Our Corner Grocery Store

Written by Joanne Schwartz

Illustrated by Laura Beingessner

Tundra Books

978-1-77488-791-2

32 pp. 

Ages 3–7 

September 2025 

 

When Our Corner Grocery Store by Joanne Schwartz and Laura Beingessner was first published in 2009, it was heralded as a tribute to  neighbourhood shops and the communities they supported. It was a finalist for the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book award. Now with a new cover, Our Corner Grocery Store will introduce new readers to Anna Maria and her nonna and nonno as they work and bring their community together.

From Our Corner Grocery Store, written by Joanne Schwartz, illustrated by Laura Beingessner

On Saturdays, Anna Maria visits her Nonno Domenico and Nonna Rosa's corner grocery store. This is her favourite day of the week. After her nonna feeds her a hearty breakfast in their home which is behind and above the store, Anna Maria gets to work in the small shop. She sorts freshly-delivered bread and sweeps. She plays outside with her friend Charlie and watches her nonno and nonna serve customers. They make fresh sandwiches and watch as the neighbourhood kids pick out their sweet treats. And with only a few breaks to help make dinner and play with Charlie, Anna Maria enjoys a full day at her grandparents' corner store.

From Our Corner Grocery Store, written by Joanne Schwartz, illustrated by Laura Beingessner

For those who've enjoyed a local grocery store, where you were served by familiar faces and chatted with friendly staff, Our Corner Grocery Store is a reminder of the community that is rarely enjoyed in our world of big box stores and chain supermarkets. While there are still wonderful examples of these corner stores, they are fewer and far between now. So, for many, Our Corner Grocery Store is a reminder of a different time. It was a time when children could go alone to the corner store and pick up a freezie and sit on a stoop and enjoy it with their friends. It was a time when candies were selected and placed in small paper bags, rather than in pre-packaged bundles. Many children will not know these times, but their parents may, and their grandparents definitely would and Our Corner Grocery Store will open discussions about how things have changed and how they're still the same. (Most children will still recognize the freezies—even if called ice pops or something else—and the joy of picking one out on a hot summer day.)

From Our Corner Grocery Store, written by Joanne Schwartz, illustrated by Laura Beingessner

Joanne Schwartz, who wrote the award-winning Town Is by the Sea (illustrated by Sydney Smith, 2017), captures a sense of community and family in Our Corner Grocery Store. That community is both one of neighbours and family with Anna Maria helping all of them. It's refreshing to see a child helping her grandparents without whining that she'd rather be on her tablet or demanding to do something else. Joanne Schwartz has reminded us that there is still an innocence in children that makes them want to be with their family and do modest things like sort fruit and help make meals. I know those kids are out there but too often we get the books of precocious children who do silly and outrageous things for laughs and just because they can. It was lovely to visit Nonno Domenico and Nonna Rosa's grocery store, especially as Laura Beingessner captures the very essence of a neighbourhood store and a child's place in it.

 

There's a freshness and simplicity to Laura Beingessner's illustrations. Using ink and paint, she gives details but doesn't lose the sensibility of the store and its neighbourhood. Most of us will recognize a store with its wooden-slat bins holding a collection of fruits and veg with hand-printed price signs, and a store with candies alongside brooms, moka pots, and toilet paper. But Our Corner Grocery Store is more than just about a store. It is about a place of people (and cats and dogs). And Laura Beingessner includes them all. 

From Our Corner Grocery Store, written by Joanne Schwartz, illustrated by Laura Beingessner

I have a strong desire to go find a local grocer and get some fresh produce, say hello to those who welcome us into their domain, and hope that, like this grocery store, it will continue to serve, to flourish, and to provide goods and community for many years to come.

 

• • • • • • •  

 

The 2009 edition of Our Corner Grocery Store:

The Old Woman

Written by Joanne Schwartz

Illustrated by Nahid Kazemi

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-211-2

36 pp.

Ages 5-9

September 2020

 

As fall will soon blend into winter, The Old Woman seems a perfect read. Just as a calendar year trudges onto its end, an elderly woman and her equally-aged dog plod on in their lives, albeit in good company, never hurrying, getting where they will when they do.

From The Old Woman by Joanne Schwartz, illus. by Nahid Kazemi

When the old woman and the dog head out into the hills for a walk because she "wanted to hear the crunch of dry leaves under her feet and the wind whispering through the trees," she remembers the trees, boulder and rocks and "when she used to play outside for hours, never wanting to go in." They walk, they play–well, she tosses sticks and the dog chases them– and they rest and they appreciate what is.

