The Moon's Journey

Written by Beryl Young

Illustrated by Sean Huang

Red Deer Press

978-0-889957473

32 pp.

Ages 6-8

November 2024 

 

When Faith and her family are set to leave Wales and join her father in Canada, Faith is devastated with all she must leave behind, from their home and their cat Blackie to her best friend and even the caterpillars she was nurturing. And what about the moon?

 

I especially can't leave the moon.

 

From The Moon's Journey by Beryl Young, illustrated by Sean Huang

   

But her brother Gareth has a way to reassure her.

 

After boarding the ship, finding their berths, and exploring the ship, Faith looks for the towline tethering the moon to the ship's funnel. And though she cannot see it and worries that the rope has come loose, Gareth always reassures her, as he does day after day and night after night of their journey.

From The Moon's Journey by Beryl Young, illustrated by Sean Huang

When they finally arrive in Canada and are picked up by the children's father, Faith's concerns continue.

Would the captain remember to untie the rope so the moon could stay in Canada?

And though their dad does everything to ensure that their new home feels like home, including a new kitten, it's not until the moon reappears, seemingly bigger and closer than in Wales, that Faith that knows she's home.

 

While Faith's family's experience aboard the ship may be far more upscale than those of most immigrants, with gleaming silverware and white serviettes, Beryl Young still encompasses the tenuous nature of migration from the familiar to the unknown. By tethering Faith's disquiet about the move with the moon, a familiar and ever-present entity, even when it's not always visible, Beryl Young gives a common feature to which all immigrants can relate. The sun and moon are forever present, no matter where we are. It's a shared experience and one that we can all rely on, at least most of the time. And by reconnecting with the moon in her new country, Faith gets the reassurance she needs that things would be okay.

In addition to coping with migration, Beryl Young includes a sweet brother-sister relationship that helps Faith persevere and look for the familiar. How lovely for Gareth to create a scenario in which the moon is dragged along by the ship to their new country just to comfort the young girl.

From The Moon's Journey by Beryl Young, illustrated by Sean Huang

For historical fiction, Saskatchewan artist Sean Huang's illustrations are an excellent fit. Previously he illustrated I Am Not a Ghost: The Canadian Pacific Railway, another picture book of historical relevance, and his realistic art here in The Moon's Journey just as capably transports us to the 1950s and post WW2 immigration by ship.  Even though his artwork is digitally rendered, it leans towards the realism of classic oil paintings from the 19th c., focusing on landscapes of the sea and the ship along with portraits of the children at play or contemplation. For the historical events of post-war immigration, Sean Huang's art is befitting.

 

The Moon's Journey is a simple tale of how a natural connection between places can make all the difference in easing the hardship of something like immigration. In this case, it was most fortuitous that the moon was able to join Faith and her family on their journey and in their new country.

Two Tales of Twenty-Six: Liam and the Letters, Walter and the World

Written by Stephanie Simpson McLellan

Illustrated by Mike Deas

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-746-6

64 pp.

Ages 6–8

November 2024

 

Like all skills, literacy develops at its own pace for the learner. For some children, the step between seeing shapes and deciphering into letters and then words comes earlier. For others, whether because of readiness or learning disability or even opportunity, the ability to read may come later. For Liam, it's not coming fast enough, especially when he has a charming book about a mouse and a bunch of cats–his family has cats!– and he wants to know what's happening.

From Two Tales of Twenty-Six: Liam and the Letters, written by Stephanie Simpson McLellan, illustrated by Mike Deas

In Liam and the Letters, a little boy is charmed by a book about a mouse and a lot of cats. He gets a lot of information from the illustrations, but he wants to know what's actually happening "but the random lines and loops of the letters stretch across the page like fences." (Liam and the Letters, p. 5) In fact, a sample of letters look a lot like those almost indecipherable text-based captchas and spell out "You Can't Come In" and could refer to the mouse and the outside world to which he is eager to visit or to Liam and his reading.

From Two Tales of Twenty-Six: Liam and the Letters, written by Stephanie Simpson McLellan, illustrated by Mike Deas

Liam is getting frustrated as fall turns to winter and he even throws his book away into the snow. But he retrieves it and makes a plan. After all, twenty-six letters is a lot. One letter at a time is manageable. 

One letter at a time could turn impossible into possible. (Liam and the Letters, p. 15)

From Two Tales of Twenty-Six: Liam and the Letters, written by Stephanie Simpson McLellan, illustrated by Mike Deas

So, he starts with the L and the A, letters from his name and ones that he recalls learning about at school. He's frustrated but with time he picks up on the W in the "Walk" sign on his way to school and the R on a cereal box. By spring, he's learned the letters and the weird-looking letters become readable.

 

Now, he can read the story that the reader can also read, simply by turning the book over. Walter and the World is the story of the mouse and the cats that Liam could not read. Walter the mouse has his own issues, with twenty-six cats whom he must evade if he's going to explore the outside world. Both Liam and Walter have twenty-six entities standing between them and what they crave, whether reading or an opportunity for exploration. Their stories may be different, but they are connected and ultimately even linked.

