No Dragons for Tea: Fire Safety for Kids (and Dragons): 25th Anniversary

Written by Jean E. Pendziwol

Illustrated by Martine Gourbault

Kids Can Press

978-1-55074-571-9

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

Spring 2024 

(Originally published in 1999)

 

An important part of the primary curriculum is safety for children. And short of saying, "No!" or "Don't do that!" safety education by parents is often limited. A series of picture books (see below) by Jean E. Pendziwol and illustrated by Martine Gourbault from Kids Can Press offer a subtle but informative way of teaching everything from fire safety to stranger and water safety, and dealing with bullies. And this year, Kids Can Press is reissuing No Dragons for Tea: Fire Safety for Kids (and Dragons) for its 25th anniversary. 

From No Dragons for Tea: Fire Safety for Kids (and Dragons), written by Jean E. Pendziwol, illustrated by Martine Gourbault

A child and her mother head down to the bay for a day of fun on the beach. Along the way, the girl bumps into a dragon–we may need a book for safe driving of a wagon–and invites him to play. When their day in the sand is over and the family heads home, the child invites the dragon to join them for nibbles. All is going well until the child and dragon both sneeze from a generous sprinkling of pepper. But a dragon's sneeze is far more dangerous than that of a child, and when his sneeze causes the curtains to catch fire, it's mayhem. Thankfully, the child had learned well all the right things to do when a fire breaks out. From getting out fast and staying low to the ground, heading to the family meeting tree, and not going back inside, this child knows what to do. And with her knowledge, she helps the dragon who wants to hide and go back inside for its teddy bear do the right things too.

From No Dragons for Tea: Fire Safety for Kids (and Dragons), written by Jean E. Pendziwol, illustrated by Martine Gourbault

Learning fire safety is never outdated. As long as fires are potential hazards in any home, families with young children must be prepared. Jean E. Pendziwol's light rhyming story of a child and a dragon keeps the importance of the message without terrorizing young readers with the capacity for harm from fires. Much will be familiar to children from playing with friends, having a snack, wanting to hide when scared, and wanting to do back for a cherished toy. But the child has learned the most important rules of fire safety from a rhyme which Jean E. Pendziwol appends to her story. The five-verse rhyme begins as follows:

When the smoke alarm sounds, here's what you should do:

Leave your toys all behind, 'cause there's only one you.

In addition to this summary rhyme, Jean E. Pendziwol includes a checklist of discussion points and actions for family to implement their own safety plan.

From No Dragons for Tea: Fire Safety for Kids (and Dragons), written by Jean E. Pendziwol, illustrated by Martine Gourbault

The same care that Jean E. Pendziwol takes to create an informative but gentle story about a not-so-trivial message is shown in the artwork of Martine Gourbault. Her use of coloured pencils brings the innocence of children or dragons at play but can still evoke the gravity of a fire in the home. The expressions on the faces of the child and dragon suggest fear but not panic, at least not on the girl's part. But with her well-rehearsed knowledge of what to do in a fire, she is calm enough to help a dragon who needs support to also do the right things.

From No Dragons for Tea: Fire Safety for Kids (and Dragons), written by Jean E. Pendziwol, illustrated by Martine Gourbault

It's hard to believe it's been 25 years since this story was first published and, though it could add the use of a cell phone rather than using a neighbour's phone or a phone booth, it's as relevant today as it was then. I would encourage parents and teachers to help little ones embed this learning, whether through the story alone or by learning "The Dragon's Fire-Safety Rhyme." It, like all the titles in the Dragon Safety series, could help save lives.

• • • • • • • 

 

Dragon Safety Series

No Dragons for Tea: Fires Safety for kids (and Dragons) (1999)

Once Upon a Dragon: Stranger Safety for Kids (and Dragons) (2005)

A Treasure at Sea for Dragon and Me: Water Safety for Kids (and Dragons) (2006)

The Tale of Sir Dragon: Dealing with Bullies for Kids (and Dragons) (2007)

 

• • • • • • •  

When I Listen to Silence

Written by Jean E. Pendziwol

Illustrated by Carmen Mok

Groundwood Book

978-1-77306-254-9

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

April 2022

 

Listening to silence may seem like an oxymoron. After all, how can one hear the absence of sound? But Jean E. Pendziwol understands the distinction that is silence in our world and gives children a perspective on something which may often be lacking and underappreciated because it leads to greater voice and joy.

From When I Listen to Silence by Jean E. Pendziwol, illus. by Carmen Mok

As her mom struggles to work at the dining room table, a sight not uncommon to many during this pandemic, a child is asked to "Please, be quiet!" And so the child sits still and silent. But what happens when she's silent?

From When I Listen to Silence by Jean E. Pendziwol, illus. by Carmen Mok

First, she can hears that which would seem inaudible: the trees breathing. Not only do they breathe, they dance. And bears join them in the dance. But that awakens a dragon!

From When I Listen to Silence by Jean E. Pendziwol, illus. by Carmen Mok

The child is no longer just a listener; she is a participant. She is a musician, a passenger on a bird escaping the dragon's breath, and then on a steed with a knight flying to the moon. They cross an ocean of stars, end up on a pirate ship and have to be hushed by a pair of mermaids that look like her mother. Finally, the story comes full circle as it's time for the child to nap, with the whales, and she is compelled to ask her mother for quiet.