From The Old Woman by Joanne Schwartz, illus. by Nahid Kazemi

It's hard to identify the mood of Joanne Schwartz and Nahid Kazemi's picture book The Old Woman.  Both the text and the art whisper of a melancholic story of an elderly woman and her vigilant canine companion. But it's not. This is a story of serenity and memory and togetherness. It has the heart that comes from many years of living, alone and together, of caring for others and contemplating the vastness of the world while appreciating the small domain created through companionship.

 

The Old Woman is not a story of loneliness, though some may see it that way, especially through the lens of a COVID19-inflicted society.  But it is not. The woman may be appear to be lonesome but the story is more about living each day as possible with an occasional look back to what was. It's this wistfulness that touched me. Between Joanne Schwartz's words evoking such emotional tranquility and Nahid Kazemi's ethereal illustrations of filmy chalk pastels and coloured pencils that give The Old Woman such solemnity, I cried each time I read The Old Woman.

 

I hope that when we all pass from fall to winter that we all have the companionship of a loyal friend and the will to appreciate what we had and have, even if more slowly.

From The Old Woman by Joanne Schwartz, illus. by Nahid Kazemi

 

Town Is by the Sea

Written by Joanne Schwartz

Illustrated by Sydney Smith

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-871-6

52 pp.

Ages 5-9

April 2017

A little longer than most picture books, Town Is by the Sea needs all those pages to envelop the daily life of a father and son, one above ground in the sunshine of a summer day and the other in the dark deeps of a coal mine.  It's a picture book about legacy, family, work and child's play.  Amazing that Joanne Schwartz and Sydney Smith managed all that in 52 pages.

Long before a little boy awakens to stand in his underwear at the window and gaze upon the sea, his father has breakfasted, grabbed his lunchbox and joined the multitudes of men making their way to work in the coal mines. The father's routine in the darkest dark is juxtaposed against the brightness and lightness of the young boy's day.  Working underground versus playing and running in the sun. Both close to the sea but different.  Though the boy's day is filled with different activities like swinging in the playground, enjoying his lunch, going to the store, visiting his grandfather's grave, and sitting by the sea, his father's day is the same throughout, sombrely depicted with one line, repeated with similar oppressive illustrations:

"And deep down under that sea, my father is digging for coal." 

From Town Is by the Sea 

by Joanne Schwartz 

illus. by Sydney Smith

While it might appear that the end of the day has come when his father returns home safe and the family is drawn together for supper and a sit on the porch overlooking the sea, the young boy's day ends with thoughts of the two different types of days and his own inevitable future in the mines.

"In my town, that's the way it goes."

Town Is by the Sea is a powerful story in words and text of lives lived in a town based in coal mining. Both author Joanne Schwartz and illustrator Sydney Smith are Nova Scotia-born and the depth of their knowledge is evident in the weight of their contributions to the book.  Though Town Is by the Sea could be an oppressive story of a dangerous vocation and the formidable eventuality for the boy and his cohorts, Joanne Schwartz and Sydney Smith play up the lightness of childhood, giving a shine to the boy's movements, even in the visit to his grandfather's grave.  

  My grandfather used to say,

Bury me facing the sea b'y,

I worked long and hard

underground.

From Town Is by the Sea 

by Joanne Schwartz

 illus. by Sydney Smith

The antithesis of the two lives is reflected in the very sea that pervades their landscapes and their livelihoods.  It is both brilliant and overbearing, life giving and life sapping.  It can sparkle and shimmer or be frothy and tumultuous.  In her words, Joanne Schwartz gets it right.  In his artwork, Sydney Smith is definitive. His watercolour and ink illustrations, the very style that garnered Sidewalk Flowers (JonArno Lawson, Groundwood, 2015) numerous awards and had me effusive over The White Cat and the Monk (JoEllen Bogart, Groundwood, 2016), produces that contrast of light and dark, and easy and difficult, so apparently effortlessly that it's as if Sydney Smith was born to illustrate this very book.  

I'm so pleased that neither Joanne Schwartz, a Toronto librarian, and Sydney Smith, illustrator extraordinaire, were destined to lives beneath the sea digging coal.  Without them,  there would be no Town Is by the Sea and this story book is far too important to never have been shared with those who live by that sea and those who do not.

