Flip Flop Flapjack: Wildhorse Jack and the First Stampede Breakfast

Written by Brenda Joyce Leahy

Illustrated by Melissa Bruglemans-LaBelle

Red Barn Books

978-1-989915-12-7 (hc)/978-1-989915-11-0 (pb)

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

May 2023

 

Many families, especially those in western Canada, may be planning a trip to the Calgary Stampede this July and for those with children who'd like to throw in a literacy component that recalls how the first pancake breakfast arose, Brenda Joyce Leahy, granddaughter of its founder, Wildhorse Jack, has got you covered.

From Flip Flop Flapjack by Brenda Joyce Leahy, illus. by Melissa Bruglemans-LaBelle

As a child, Frankie Morton loved participating in the Stampede. She'd ride her pony Rosie in the parade alongside her family, enjoying the cheers her father, Wildhorse Jack Morton, drew from the crowds.

Papa enjoyed performing in the rodeo events and Frankie, her dad's biggest fan, was sure he'd win every event. But, from the Wild Cow Milking to the Wild Bronc Riding and the first Chuckwagon Race, Papa failed to win, though he entertained the crowd with his antics and always congratulated the winners. Frankie was devastated.

From Flip Flop Flapjack by Brenda Joyce Leahy, illus. by Melissa Bruglemans-LaBelle

The next day, Mama took Frankie and her sibs downtown to find Papa and his cowboys at a chuckwagon flipping pancakes and handing them out to the crowd. When Frankie wonders how he can be so cheerful when he'd lost all his events, he reminds her that...

"I might not be the best at bronc riding, or wild cow milking, or even chuckwagon racing. But I can be the best at having fun at the Stampede, and my kind of fun includes sharing what I've got."

From Flip Flop Flapjack by Brenda Joyce Leahy, illus. by Melissa Bruglemans-LaBelle

Flip Flop Flapjack may be a humourous take on a historic event, but it will also teach young readers that winning isn't everything. Brenda Joyce Leahy, whose mother was Frankie, has recounted, with some creative license, what she'd heard of that first Stampede breakfast from her family, focusing on both Wildhorse Jack and his popularity and the sharing of that first pancake breakfast. In addition to this whimsical story, Brenda Joyce Leahy shares information about and photos of her grandfather, Wildhorse Jack Morton, and about the Calgary Stampede, as well as providing a recipe for his pancakes.

From Flip Flop Flapjack by Brenda Joyce Leahy, illus. by Melissa Bruglemans-LaBelle

That same playfulness of text is emulated in the artwork of Alberta's Melissa Bruglemans-LaBelle. She plays up the humour in the story–like Mama telling the kids that "This is the first time your father has cooked breakfast and I'm not going to miss it"–with her cartoon illustrations, from Wildhorse Jack's voluminous moustache to the family's enthusiastic pet badger Maggie and hilarious horses and cows. Melissa Bruglemans-LaBelle, who is well-known for her coffee paintings as well as her Stampede-themed windows, obviously understands how to capture the colour and liveliness of the Stampede and she's making a visit to that event all the more fun in Flip Flop Flapjack.

It's hard to believe that this year marks the 100th anniversary of that first Stampede Breakfast. With Brenda Joyce Leahy and Melissa Bruglemans-LaBelle's picture book, you can revisit that milestone of Stampede history. You can purchase the book earlier in prep for the Stampede, but I suspect that it might be a welcome distraction and break when running between events this year. Your choice but, with a stack of pancakes, it'll be a welcome treat.

Alberta Blue: A prairie sky lullaby

Written by Pat Hatherly

Illustrated by Jesse Horne

Red Barn Books

978-1-98991-502-8

14 pp.

Ages 0-5

October 2021

 

As unhurried and melodic as the song written by Pat Hatherly and Jim Lewis, Alberta Blue lulls the young with the wideness of Alberta and the depth of its spirit.

 

With simple words and expansive images, author Pat Hatherly and illustrator Jesse Horne take us to a province of sweeping blue skies with impressive golden pink sunrises and dramatic northern lights. There are buffalo and tipis, trains and prairies, Rocky Mountains and cattle herds. This is an Alberta with its diverse landscapes and people and celebrated in natural rhyming text.

From Alberta Blue by Pat Hatherly, illus. by Jesse Horne

First the golden pink sunrise
warms the land with its hue.
Then a new day begins
wrapped in Alberta blue.