There is a profoundness and whimsy when you listen to the silence. It comes from heeding important messages about self and this child is able to take herself into her imagination with that silence. Jean E. Pendziwol shows young readers the wealth and breadth of play that can come from nothing but the imagination, when silence gives way to creativity and fantasy. Away from the noise of a TV, tablet or other riotous devices that take away the opportunity for self-directed play, this child grows and travels and experiences the fancies of being whatever she wants.

 

Carmen Mok's illustrations, rendered in gouache, India ink, dry pastel and colour pencil, take readers from the reality of an indoor room to the surreal of the forest of dancing trees and bears, across the sky and into space and onto the ocean, all from the perch of a child's imagination. The realism of a house with a mom on her computer with a cell phone at her ear, and a child playing with her toys on a window seat in her mom's view, is very honest and a foundation for the child's imaginative play. Her playthings become dancers, a mount and a pirate ship; stars, shells and plants in the decor become part of her landscape; and the toys like the drum and ukulele help her take part in her vision. Carmen Mok gives these imaginative scenes an ethereal feel, bright with the horn-playing moon, the shimmy of a river of stars, and the energy of a pirate ship resplendent in pinks and greens and yellows.  

 

Jean E. Pendziwol and Carmen Mok may show us that this child's play is all in her head but it's robust in colour, spirit and fancy. And it all comes from the power of silence.

I Found Hope in a Cherry Tree

Written by Jean E. Pendziwol

Illustrated by Nathalie Dion

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-220-4

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

September 2020

With spring on the horizon and hope finally blooming, I can't think of a better time to review Jean E. Pendziwol's latest picture book, I Found Hope in a Cherry Tree, illustrated by Montreal's Nathalie Dion.

Who needs toys when you have the natural world as a play thing and mate? First, a little girl, with her beautiful Siamese cat, finds joy in the shadows created by sunshine pouring in through a window or a skylight.

From I Found Hope in a Cherry Tree by Jean E. Pendziwol, illus. by Nathalie Dion

Though she recognizes that they might only stay around for a short time–maybe minutes, maybe days–or even disappear, she knows the shadows will always come back.

From I Found Hope in a Cherry Tree by Jean E. Pendziwol, illus. by Nathalie Dion

When the child and cat head outside where...

I can hear the wind tell stories,

whispering

to the trees

making them

laugh and sigh.

...there is new play to be had. The weather and the natural world can bring quiet stories that whisper or dance, or rush through. And when in her bed, beneath a red blanket worn as a cape, when the stories creep in to nibble her toes, she's the one to tell the stories.

Bundled up in her colourful coat, red boots, and woolens, she imagines the snowflakes as bringing the flavour of clouds, even when icy and sharp. Though everything, whether shadows, stories or snowflakes, can have a downside, there is always hope.

But the cherry tree

knows this:

it is hope in autumn

that brings

flowers in spring.

From I Found Hope in a Cherry Tree by Jean E. Pendziwol, illus. by Nathalie Dion

There may be hope in the buds of the cherry tree but it's everywhere in Jean E. Pendziwol's story. It's in the shadow that changes shape and size, and can disappear but always comes back; in the wild stories that can be tamed; and in the snowflakes that can prickle and freeze but delight. Jean E. Pendziwol makes this child's imaginative play a wholly sensory experience of insight and appreciation for her world, even when unpredictable or ambiguous. And it's the hope for better or more or even the same goodness that enriches her play.

 

I know that Nathalie Dion has illustrated many picture books, including French-language ones, but this is my first for review and  I Found Hope in a Cherry Tree begs me to add her to my 2021 listings of Canadian illustrators of note. (Listings were already posted in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019.) Her art, a mix of traditional and digital paintings, then cut, transformed and manipulated in Photoshop, has an ethereal quality to it that suggests much of the play is in the child's head, not in her feet and hands. Even in the darkness of late-night storytelling, Nathalie Dion suggests a lightness of message with a child immersed in thought and perception.

Play can be more than activity. It can be in the soul that sees beyond the doing, the now, the ephemeral. It can be in the hope of possibilities and Jean E. Pendziwol and Nathalie Dion help us see this in I Found Hope in a Cherry Tree.

Once Upon a Northern Night

by Jean E. Pendziwol

Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-138-0

36 pp.

Ages 4-7

August, 2013

Think of those cold Canadian winter nights, when the fallen snow has us cocooned inside and a quiet stillness blankets the land.  A confetti of snow flakes drift beyond the windows, mounding on branches, railings, and the hidden promises of spring.  If you can place yourself in this divine winter scene and know of a child with whom you may share this, Once Upon a Northern Night will be a lovely addition to your lullaby collection.

I may be reviewing this in June, and it may be the hot summer of August when Once Upon a Northern Night will be released by Groundwood Books, but those are only dates and seasons.  Jean E. Pendziwol's text will transport you beyond a calendar to a darkened night lit by falling snow, taking a path through the pines and birches, sprinkled with flakes, to a garden and frozen apples.  You'll see the deer, owl, hares, fox and mouse but never hear them as their scampers and play are buffered by the snow.  And the glimmering sky of colours and shapes!  Perfection needs no other words.  And Isabelle Arsenault's gentle and reassuring drawings lighten the night-time fears of darkness and warm the winter's cold, creating a soft shelter of wonder and innocence, life and love.  No meditation or relaxation exercise could ever bring the serenity and adoration the infuses Once Upon a Northern Night, soothing all readers, young and old alike.

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This lovely book trailer was just uploaded to YouTube from House of Anansi and it's just too precious not to share.

Once Upon a Northern Night

Uploaded by House of Anansi on July 17, 2013 to YouTube