Our Little Kitchen

Written and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-262-4

40 pp.

Ages 4-7

September 2020

 

The community kitchen in Our Little Kitchen may be small in size but it's big in heart and because of a mixture of compassion, courage and perseverance, it feeds the world with goodness.

From Our Little Kitchen by Jillian Tamaki

 In Our Little Kitchen, author-illustrator Jillian Tamaki takes us into a community kitchen like the one at which she regularly volunteered in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Through rhyming verse, we are invited into the kitchen as a mother and her child arrive to lend their hands.

Tie on your apron!

Roll up your sleeves!

 

Pans are out, oven is hot.

The kitchen's all ready,

 

where do we start?

A wonderful assortment of individuals begin the process of deciding on the day's meal, looking at what they've grown in their garden and preserved, as well as what has been donated to or purchased for their pantry. Though rotting food is discarded, almost everything can be used. Day-old bread is refreshed in the oven, bruised apples cleaned up for apple crumble (recipe provided in the end papers) and a plethora of canned beans offer an opportunity to brainstorm meal choices.

From Our Little Kitchen by Jillian Tamaki

Beyond the kitchen, a community starts coming together to catch up on life. So as the hall fills with chatting neighbours, the kitchen staff is frantically bringing food stuffs together into a meal. There's humour ("Those who don't cook don't get to complain!") and panicking ("Just one more sec, please?") but soon a multi-coursed meal with protein-rich chilli, veggies and salad is delivered to an appreciative crowd.

From Our Little Kitchen by Jillian Tamaki

There's so much life in Our Little Kitchen, in the kitchen, in the eating hall and in Jillian Tamaki's telling of the story. Though community kitchens vary in their scope, whether helping to alleviate hunger or supporting marginalized groups, there is a boisterous togetherness that comes from working collectively for a common goal. In the dialogue of her characters, the liveliness of her rhyming text, or the bold colours and dynamism of her scenes, Jillian Tamaki lets young readers participate in the worthwhile endeavour of these food gatherings.

From Our Little Kitchen by Jillian Tamaki

Start your own discussion about community kitchens with little ones–why they are important and how to get involved– and join Jillian Tamaki's neighbours as they work together to cook and confer, share and nourish. Use their recipes for vegetable soup and apple crumble or use your own to cultivate and nurture a sense of fellowship.

YoungCanLit Who's Who: Illustrators R-Z, List II

This final list of youngCanLit illustrators will round out our lists nicely to 100+!

Erica Salcedo

Sampar

Roslyn Schwartz

Alan Silberberg

Sleepless Kao

Lisa Smith

Sydney Smith

Caroline Stellings

Todd Stewart

Jillian Tamaki

Christine Tripp

Anne Villeneuve

Frank Viva

Ange Zhang

Amei Zhao

So ends this sixth list of illustrators of youngCanLit.  I've included the artwork of some of their non-youngCanLit as well when I thought it would be worthwhile for readers to make the connection between artwork and artist.  Suffice it to say that the richness of illustrators and their works is immense and I could not do justice to that wealth.  I suspect that I will need to refresh these lists again in a few years.  But for now I hope this Who's Who of youngCanLit illustrators is enough to entertain and educate everyone a little.

Just a reminder that the other five lists are:

Illustrators A-G (April 9, 2013)
Illustrators H-Q (April 10, 2013)
Illustrators R-Z (April 11, 2013)
Illustrators A-G, List II (July 24, 2015)
Illustrators H-Q, List II (July 26, 2015)

This One Summer

by Mariko Tamaki

Illustrated by Jillian Tamaki

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-152-6

320 pp.

Ages 14+

May 2014

The anticipation of summer holidays can be overwhelming, especially if you're looking forward to another great summer at a Muskoka cottage where your family has gone for years.  Beaches, water, sunshine, friends, freedom, videos, board games, and no school.  Another wonderful summer at the cottage.  Except that things never stay the same: not people, not places, not experiences.

Superficially everything seems to be the same. The Wallace family is heading to the cottage at Awago Beach where everything seems familiar.  Young teen Rose meets up with her younger friend, Windy, and her mother Evelyn there. They ride their bikes.  They go to the beach and swim. They visit Brewster's, the only convenience store at Awago, for candy, videos and junk food.  They watch videos at night, and play board games.  It's a time for sleeping in and no worries.  Even Rose's parent have their routines: Dad enjoying a beer, making jokes and doing the BBQ thing, while Mom organizes, visits with Evelyn and reads and writes. But there's an undercurrent of unease.

Though only a year and a half different in their ages, best friends Rose and Windy are no longer always in sync in their thinking.  Rose seems to have gone through puberty and is seeing beyond the silliness of their summer antics.  She's crushing on Duncan, the teen working at Brewster's, and eavesdropping on the local teens and her own parents, trying to understand all she hears and sees.  Windy, on the other hand, is always joking around (she calls Duncan "the Dud"), being loud and hyper and trying out new words that seem to get a reaction (like slut and sexy ta-tas).  She notices Rose's distraction and tries to go along with her, realizing Rose knows a lot more that her and can share about things Windy knows nothing.

Two particular dramas seem to be affecting Rose: the friction between her parents, and the relationship between Duncan and his girlfriend Jenny.  Surprisingly, they both involve babies.  Although Rose doesn't really share what she's thinking about either situation, Windy seems to interpret her reactions, often infuriating Rose.  Puberty can be a confusing time, with a perceived loss of youthful innocence and unrestraint and being expected to deal with more mature issues.  And Rose has a foot in both worlds: the one of her fun, curious younger self and the one of conflict, relationships and judgment.