From Alberta Blue by Pat Hatherly, illus. by Jesse Horne

Albertans Pat Hatherly and Jesse Horne take us into the Alberta that is their home to see the colours that make it rich. We're not taken into the cities which could be from any province. Instead young readers are taken to the outdoors which could be past or present and always under that glorious blue sky. For young children in Alberta, the words will resonate but children elsewhere will get a natural feel for what the province has to offer. And with the vibrancy of her gouache colours and softness of line, even as she gives texture to her illustrations, Jesse Horne has matched her artwork fittingly for a board book and rhyming text aimed at the very young.

 

From Alberta Blue by Pat Hatherly, illus. by Jesse Horne

Whether you're an Albertan who is familiar with the song "Alberta Blue" which is performed by The Travelling Mabels, or a young child who is seeing the Alberta landscape for the first time, Alberta Blue will transport you to a province of vastness and colour, diverse in its places and people and story.

The Hill

by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-002-4

256 pp.

Ages 12+

March 2016

Karen Bass, the award-winning author of Graffiti Knight (Pajama Press, 2013) and Uncertain Soldier (Pajama Press, 2015), takes writing flight with The Hill, a chilling tale of endurance in northern Alberta, blending a survival story with the supernatural of Cree legends.  It’s hauntingly gripping YA and I think it's her best story yet.

Privileged Jared Frederickson is going to spend a mandatory three weeks with his dad when his dad’s private plane in which the teen is travelling from Edmonton to Yellowknife crashes in a mosquito-infested swamp in the northern Alberta bush.  He and the unconscious pilot are discovered by Cree teen, Kyle Badger, who was nearby at their moose camp with his Kokum (grandmother), Moshum (grandfather) and little brother Sam.   Jared and Kyle, both fifteen, are so different in their attitudes, physiques, and family that it’s not surprising that they disagree as to the best course of action.  Sadly, Jared is determined that if he climbs to the top of the adjacent hill he could get cell reception and call for help.  Though Kyle thinks they should stay at the accident scene, especially since his Kokum had always warned him that “no Cree, no person evers walks on that hill” (pg. 20), he follows Jared knowing that his Kokum would be ashamed of him for not helping the boy.

So begins a treacherous journey both onto the ominous hill and into the supernatural world.  After a night on the hill where, of course, cell reception is non-existent, the two return via Kyle’s notched-tree path to the swamp where everything is different: the jet is gone, the mosquitoes are gone, the swamp is smaller as in drier years, and there is a forest fire in the area.  Kyle is obviously freaked out–“Sometimes scared is the smartest thing you can be” (pg. 29)–though Jared, with his better-than-anyone attitude, ridicules Kyle for not knowing where they are.  Returning to the moose camp, the two see Kyle’s Kokum, as if behind a grey curtain of fog, praying for him and then warning them to run.  Kyle believes that they’ve entered the spirit world and, based on the stories he’s been told, that they’ve woken up Wîhtiko, the monster of Cree legends who craves human flesh.

The two boys must now work together, no easy feat for a spoiled rich kid who’d always gotten his way and knows nothing of the outdoors and for a hulky First Nations teen who refuses, admirably, to be a lackey to anyone but learned well from his grandparents of respect and integrity and perseverance.  Outrunning Wîhtiko is just the beginning of their foray into the supernatural world and one which they must survive if they are able to return safely to their own corporeal one without bringing harm to others.

In addition to a gripping action-rich plot of frightening circumstances, getting the voices of Jared and Kyle and the tone of the story right are Karen Bass’ greatest strengths in The Hill.  She balances the heart-pumping pace of a looking-over-your-shoulder chase with the antagonistic sparring between Jared and Kyle.  The two are so different in what they have, what they know, and who they are that it’s only fate in the form of a plane crash that could bring the two together. Though it is evident that Kyle has much to offer in the way of outdoors experience and familial grounding, Jared learns that he too has some value and can be integral in their escape.  Fortunately for them, and those who read this story, Karen Bass demonstrates that even the most of awkward of allies can achieve great things when they work together, whether it is to outsmart a blood-thirsty monster or finding your way home.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Tomorrow 

April 12, 2016

from 7-8:30 p.m.

author Karen Bass

will be reading and signing copies of

The Hill 

at 

Owl’s Nest Books 

815A 49 Ave SW

Calgary, AB 

(403) 287-9557

 It's a great opportunity to get a signed copy and hear a reading of The Hill from the author who made it so frightening.

Uncertain Soldier

by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-72-9

288 pp.

Ages 12+

April 2015

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing the attempt. 

- William Shakespeare, from Measure for Measure, 1.4.

