.

Rocket Man
by Jan L. Coates
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
204 pp.
Ages 9+
2014
If only Bob could go back to being the Mr. Invisible of his superhero days, before he wasn’t always being compared to his perfect siblings.  But then his father gets sicker and sicker with cancer, and now Bob needs some pointers on how to be The Rocketman.



Starling

Starling
by Lesley Livingston
HarperCollins Canada
341 pp.
Ages 12+
2012
Reviewed here

Descendant
by Lesley Livingston
HarperCollins Canada
320 pp.
Ages 12+
2013
Reviewed here

Transcendent
by Lesley Livingston
HarperCollins Canada
357 pp.
Ages 12+
2014
The Fennrys Wolf of Lesley Livingston's Wondrous Strange series returns to find himself falling for Mason Starling whose family had dedicated their lives to the service of the Norse gods and vowing to help bring about Ragnarok.  Together the two must fight those that plot to end of the world and find the means to protect each other.

Supermutant Magic Academy
by Jillian Tamaki
Drawn and Quaterly
224 pp.
Ages 12+
2015
High school is filled with typical teen angst, even amongst the mutants, witches and superheroes of the Supermutant Magic Academy prep school.

Ten Lessons for Kaspar Snit
by Cary Fagan
Tundra Books
192 pp.
Ages 8-12
2008
In this third book of the series, evil Kaspar Snit from The Fortress of Kaspar Snit returns a different man. While Eleanor Bland and her brother create ten lessons that Kaspar must follow in order to reform his criminal ways and win true love, they must avoid detection by a superhero-seeking detective.

The Vindico
by Wesley King
Penguin
298 pp.
Ages 12+
2012

The Feros
by Wesley King
Penguin
313 pp.
Ages 12+
2013
When supervillains of the Vindico realize they are getting too old to fight the League of Heroes, they kidnap and begin training five teens, but these teens are going to become the next generation of evil without a fight. In fact, in The Feros, the teens use their new superpowers to try to save abducted members of the League of Heroes.





NON-FICTION

Draw Out the Story: Ten Secrets to Creating Your Own Comics
by Brian McLachlan
Owlkids
144 pp.
Ages 9-11
2013
Offers advice for effective storytelling in comic book format, covering such topics as colour, placement, pacing, visually representing ideas, and other techniques for short gag strips as well as graphic novels and other more involved storylines

A Big Dose of Lucky

by Marthe Jocelyn

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-0668-9

249 pp.

Ages 12+

October 2015

"You may discover that going backward–discovering your past–will be the best route to the next chapter in your life." (pg. 31) 

This is what Malou, 16, is told as she and the other Seven girls in Orca’s Secrets books are released from the Benevolent Home for Necessitous Girls after a fire destroys it and they are given the barest of clues to their heritage.  Malou has never dreamed of having parents who might be monarchs or celebrities; she has only wanted an ordinary family that did things together.  The baby bracelet from St. Joseph's Hospital in Parry Sound with the name "Baby Fox" is her only clue to that family.  Though reluctant to leave, Malou heads by bus to Parry Sound, via Toronto, impressed by the diversity of people–her own skin colour had made her an anomaly in town where she was routinely identified as “the dark one or the little darkie or the colored girl” (pg.1)–and the newness of everything from pink popcorn to lemon meringue pie and grilled cheese.

In Parry Sound, Malou gets a bed at the local women's hostel and a job as a cleaner at the hospital, surprising considering her well-known untidiness at the Home, but "All it takes to be a cleaner? Don't be white." (pg. 70)  By way of a young orderly, Frankie, who shows an interest in her, Malou locates the stored records at the hospital and specifically the one for Sherry Fox who gave birth in 1948.  Along with an address, Malou finds a list of seven names which includes Sherry Fox's on the doctor's stationery and identified as A. B. cases.  Though her encounter with Sherry Fox, an Anishnaabe on the local reserve, reveals the bracelet was not Malou's but that belonging to, and taken from, Sherry's son Jimmy at birth, Malou makes an important connection with Jimmy and his classmate Pete and Pete's twin sister, Lucy, whose mother's name also appears on the list.

