My City Speaks

Written by Darren Lebeuf

Illustrated by Ashley Barron

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-0414-9

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

September 2021

When a young girl and her father head to her outdoor violin recital, the city becomes their companion, sensory-rich and amazingly diverse in its scope. This visually-impaired child, as evidenced by her white cane, listens as her city speaks and she hears, as well as smells and tastes and feels. Her city is alive.

From My City Speaks by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

As she and her father walk to the park, she "sees" everything but her seeing is with all her senses except her eyes. The reader will see the neighbour pruning his shrubs and the lady walking her terrier and her father locking the door but the child will know them in her own way. We see them reach the tactile paving at the busy intersection while she hears the city moving.

It rushes and stops and waits and goes.

From dropping a letter off in the post box to watering plants in the raised garden beds near a construction site, the child hears the city growing in different ways. But the city is really a spectacle of contrasts: busy and relaxed, playful and working. And she hears it all.

From My City Speaks by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

After stops at a playground, ice-cream shop and grocer's, filled with their own sensory experiences, the weather changes.

It pitters and patters and drips and drains.

From My City Speaks by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

Finally after a subway ride, alive with "whispers and giggles and sometimes meows," the girl and her father reach the outdoor venue where she and other children are to perform. Then, her city not only speaks, it listens.

Vancouver's Darren Lebeuf may take us to his neighbourhood–though maybe not–to experience it through the senses of a child whose eyesight is impaired but this could be any city. There are roads and parks, stores and playgrounds. There are quiet areas and busy ones, and the girl notices everything around her. By choosing to make his character less dependent on her eyesight, the sense that most of us rely on as we navigate our neighbourhoods, Darren Lebeuf helps us hear and occasionally smell and taste, reminding us of everything we undoubtedly miss when we use only our eyes. Moreover by giving a rhythm to his words, like the "hasty honks, impatient beeps, distant chimes, reliable rumbles, speedy sirens and urgent clangs," Darren Lebeuf has found the city's heartbeats, those that come from its people, its infrastructure, and more.

But while Darren Lebeuf's character cannot rely on her eyesight, readers will get the full visual experience from Ashley Barron's cut-paper collages of the most vibrant colours and the most intricate details. There's a hot pink Vespa, a raccoon peeking out from a trash container, and the family's cats playing with a toy mouse. On the subway, the child may not see the hijab-wearing woman sharing earbuds with a wheelchair-bound young man or the pink-haired person beside another with pencil-skewered hair, but we do. And so the child's amazing sense of what is going on around her is all the more impressive. 

 

Darren Lebeuf and Ashley Barron's My City Speaks certainly speaks to an awareness for one's environment but it also celebrates the richness of an urban landscape in stimulating all our senses and the importance of being ever present in its distinct quality.

My Forest is Green

Written by Darren Lebeuf

Illustrated by Ashley Barron

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-930-3

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

April 2019

Earth Day will be upon us soon and the wonders of the natural world will call. For some it calls from an apartment balcony while for others it's from the ground beneath a canopy of deciduous or coniferous trees, and for one little boy, it's both.

From My Forest is Green by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

A little boy looks out from a high-rise balcony over a forest, perhaps park or ravine or woodland green space. But he also has an inside forest of artwork depicting that world.  He has seen the contrasts of height and textures, size and sound, and colour, through different seasons and weather. He sketches it, paints it, collages it, makes cut-paper art, sculpts snow, takes photos, and combines mixed media to capture the essence of the forest.

From My Forest is Green by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

This is BC author Darren Lebeuf's first picture book and he gives life to a child's appreciation of the forest as the child uses all his senses to gather information about it before depicting it in his artwork. It's evident how much the child enjoys exploring the forest of his neighbourhood, seeking out the wonders above and below, from milkweed pods to resourceful ants, making bark prints and using rocks and leaves to create his own forest of art. The child accepts the dynamics of a world rich with life, plant and animal, and appreciates that his impression of the forest will change with its evolution.

My forest is so many things...
I can't wait to see what my forest is tomorrow.

From My Forest is Green by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

The child's art is all the more lavish because it is the artwork of Ashley Barron. Her cut-paper collages have graced many a picture book including Up! How Families Around the World Carry Their Little Ones (Owlkids, 2017) and Kyle Goes Alone (Owlkids, 2015), but now she goes beyond that style to show how a child interprets the natural world through his art. From his leaves taped to paper, or his sponge-painted moss and Polaroids, Ashley Barron brings his perspective to us, from a child's eye to a reader's. It's detailed and colourful, like nature itself, and takes us all on a walk into a forest that is mostly green but much more.

From My Forest is Green by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron