Tokyo Digs a Garden

by Jon-Erik Lappano

Illustrated by Kellen Hatanaka

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-798-6

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

March 2016

Imagine a small house that was once part of a countryside lush with forests and meadows and wildlife now dwarfed by skyscrapers and hidden among the overdeveloped city buildings and billboards.  This is the house of Tokyo and his parents and his grandfather, the original owner of the country home, and Kevin the cat.

When an elderly woman on a bicycle hands Tokyo three seeds, telling him “…they will grow into whatever you wish”, the boy removes a brick from their yard and plants them in the soil beneath. The next day, there are three small wildflowers. After breakfast, there is moss covering the bricks.  By dinner, there are trees and shrubs and more wildflowers. And by the next day, “the garden had grown up and over the buldings, across the streets, dwon the road, over the cars and into the expressway.” With time, the city is made over into a wild entity of rivers and forests and wildlife and the people adapt to these changes because “Gardens have to grow somewhere, after all.”

From Tokyo Digs a Garden
by Jon-Erik Lappano, illus. by Kellen Hatanaka

The message is clear.  Mother Nature will not be stopped and, no matter how much humans develop the land into unrecognizable entities, it will grow and become what it should.  Tokyo and his grandfather’s honest acceptance of this phenomenon is both educational and calming.  Jon-Erik Lappano gets the tone just right, never preachy, always intuitive, and even playful. (Kevin’s love of ice cream is quite clear.)  And Kellen Hatanaka, whose artwork first decorated Work: An Occupational ABC (Groundwood, 2014), dignifies that tone with his astute and beautiful illustrations.  Think of a Henri Rousseau jungle but with an art deco flair and you’ll get an idea of the lushness of Kellen Hatanaka’s garden in Tokyo Digs a Garden.  More brilliant in colour and stronger in line, the artwork carries the story from message to revelation.

Tokyo Digs a Garden plants the seeds for discussion of nature and land development and sows the dramatic beauty of transformation.

From Tokyo Digs a Garden by
Jon-Erik Lappano, illus. by Kellen Hatanaka

Work: An Occupational ABC

by Kellen Hatanaka

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-409-1 (hc)

40 pp.

Ages 3-7

For release August, 2014

(My apologies to Kellen Hatanaka and Groundwood for the inability of my scanner to accurately reproduce the colours in the illustrations of the book.  Discrepancies are solely my own. So, readers, you'll need to get your hands on the actual book to fully enjoy the breadth and contrast of colours within.)

I'm sure a lot of readers will initially react to an ABC book with, "Not another ABC book!" and maybe some publishers react that way as well.  But I'm glad Groundwood Books didn't and I know that youngCanLit readers won't once they open the bold and inviting Work: An Occupational ABC from artist, now author-illustrator, Kellen Hatanaka.

As in all picture books, the text must work well with the illustrations as a cohesive entity, not just a bunch of words with a bunch of pictures in a 32-page format. (Sadly, there are books like that published daily.) Kellen Hatanaka has effortlessly partnered the names of a variety of occupations, both traditional and exotic, with his illustrations, providing graphic details of each occupation embracing the first letter of that occupation.  For example, the P for Postal Worker page (see above right) includes the postal worker carrying her stamped and string-tied letter P as a heavy parcel, with a rural mailbox and shrubbery and flowers scattered around. The emphasis is on: 1) the letter and 2) its association with the worker and 3) the name of the job. Here children will see 1) the letter P, 2) marked as a mailing and carried by 3) the postal worker.  For the very youngest, that's all that is needed. For children in Kindergarten and older, the details become a cache of hidden information.  And kids will always see these sooner than most adult readers, so let them discover and discuss and persuade you of their meaning.

The collection of occupations is broad and fascinating, undoubtedly leading to much discussion.  From the aviator, to the horticulturalist and the detective and oceanographer, and finally to the xenologist, yogi and zookeeper, readers will be intrigued by the possible careers out there. And look for Kellen Hatanaka's enigmatic details of each occupation in single sentence "Want Ads" at the conclusion of the book.  

But, as Kellen Hatanaka is first and foremost an artist and designer, I'd like to attempt (poorly, I'm sure) to describe the perfection of his graphics in Work: An Occupational ABC.  By using silk screen printing for the illustrations, Kellen Hatanaka has created unassuming images that ensure clarity, allowing young readers to identify elements easily.  From stylized flowers and trees, and faces lacking details, to a German shepherd  and a walrus, everything is identifiable and still encouraging of inquiry.  Moreover, the palette of rose, salmon, sea green, olive, with the occasional black and blues, feels like a colour embrace, completely non-threatening and absolutely calming.

Work: An Occupational ABC is both an informative and evocative ABC book, sure to lead children to consider new careers, but it is also a book of art that should be appreciated regularly. Hopefully the future will bring Kellen Hatanaka's artwork to more youngCanLit so that I may add him to our already impressive collection of youngCanLit's Who's Who of Illustrators. He will surely deserve a place there.