So begins a hunt by Malou and her new friends to locate the women whose names are on the list and find their connection.  A significant breakthrough comes from Pete's noting the physical similarity between Malou and a girl, Abby, who works summers at the marina.  And, with that, Malou and the other sixteen-year-olds are led to discover a program of artificial insemination at the hospital that involved an Jamaican intern named Andy Bannerman and probably others.  But this still does not reveal who Malou's mother may be.  Secrets long hidden may be being uncovered but it's only Sherry Fox's recollection of her own hospital visit that leads Malou to a mother she had long assumed dead.

The plotting by which Malou finds her mother is not as simple as that baby bracelet initially suggests, and for that I am thankful.  I should have given Marthe Jocelyn far greater credit, having read enough of her other books, including her young adult titles like How It Happened on Peach Hill (2007), Would You (2008), Folly (2010) and What We Hide (2014), to know the depth of her writing and the complexity of her storylines.  That plot is intense but secondary for me compared to Malou's experiences to become part of a world outside of the Benevolent Home for Necessitous Girls. Having  lived within the sheltered confines of the Home, Malou had little understanding, except via Joe the cook's small television, to glimpse the world of racial discrimination and the civil rights movement and multiculturalism, and her few experiences in town did little to expose her to all that world entailed.  Her discovery of the world and the freedoms that come with her departure from the Home are as much an eye-opener for the reader as they are for Malou.  She learns many things, none less than the price one must pay for freedom.

Freedom is harder than I expected.  Not the freedom part, but the making-decisions part.  Having a choice. (pg. 121)

All the girls in the Secrets series define themselves at the onset as orphans of the Benevolent Home for Necessitous Girls.  But ultimately, Malou learns “I’m not an orphan.  Not even half.” (pg. 249) and that she is very fortunate–there's A Big Dose of Lucky–having a family that is far more inclusive than ever imagined, except by Marthe Jocelyn.


SH...H...H...
Other books in the Secrets series are:

• Innocent by Eric Walters 
• My Life Before Me by Norah McClintock (Reviewed here)
• Shattered Glass by Teresa Toten (Reviewed here)
• Small Bones by Vicki Grant (Reviewed here)
• Stones on a Grave by Kathy Kacer
• The Unquiet Past by Kelley Armstrong

Delicate

by C. K. Kelly Martin
Dancing Cat Books
978-1-77086-452-8
230 pp.
Ages 14+
November 2015


Who wants to be called “delicate”? Porcelain dolls, maybe.  But the teens in C. K. Kelly Martin’s Delicate would be loathe to be called delicate, regardless of the challenges, physical and emotional, they have to endure.

Delicate is told in the alternate voices of second cousins, Ivy and Lucan, who haven’t seen each other in seven years since Lucan’s mother Sheri told her cousin Lisette, Ivy’s mom, about seeing Ivy’s dad with another woman at a hotel.  The two teens will become reacquainted at a 75th brithday party for a relative, but first they are involved in their own dramas.  Life is drama after all, isn't it?  Ivy is devastated by her boyfriend Jeremy’s break-up with her after 18 months together and learning that he’s hooked up with her best friend Betina.  And Lucan is dealing with his divorced mother’s embarrassingly physical relationship with Julian, a man much younger than her, as well as trying to negotiate his best friend Des’s volatile relationship with girlfriend McKenna.  After the family get-together, Sheri helps Ivy get a summer job at her merchandising firm which is just around the corner from the Mill Street Café where Lucan gets a job,  and soon the two teens are comparing and sharing their lives with each other and declaring themselves absurdly delicate, though they both have tremendous strengths that they still have not recognized.

Fortunately, they enjoy each other’s company (how much is surprising) and the fresh perspectives on their respective issues.  Ivy vacillates between longing, anger and vengeance with regards to Betina and Jeremy, by whom she has been infected with an STI, even getting Lucan involved in a dog-napping scheme, while Lucan begins to see the abusive nature of Des and McKenna’s relationship, enlisting Ivy’s help to defuse its volatility.