If there’s any message that you can take from the latest young adult book of historical fiction from award-winning author of Graffiti Knight (Pajama Press, 2013) Karen Bass is that it isn’t always easy tell who your friends or enemies are, and even more so during wartime.  And the two young men whose stories are told within Uncertain Soldier, 17-year-old German soldier Erich Hofmeyer and 12-year-old Max Schmidt of Horley, Alberta, find themselves navigating uncertain paths as they attempt to survive as Germans in Canada during World War II.

After his German ship is sunk in the North Atlantic in 1943, Erich is sent to a prisoner-of-war camp near Lethbridge.  As decent as the Canadians seem to be, the camp is run by the German prisoners and specifically high-ranking Nazis.  Because he is reluctant to use his command of the English language to spy for the other German prisoners, Erich is suspected of disloyalty to the Fatherland and repeatedly assaulted in camp.  A consequent hospitalization leads to his removal voluntarily, and that of his bunkmate Johann Nikel, to the logging camp of Henry Lane in northern Alberta.  There, ten Germans deemed not to be pro-Nazi, join Canadian lumberjacks to bring down trees and work the sawmill.  Sadly, but not necessarily surprising, Erich must still endure the prejudice and abuse of other logging camp residents, both German and Canadian, and outsiders,  as well as in the local community of Horley.

Meanwhile, the story’s other protagonist, Max Schmidt, son of a German immigrant farmer, cannot seem to appease his father, who chastizes the boy for not standing up for himself and his heritage, and his peers who bully him with vicious taunts and regular beatings, and locals who look down their noses at his family.  His only respite comes when he runs errands to the logging camp where he is treated kindly by the Lanes and meets Erich with whom he becomes friends.

Though the two young men differ in their ages by five significant years–uncommon for lead characters and friends in youngCanLit–Karen Bass capably creates a friendship based in adversity and support that spans the years, experience and even birthplace.  Max and Erich are very different Germans but their hardships are monumental and the brutality they must endure because of their heritage is beyond wrong.  Each is a prisoner to their fears and the fears of others, challenging their loyalty in every direction.

A book like Uncertain Soldier does not go down easily.  It burns in your throat with the rising bile of injustice and cowardice and the horrors of prejudice inflicted in war and out.  It churns in your gut and then sits like a heavy meal of reality and history.  Sometimes getting beyond that all is tough.  Karen Bass again, as she did in Graffiti Knight, examines an ill-fated part of our history (her author’s note is an especially enlightening and valuable read) and textures it with humanity that makes it a touching story of distressing times.  Uncertain Soldier will blow the historical fiction award juries away with its power.

Book Rapport: WordFest (Calgary)

WordFest is a literary festival held in Banff and Calgary, bringing readers and writers together through readings, performance, panel discussions and interviews.  A part of WordFest is its educational program, First Calgary Financial Book Rapport, when children and youth will have the opportunity to experience the power of stories.

Welcome to Book Rapport!

For five days each October, Book Rapport hosts an eclectic mix of talent, bringing the ideas and words of great writers alive and up close to youth in Calgary and Banff. In 2012, over 6,600 students experienced these fun and engaging events in various cultural venues in Calgary and in schools.

This year's list of authors for children and young adults includes both youngCanLit authors and illustrators (names in colour) and those from outside Canada:

• Marie-Louise Gay, author and illustrator of Read Me a Story Stella, When Stella Was Very, Very Small, Caramba and Henry

• Eric Walters, picture book and middle-grade fiction author of My Name is Blessing, The Matatu, Camp X, and Between Heaven and Earth

• Monica Kulling, children's fiction and non-fiction of Lumpito and the Painter from Spain, Going Up: Elisha Otis's Trip to the Top, Mister Dash and the Cupcake Calamity, and Making Contact: Marconi Goes Wireless

• Teresa Toten, YA author of The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B, The Taming, and Me and the Blondes

• David Ward, author of picture books and children's fiction including One Hockey Night, The Hockey Tree and Escape the Mask

• Barbara Reid, plasticine illustrator and author of Perfect Snow, Read Me a Story and Fox Walked Alone

• Alan Silberberg, author of illustrated middle-grade books Milo and his newest The Awesome Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt and Craz

• Cary Fagan, children's fiction author of Oy Feh So?, Mr. Zinger's Hat, The Boy in the Box and The Fortress of Kaspar Snit

• Rhéa Dufresne, l'auteure de Arachnéa

• Wallace Edwards, illustrator and author of Uncle Wally's Old Brown Shoe, Alphabeasts and Monkey Business

• Hélène Koscielniak, l'auteure de Filleul et de Marraine

• Glen Huser, young adult author of The Runaway, Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen and Stitches

• André Jacob, l'auteur de Le Journal de Guerre d'Emilio

Rocky Mountain Book Award 2012 Winner Announced!