Everyone must remember a summer of awkwardness, in the pre- or early- teen years.  Most of us would choose not to relive it.  But Mariko Tamaki's text suggests that it's a rite of passage for many young people, whether it be a cottage experience–something more common in parts of Canada than others–or a summer in the city.  Friendships are reconfigured to accommodate new feelings and thinking, and with new knowledge, even incomplete, come more questions and insecurities about that knowledge.  The voices that Mariko Tamaki gives Rose and Windy reflect their balancing between childhood and adolescences, just as the language of the Awago teens, heavily peppered with profanity, reflect their perceived invincibility and rebelliousness.  Enhancing Mariko Tamaki's text is the artwork of her cousin, Jillian Tamaki, whose first work together was their highly-acclaimed graphic novel, Skim (Groundwood, 2008).  Her characters reflect their natures so well. Windy is the dark-haired, freckled girl with an extra pound or two of baby fat, though thankfully not affecting her exuberance for life (yet).  On the other hand, Rose is the light-haired, slender girl who doesn't smile as easily and carries her body more stiffly, as if still getting used to it. Moreover, choosing to use the dark blue-purple of indigo for the cover of This One Summer and midnight blue for the illustrations within is an ingenious selection by Jillian Tamaki, reflecting the appearance of brightness on the surface but a darkness within. 

This One Summer is the summer coming-of-age story with which many teens will be familiar and with which many parents would hope their pre-teen girls won't have to experience, at least for a while. 

Darkest Light

by Hiromi Goto

Illustrated by Jillian Tamaki

Razorbill (Penguin Group) 

978-0-670-06527-1 

327 pp.

Ages 12-15

2012

The oxymoron of darkest light (the words, not the book) seems less of a conundrum when seen as extremes on the same scale:  evil-good, dark-light, selfish-sympathetic and, for Darkest Light's main character Gee, human-monster.  Although he doesn't really know much about himself, he is concerned about his beginnings. Now sixteen and still living with Popo, his grandmother, while attending school where his white skin and black eyes mark him, Gee knows little about himself, except that he must not get into trouble as Popo does not have official adoption papers for him.  But when Popo, who always defers sharing his history with him, is taken ill and the White Cat appears and insists he read The Book of the Realms, to face the coming Darkness, Gee begins to understand the dark voice within that encourages, berates and humiliates him to act less honourably.  

Gee learns that Older Sister (a.k.a. Melanie from Half World, Puffin, 2009) brought him as an infant from Half World, the domain where the dead go after the Realm of Flesh to endure their suffering before moving onto the Realm of Spirit.  Learning that he was once a monster further explains the dark voice that conflicts him, as well as explaining the terrifyingly elastic quality of his skin, which can slip from him like mucilage, a dexterity he uncovers when assaulting a bully.   

Though Older Sister had helped reestablish the balance between the three realms by ensuring their separation, there are some in Half World who are not pleased with this.  Ilanna, the Half Worlder with eels for arms and tongue, with Karu, a bird-headed young man, pursue Gee, knowing him as Mr. Glueskin, the powerful Half Worlder who taught them to circumvent their endless cycles of suffering by eating other creatures.  But Gee, accompanied by White Cat and Cracker, the Neo Goth teen with whom he miraculously feels no discomfort (his pervasive emotion), must return them to Half World and face his past, if he is to prevent leading them back to those he loves.

The grotesqueness of the Half Worlders who hunger for flesh and the painful cycling of suffering sustained by memory create the darkness of Hiromi Goto's Darkest Light.  Half World is a domain of raw emotions, evoking the senses with nauseating odours, sounds of squelching, writhing and quivering, spongy flesh and gooey decay, and colourless greys.  The motes of illumination that are Cracker, her amber eyes the only colour visible, and Gee, when not conflicting about right and wrong, light their journey through Half World with stops at Mr. Glueskin's penthouse, Cracker's home where her sister died, and the home of Gee's parents.  Hiromi Goto is relentless in immersing the reader in the horror of Half World (which regularly leaves Cracker "nervousing") while still gently presenting the notion that everyone has the propensity to be monsters but that our pasts need not control our futures.  Darkest Light is as mesmerizing and as illuminating as a fireball, both dazzling and frightening.

***

On Wednesday March 21, 2012, Hiromi Goto shared details about her writing process in an article in Canada's National Post newspaper. Select the following link to read that article, A brief description of how I write a novel.

***

The book trailer for Darkest Light, uploaded by PenguinCanada to YouTube on February 8, 2012, can be viewed on my Book Trailers page here: Darkest Light book trailer

Darkest Light: coming soon to our blog

Today, Penguin Canada uploaded the book trailer for Darkest Light, the sequel to Hiromi Goto's Half World (Puffin, 2009).  When Half World was released, it won acclaim from all sectors, winning the Carl Brandon Parallax Award (for speculative fiction) and the 2010 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic (Young Adult category), and was nominated for the White Pine award, the Young Adult Library Services Association (of the ALA) Best Fiction for Young Adults, the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and the international IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. (Whew!)

Half World, written by Hiromi Goto and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki, is a dark tale of loss and courage (suggestive to me of a contemporary version of Danté’s Divine Comedy) that bridges different worlds of the flesh and the spirit.  Protagonist Melanie Tamaki is devastated by her mother's death.  As expected, her mother leaves the Realm of the Flesh (our world) to enter Half World (a world of suffering and atonement) until she is welcomed into the Realm of the Spirit.  But the balance of the three worlds has been destroyed and Melanie, a cumbersome girl, must endure the horrors of Half World to re-establish harmony between worlds.

 

In Darkest Light (Razorbill, 2012), many years have passed and Melanie's younger brother, Gee, who was not raised with his sister, enters Half World in search of his past.  Until I have my copy to review, that's about all I can tell you, so I'll let the book trailer entice you instead.

 Uploaded by PenguinCanada to youtube on Feb 8, 2012