The tenuous nature of relationships is made very clear from the plethora within Delicate: Des and McKenna, Ivy and Jeremy, Ivy and Betina, cousins Sheri and Lisette, Lucan and Des, and so many others.  The relationships between boyfriend and girlfriend, friends, husband and wife, parents and children and other relatives are all so delicate in that any incident or series of circumstances could destroy or alter them, shattering them to shards that may or may not be reconfigured.  I spent most of the book worried that Lucan’s peanut allergy–which I incorrectly assessed as his delicacy–would be his downfall but I was mistaken.  That would’ve been too obvious and C. K. Kelly Martin is never obvious.  Her other books (My Beating Teenage Heart, 2011; Yesterday, 2012; Tomorrow, 2013; The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing, 2014) have always fascinated me by her analysis of the complexity of the human condition and Delicate takes that one step further by examining both the obvious and the unseen and showing the immensity of both in affecting our lives and the way we see ourselves.  More importantly, C. K. Kelly Martin exposes the ways we hurt each other, sometimes deliberately, some accidentally, and some through negligence, and provides an upfront perspective on dealing.  Maybe that's all you can hope for.  Thankfully C. K. Kelly Martin does reassure the readers that being Delicate is not an indictment, just human.

Mouse Pet

by Philip Roy

Illustrated by Andrea Torrey Balsara

Ronsdale Press

978-1-5530-443-7

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

September 2015

Happy the Pocket Mouse, introduced in Mouse Tales (2014) and revisited in Jellybean Mouse (2014), is back in his third adventure and this time he wants to share his happiness with a pet that he and his human John could take for walks and pat.

John listens to the little mouse’s wish and all the fun Happy is sure will be theirs but helps him to understand the significant responsibilities required of pet care.  In fact, Happy decides they should get a goat–even naming it Lola–and has an answer to every objection John makes. Fortunately, and with much affection, John suggests an alternative and one that makes everyone happy!

Happy the Pocket Mouse has a heart full of love and he shares it so completely with John that it only makes sense that he extend that love to another and maybe even another.  The dialogue that Philip Roy has created between Happy and John is so endearing and honest that the reader will feel privileged to eavesdrop on their affection and tender conversation.  With so much caring and compassion, you know that the resolution to their pet discussion will be a sweet one.

The text is so appealing and yet concise and emotive, and the illustrations by Andrea Torrey Balsara are just as charming.  It’s like drinking hot cocoa and eating sweet treats.  The anticipation is just as wonderful as the consumption and you’re left with a warm feeling of goodness and sweetness and look forward to another helping soon enough.

Dearest readers...: A Letters in youngCanLit book list

(Updated August 2023)

December 7 marks Letter-Writing Day.  And, in each of the following titles, one significant letter or many letters or emails are the basis for the book's plot.  Letters, missives, epistles, memos, post-its, emails, texts and such are communications that figure prominently in each of these tomes, whether the  very essence of the book's format or the impetus by which the story is told.  So, whether you are a teacher wanting to introduce young students to writing letters, or you enjoy the snappiness of short texts, or just love the personal nature of letter communications, these books of youngCanLit have something for everyone.


PICTURE BOOKS

The Gardener
Written by Sarah Stewart
Illustrated by David Small
Farrar, Straus, Giroux
32 pp.
Ages 5–11
1997

The Stamp Collector
Written by Jennifer Lanthier
Illustrations by François Thisdale
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
32 pp.
Ages 8+
2012
Reviewed here

Wolf Wanted
Written by Ana Maria Machado
Illustrated by Laurent Cardon
Translated by Elisa Amado
Groundwood Books
40 pp.
Ages 8-9
2010





FICTION

Dear Elsa

Written by Marco Fraticelli
Red Deer Press
240 pp.
Ages 8-12

2023

Reviewed here

Dear Sylvia
Written by Alan Cumyn
Groundwood Books
181 pp.
Ages 8-12
2008

Dear Toni
Written by Cyndi Sand-Eveland
Tundra Books
112 pp.
Ages 8-12
2008

Finding Grace (A Gutsy Girl Book)
Written by Becky Citra
Second Story Press
195 pp.
Ages 9-12
2014

