Sun Wishes

Written by Patricia Storms

Illustrated by Milan Pavlović

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-450-5

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

May 2022

 

It's the middle of summer and the sun is out in all its glorious warmth and brightness. But what of all the other things the sun does through each day, around world and year round? As a child imagines what the sun sees and feels, Sun Wishes lets us see all of its glory from a different perspective.

From Sun Wishes by Patricia Storms, illus. by Milan Pavlović

"If I were the sun..." is how this reflection on the sun's activities begins. From singing a gentle morning song to awaken life, including the flowers, insects and other animals, to brightening a gloomy day after a rain to accompany a grandfather and grandson fishing. In other global locations, it inspires "a vivid tapestry" in rice fields and on the African savannah, in the oceans, in the trees and among forests.

Oh, to be the sun! To swing and sway

with the mountains and trees

and dance across luminous waters.

From Sun Wishes by Patricia Storms, illus. by Milan Pavlović

Even in the winter, the sun is there to warm snow angel-making children. And always, at the end of a busy day, the child imagines itself as the sun going to rest peacefully "knowing tomorrow I would shine once more."

From Sun Wishes by Patricia Storms, illus. by Milan Pavlović

Sun Wishes is an ode to the sun through the imaginings of a child recognizing the sun's omnipresence and its many  powers. It's actually amazing how evocative Patricia Storms's text and Milan Pavlović's art are in reflecting the sun's warmth and brightness, the dreariness of a grey day or the cool wetness of an ocean. The colours and life called up in words and illustrations are tangible, cooling in the heat of our own summer days and glittering in a storm's aftermath.

Patricia Storms, along with husband Guy Storms, first collaborated with artist Milan Pavlović on Moon Wishes (Groundwood, 2019). That same partnership now takes us into a different poetic reverie, that of a child looking at a celestial entity and envisioning all that it might experience.  From play to harvest, family and solitude, the sun attends to all, in its full range of colours and vibrancy. And, as this child does, we should respect and honour that vitality, in its bringing of life and overseeing it in its many forms.

Sonata for Fish and Boy

Written and illustrated by Milan Pavlović

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-161-0

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

May 2021

I love a good wordless picture book and Sonata for Fish and Boy is a good one. In the hands of illustrator Milan Pavlović, Sonata for Fish and Boy rejoices in the ability of music to endow our spirits and transport us to other worlds.

 

A fish in the water catches a musical note coming from a child playing a violin on a bench beside the water. In their watery and terrestrial worlds of rose taupe hues with minimal splashes of pale teal, the two are together but separate.

From Sonata for Fish and Boy by Milan Pavlović

When the child puts down his violin and lays down on the bench to sleep, the fish catapults itself out of the water and hovering around the child, draws him into the air to journey from the darkness to the colours of new worlds. In a city of buildings and a tall red poppy, the boy and fish witness the liveliness of a community playing, dancing, singing and listening to music. Bold reds and pinks, orange and blues, green and purples create a glowing landscape of song and energy.

From Sonata for Fish and Boy by Milan Pavlović

Then they continue to travel through flocks of singing and mesmerized birds to the planets, bouncing from one to another as the music accompanies them. Next they enjoy a crossing through a park with people flying balloons, children eating ice cream, and a musician playing a concertina. Finally a trip through a field of giant dandelions leads the boy and fish to a cottage where an orchestra of animals plays with relish, before leading them into a storm that tosses both in its darkness.

From Sonata for Fish and Boy by Milan Pavlović

In the end, an old man discovers his violin at the bench from the story's beginning and, playing it once again, is reunited with his piscine friend.

Artist Milan Pavlović needs no words to tell this story of the transformative nature of music, how it enriches our lives and moves us through and to places hitherto unknown. I know that Milan Pavlović has embedded clues to several important pieces of music such as Gustav Holst's "The Planets", Camille Saint-Saëns's "The Carnival of the Animals", and Bohuslav Martinů's "The Romance of the Dandelions", but I challenge young readers, especially music students, and the adults in their lives to discover the Easter eggs that may hint at other important classical works. (The park scene with the balloons stumped me completely.) 

From Sonata for Fish and Boy by Milan Pavlović

With sound conveyed in the colours and shapes, Milan Pavlović allows the movements of this sonata to carry readers through quiet reveries and joyous exuberance, imaginative frolics, and tempestuous storms (perhaps Tchaikovsky's "The Tempest"). This sonata may have started for a child soloist but it becomes one for a duo of friends, taking them through time and place, and bringing new joys into their lives, just as music has always done.