For the past month, readers in Grades 4-7 have voted for their favourite book from twenty fiction and non-fiction nominees and the results tallied and announced yesterday. 

The Winner of the 2012 Rocky Mountain Book Award Gold Medal is...

Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom 

by Susin Nielsen 

Tundra Books

978-0-88776-977-1

229 pp.

Ages 10-14

2010 

--> After Violet's TV-director dad leaves Vancouver and reshapes his life into that of a rich LA bigshot with a beautiful actress-wife and perfect twin daughters, he doesn't see the wreckage he has left behind: Violet's younger sister begins bed-wetting; Violet's mother, a stylist, starts dating loser after loser; and Violet is seething with such anger that it compels her to make abominable and hilarious decisions, including looking to match her mom up with George Clooney, the actor.

First two runners-up are:

Burn  

by Alma Fullerton

Dancing Cat Books/Cormorant

978-1-897151-95-2

255 pp.

Ages 10-13

2010

Tower of Treasure: Three Thieves 

by Scott Chantler

Kids Can Press

978-1-55453-414-2

978-1-55453-415-9

112 pp.

Ages 9-12

2010 

Congratulations to the winners and all nominated titles.

Alberta Literary Awards

The Alberta Literary Awards were created by the Writers Guild of Alberta in 1982 to recognize excellence in writing by Alberta authors.

The Writers Guild of Alberta presents the following nine awards as well as administers two city book awards:


• R. Ross Annett Award for Children's Literature This award alternates yearly between picture and chapter books

• Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction

• Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction
 
• Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama
 
• Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry 

• Amber Bowerman Memorial Travel Writing Award

• James H. Gray Award for Short Non-Fiction

• Howard O'Hagan Award for Short Story

• Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Prize


The two city book awards are:
• The City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize

• The Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize

*

The 2012 nominees for the  

R. Ross Annett Award for Children's Literature 

 are:

Jacqueline Guest of Bragg Creek

for Ghost Messages

Coteau Books

Barb Howard of Bragg Creek

for The Dewpoint Show

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

Cathy Ostlere of Calgary

for Karma

Razorbill/Penguin Canada

The 2012 shortlist titles for the 

City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize  

were announced at the end of March and include one young adult title:

Karma
Cathy Ostlere

Razorbill/Penguin Canada

The winners of all awards will be announced in June.

Rocky Mountain Book Award

Currently, students in grades 4 through 7 are voting for their favourite book from a short list of twenty-titles for the Rocky Mountain Book Award, Alberta's readers' choice program for young people. The twenty nominees, which must have been published in the last two years in Canada, include both fiction and non-fiction titles which "portray a broad range of family, social, and cultural backgrounds." (Retrieved from http://rmba.lethsd.ab.ca/FAQ.html on March 27, 2012)

The shortlist for this book award is announced in November, with voting taking place from mid-March to mid-April.  The winner is announced at the end of April.

The 2012  nominees are listed here (fiction on the right, nonfiction on the left), with the announcement of the winning title coming on April 23, 2012. 

At the Edge: Daring Acts in Desperate Times
by Larry Verstraete  

Animals That Changed the World
by Keltie Thomas

Arctic Thunder

by Robert Feagan

Brussels Sprouts & Unicorns

by Robert Chaplin

Burn

by Alma Fullerton 

Case Closed: Nine Mysteries Unlocked by Modern Science
by Susan Hughes

The Cat's Pajamas

by Wallace Edwards

Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom

by Susin Nielsen

Fatty Legs: A True Story
by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton

Follow the Elephant

by Beryl Young

The Good Garden

by Katie Smith Milway

Magic Up Your Sleeve: Amazing Illusions, Tricks, and Science Facts You’ll Never Believe

by Helaine Becker

The Mealworm Diaries

by Anna Kerz

No Moon

by Irene N. Watts

Plain Kate

by Erin Bow

Prisoner of Dieppe: World War II, Alistair Morrison, 

Occupied France, 1942

by Hugh Brewster 

Robert Munsch
by Frank B. Edwards 

The Sea Wolves: Living in the Great Bear Rainforest
by Ian McAllister and Nicholas Read 

Tower of Treasure

by Scott Chantler

Who Wants Pizza?

by Jan Thornhill

                                                                              •  •  •  •  •           

I know that book award fatigue may be setting in for readers of CanLit for LittleCanadians.  However, for the readers who are voting, and the juries that are selecting, as well as the authors, illustrators and publishers, each award is a very big thing.  It is an honour to have a book nominated, just as it is a privilege for readers to critically evaluate each book, knowing that their choices make a significant contribution to the lives of others.  

Enjoy your award programs, everyone!

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