Finding Ruby Starling
Written by Karen Rivers
Alfred A. Levine Books/Scholastic
304 pp.
Ages 10-14
2014
Reviewed here

Fred and the Mysterious Letter
Written by Marie-Danielle Croteau
Illustrated by Bruno St-Aubin
Translated by Sarah Cummins
Formac
61 pp.
Ages 6-8
2005

A Hole in My Heart
Written by Rie Charles
Dundurn
155 pp.
Ages 11-12
2014

Jakeman
Written by Deborah Ellis
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
201 pp.
Ages 8-13
2007

Peggy’s Letters
Written by Jacqueline halsey
Orca Book Publishers
116 pp.
Ages 6-11
2005

The Whole Truth
Written by Kit Pearson
HarperCollins Canada
261 pp.
Ages 9+
2011
Reviewed here




YOUNG ADULT

Apart
Written by R. P. MacIntyre & Wendy MacIntyre
Groundwood
176 pp.
Ages 13-16
2007

Calvin
Written by Martine Leavitt
Groundwood Books
192 pp.
Ages 12+
2015
Reviewed here

Creeps
Written by Darren Hynes
Razorbill/Penguin Canada
309 pp.
Age 13+
2013
Reviewed here

Dance of the Banished
Written by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Pajama Press
288 pp.
Ages 12+
2014
Reviewed here

Dear Bruce Springstreen
Written by Kevin Major
Doubleday
144 pp.
Ages 10-14
1987

Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom
Written by Susin Nielsen
Tundra Books
240 pp.
Ages 11-14
2010

Dear Jo: The Story of Losing Leah
Written by Christina Kilbourne
Lobster Press
190 pp.
Ages 10-15
2007

The Farmerettes
Written by Gisela Tobien Sherman
Second Story Press
348 pp.
Ages 13-18
2015





A Foreign Field
Written by Gillian Chan
Kids Can Press
192 pp.
Ages 10-14
2002

The Girls They Left Behind
Written by Bernice Thurman Hunter
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
191 pp.
Ages 13-15
2005

I’ll be Watching
Written by Pamela Porter
Groundwood Books
280 pp.
Ages 12+
2011
Reviewed here

Last December
Written by Matt Beam
Puffin
161 pp.
Ages 12+
2009

Letters to Julia
Written by Barbara Ware Holmes
HarperCollins Canada
234 pp.
Ages 11-14
1997

Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes Between a Mother and Daughter
Written by Alice Kuipers
HarperCollins Canada
240 pp.
Ages 12+
2007

Little Red Lies
Written by Julie Johnston
Tundra Books
352 pp.
Ages 10+
2013

An Order of Amelie, Hold the Fries
Written by Nina Schindler
Annick Press
112 pp.
Ages 13+
2004

Rebel’s Tag
Written by K. L. Danman
Orca Book Publishers
128 pp.
Ages 10-14
2007

Slick
Written by Sara Cassidy
Orca Book Publishers
116 pp.
Ages 10-14
2010

The Way We Fall
Written by Megan Crewe
Hyperion Disney Group
308 pp.
Ages 12+
2011
Reviewed here

We Contain Multitudes

Written by Sarah Henstra
Penguin Teen
384 pp.
Ages 14+

2019 

Reviewed here

When Kacey Left
Written by Dawn Green
Red Deer Press
228 pp.
Ages 12+
April 2015
Reviewed here





NON-FICTION

Anastasia's Album
Written by Hugh Brewster
Madison Press Books
63 pp.
Ages 10+
1996

Camp Fossil Eyes: Digging for the Origins of Words
Written by Mark Abley
Annick Press
131 pp.
Ages 9-13
2009

Hold the Oxo!: A Teenage Soldier Writes Home
Written by Marion Fargey Brooker
Dundurn
141 pp.
Ages 12-15
2011