Moon Wishes

Written by Guy and Patricia Storms
Illustrated by Milan Pavlović
Groundwood Books
978-1-77306-076-7
40 pp.
Ages 4-7
March 2019

Everyone makes wishes to the light of the moon but what does the moon wish for? That’s the question Guy Storms and Patricia Storms answer in their first picture book collaboration with illustrator Milan Pavlović.

From Moon Wishes by Guy and Patricia Storms, illus. by Milan Pavlović

With a beginning that allows young readers to put themselves up in the night sky, Guy Storms and Patricia Storms introduce Moon Wishes with "If I were the moon ..." and then propose the loveliest of sentiments to brighten the world from the darkness that extends far beyond nightfall. There would be the creation of art by shimmering over waters teeming with fish and over "dreams of snow." It would "wax and wane over the Earth's troubles" to soothe and light the way for travellers including human, bird and marine and showcase those who play, sing and reside outside. And the moon would always shine with love and light.

From Moon Wishes by Guy and Patricia Storms, illus. by Milan Pavlović

In a series of glorious images, as iridescent with their glowing moons as the cover, Milan Pavlović gives these heartfelt moon wishes substance. They are no longer wishful thinking or dreams for something better. They are real. Readers can see the lustrous moon paving the way for lives to be lived. From refugees trekking across an expansive landscape to the trumpeter serenading delighted felines or the whales swimming in seafoam green waters, Milan Pavlović shows the smiling moon, serene in all its phases, making the world a brighter place for all.

From Moon Wishes by Guy and Patricia Storms, illus. by Milan Pavlović

I will be adding this book to my Read a Book of Bedtime booklist because it belongs among those titles that help ease little ones to slumber.  With its meaningful intentions and luminous illustrations, Moon Wishes will certainly hush children to sleep knowing that the moon is watching over all and wishing only goodness.

•••••••••••••••••••••
The book launches this Sunday (March 10, 2019) in Toronto. Details here.

Kabungo

by Rolli

Illustrated by Milan Pavlović

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-804-4

173 pp.

Ages 7-10

April 2016

It’s a different world when your best friend is a cavegirl but Beverly is the very best of friends to Kabungo who lives in a cave on Main Street in Star City.  Beverly has learned much of Kabungo’s vocabulary–sungo for night, sunup for day, sniff for follow and Belly for Beverly–but she still wants to teach Kabungo about living in the “civilized” world. Whether it’s teaching Kabungo the alphabet, or that it’s wrong to steal, Beverly does her best, often with a grain of salt and a whole lot of sugary fun.

I would have told her that flea powder wasn’t for eating, but I never tell anyone anything more than a hundred times.  It’s my personal rule. (pg. 13)

Kabungo, the book, is divided into eight chapters with an odd assortment of titles–Shark Toofs, Targur, Vibbles, Fundersticks, Himplepotamus, Flimsy Tree, Hopping Bird Day and Trigger Cheats!–that play on Kabungo’s ability to anunciate English words because of a scarcity of teeth.  (For a bit of fun, say the chapter titles aloud and see if you can discern what Kabungo is really trying to say.) Each chapter is an anecdote in the story of Kabungo and Beverly’s friendship.  From Kabungo’s desire to make jewelry with teeth scavenged at a retirement home, to her struggling with certain letters of the alphabet Beverly is teaching her, her affection for her new kitten Bun, a visit to Miss VeDore’s mansion and pumpkin field, or Kabungo’s knack for creating a family from an odd assortment of people and branches she comes upon, it's all in day's friendship for these two.

Regardless of how much she seems to understand, Kabungo is an astute and absorbing young girl of ten, and a delight to meet in Rolli’s Kabungo (okay, maybe not in person, as she does have fleas and isn’t into personal hygiene or etiquette).  Same goes for Beverly whose perceptive observations, some via her Aunt Ev and Uncle George, will serve her well in life and her friendship with Kabungo, as well as others who heed her wisdom.

Apologies are heavy.  They’re boulders. It’s hard work pushing a boulder, even if it’s just across the room. A lot of people give up halfway and lose a friend forever. (pg. 85)

As my Uncle George always says, sooner or later, even impossible takes a nap. (pg. 27-8)

Very wise for a ten-year-old.

Rolli has written a witty story for the pre-middle grade reader for whom the early reader may be too easy and MG books too mature.  It’s comical in its word play, likeable in its characters–Kabungo, Beverly, Mr. and Mrs. Gobshaw, Miss VeDore, and more–and entertaining in its short stories. Having a best friend who’s a cavegirl makes for a world that is hardly boring. And, contrary to her teacher who thinks Beverly’s definition of boredom– “when everything turns out like you expected” (pg. 56)– to be incorrect, I think Beverly knows exactly what boring is and accurately recognizes that her friendship with Kabungo is anything but predictable.