From Town Is by the Sea 

by Joanne Schwartz 

illus. by Sydney Smith

Town Is by the Sea: Book launch (Halifax, NS)

Halifax Public Libraries

and 

Groundwood Books

are partnering for the book launch 

of the first collaboration

between 

author Joanne Schwartz 

and 

illustrator Sydney Smith

Town Is by the Sea

on

Saturday, March 25, 2017

10 a.m. -12 p.m.

at

Halifax Public Library

Central Branch

Lindsay Children's Room

5440 Spring Garden Road 

Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada

From the website of the Halifax Public Libraries:

Families are invited to help launch the new picture book Town Is by the Sea with the author Joanne Schwartz and illustrator Sydney Smith. In this beautifully understated and haunting story, a piece of Canadian history is brought to life. A young boy wakes up to the sound of the sea, visits his grandfather's grave after lunch, and comes home to a simple family dinner with his family, but all the while his mind strays to his father digging for coal deep down under the sea. Stunning illustrations by Sydney Smith, the award-winning illustrator of Sidewalk Flowers, show the striking contrast between a sparkling seaside day and the darkness underground where the miners dig.

Pinny in Summer

by Joanne Schwartz

Illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-782-5

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

May 2016

Pinny in Summer is as delicate as a summer breeze and as subtle as sun-bleached driftwood, yet mighty in its four-chaptered summer day adventures.

Joanne Schwartz has eloquently written Pinny in Summer as an early reader, with lengthier texts all the better for exploring Pinny’s motivations and actions.  In Pinny, the first chapter, Pinny makes looking for a wishing rock into an exploration for all the senses, feeling the warmth, enjoying the natural world’s colours and shapes, and listening to the squawking birds.  In Cloud Watching, Pinny is on her way home when she encounters friends Annie and Lou who invite her to go blueberry picking. Before they reach Blueberry Hill, they partake in some imaginative cloud watching, fortunately as the  skies open up and the rains fall just after their berry-picking.

Curling up at home to read a book and dry off, Pinny is visited by a large seagull in the chapter titled The Seagull.  Communicating with her by delicate head movements, the seagull engages the little girl in the most subtle of tête-à-têtes.  Finally, in the culminating chapter Pinny Has a Party, all the wonderful elements of Pinny’s summer day are brought together.  Having made her blueberry cake for her friends and deposited it on the picnic table outside, her seagull returns to indulge in the sweet treat, leaving a little gift as a thank-you. But Pinny sees these circumstances as just a beginning for another ideal summer day.

From Pinny in Summer by Joanne Schwartz, 

illus. by Isabelle Malenfant

Joanne Schwartz, who co-wrote Grandmother Ptarmigan (Inhabit Media, 2013) with Qaunaq Mikkigak, gets the promise of summer spot-on with text that reflects Pinny’s wide-eyed wholesomeness and wonder at everything she experiences. Isabelle Malenfant’s illustrations echo those sentiments exactly.  Isabelle Malenfant, who illustrated the highly-acclaimed Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress (by Christine Baldacchino, Groundwood Books, 2014), has a breeziness to her artwork: the colours are gauzy, as if bleached by the sun or seen through a fluttering sheer curtain, and her lines and shapes are as ephemeral as shimmering waves.  Pinny is Summer is a book of summer for every and any summer.

Grandmother Ptarmigan

by Qaunaq Mikkigak and Joanne Schwartz

Illustrated by Qin Leng

Inhabit Media

978-1-927095-52-2

24 pp.

Ages 0-4

2013

While a grandmother ptarmigan seeks to get a little one to sleep, Grandmother Ptarmigan is actually a traditional Inuit origin tale that explains why ptarmigans cry, "Nauk, Nauk" and why baby ptarmigans fly so young.

Just as many human parents try a variety of strategies to help their young ones go to sleep, a little ptarmigan's grandma sings to him, tells him to close his eyes, and tucks him in, but he continues to demand a story.  Well, she tells him a story, obviously a little more feather-raising than she intended, though it does end with affectionate tickles. Unfortunately, the little ptarmigan is so frightened that his reaction is to fly away, much to the distress of his grandmother.

Qaunaq Mikkigak, an elder from Cape Dorset, Nunavut, shares a traditional Inuit origin tale in Grandmother Ptarmigan, written in collaboration with children's author Joanne Schwartz.   I applaud the successful efforts of these authors in divulging an origin tale from the Aboriginal Peoples of our own continent.  In addition to reaffirming the Inuit culture for young people, Grandmother Ptarmigan reminds us that origin tales do not all stem from Africa or lands with which youngCanLit readers are unfamiliar.  Along with Qin Leng's deceptively simple but effective illustrations, Qaunaq Mikkigak and Joanne Schwartz bring the origin tale to roost appropriately amidst the rich stories told by the Aboriginal Peoples of North America, here courtesy of Inhabit Media. Thank you.