From Two Tales of Twenty-Six: Walter and the World, written by Stephanie Simpson McLellan, illustrated by Mike Deas

A tête-bêche book, which is also a flip book, has two stories in one book which you access by flipping it over. But Stephanie Simpson McLellan's book is not just two different stories. They are two linked stories with a child trying to read the other story. I don't think it matters which story is read first. If they read Liam's story first, they will get a perspective of what it means to look at a book and be frustrated at being unable to read it. But they will also get the satisfaction, as Liam gets, when he can put letters together into words and make sense of the story the reader can now read too. On the other hand, if they read Walter's story first, they'll be charmed by a cat-and-mouse story like no other and feel like they know a secret about the book that Liam cannot read when they read the second story. The order of the reading of the flip book does not matter here; it's the connection that matters.

 

Flip books can be problematic for libraries, particularly for cataloguing, but Two Tales of Twenty-Six will not be so. It will just be a fuller story, told from two different layers, that of a story character and that of a reader. For each, Stephanie Simpson McLellan who is a star of storytelling–my particular faves are The Christmas Wind and The Sorry Life of Timothy Shmoe–gives us a character who is faced with a challenge of twenty-six and tackles it with strategy and perseverance and ultimately success. It's two feel-good stories in one package.

 

To make it even more enticing for early readers–other than giving them a story with which they will be familiar–Two Tales of Twenty-Six is illustrated by Mike Deas, giving these young readers the graphic support to help them read and understand their reading. Mike Deas's art uses a blend of gouache, watercolour, ink, and digital tools to both support and enhance the stories, giving Liam the reader a starting point for his reading, and the reader of Two Tales of Twenty-Six the colour and the magic to make understanding possible and worthwhile.

 

I'm usually not enamoured with tête-bêche books but Two Tales of Twenty-Six is more than the sum of its parts and that's why it's extraordinary. It's a book that is geared to its audience perfectly, encouraging our youngest children in their reading, especially if they are frustrated, and allowing them to see themselves in a story while taking a step up in their reading from picture books.

• • • • • • •

 

I'm very pleased to tell you about the book launch party for Two Tales of Twenty-Six

 

that will be held on

Saturday, November 30, 2024

 

from 10–11 a.m.

 

at

Little Rae Goode
477 Timothy St.

Newmarket, ON

 

 

This book launch will include:

 

• a book reading

 

• a contest for best mouse face mask

• free cookies

• giveaways

and

• book signing by the author Stephanie McLellan

Seeking Draven

Written by Michael F. Stewart

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-738-1

204 pp.

Ages 9–12

April 2024

 

The cover of Michael F. Stewart's latest novel, and his first in free verse, is subtle and deceivingly simple. It's not unlike the fungi that ten-year-old Teagan loves to study and draw. But, like the mushrooms and other fungi, what you see is just a fraction of what is there, most hidden and complex. Seeking Draven is a story of such depth of feeling and craft, masquerading as a short novel about a little girl who likes mushrooms and playing with her phone.

 

Teagan's 18-year-old brother Draven has always been there to support her: to find her when she gets lost in the woods, to defend her to their dad, to play basketball bump with her, and more. But when their dad accuses Draven of theft in front of his friends, Draven takes off and everything changes.

But when the smoke clears Dad falls silent,

Draven leaves us in his exhaust and everyone else goes

Home. (p. 13)

Devastated by Draven's absence and Dad's reluctance to tell her anything or to search for her brother, Teagan decides to look for him herself. It's almost impossible–though she breaks into Draven's bedroom to look for clues–until her dad gives her his old cell phone, hoping that it will make her less sad and quiet. (He doesn't realize that she's angry.) Now with a cell phone, which she calls Tab, Teagan goes on the hunt for Draven and tries to reconnect.

 

But that cell phone becomes something more for Teagan as she tries to find Draven, looking for him on social media. Now she sees herself through others' comments and she feels the pressure to share, and to be liked, and even laugh at others' misfortunes. She's taking selfies and listening to the comments. Like the zombie fungus which will alter the behaviour of ants which ingest it, Teagan's cell phone is taking over her life. As her father recognizes her addiction to it, Teagan has a revelation about Draven, piecing together clues from his computer searches and expensive stuff she found in his room, and suspects a gambling addiction.

Addictions make us lie.

     They make us falsify.

     If addiction made Draven a thief

     What is it doing to me? (p. 108)

So begins a new leg of Teagan's search for Draven, and a mission for understanding.

Michael F. Stewart has given us some compelling young adult novels, from his Assured Destruction tech trilogy or Counting Wolves and Heart Sister in which characters deal with mental health issues but, with Seeking Draven, he steps into a whole new genre of writing. The power of the writing is still there but, in its novel in verse form, Michael F. Stewart gives a story of addictions, both gambling and tech, a weightiness to which they are entitled. These are significant issues of chronic mental health, stealing relationships and lives from those afflicted. If they are fortunate enough to acknowledge their addictions, and accept help, and seek treatment, they may be able to break that dependence. The issue is important, and Michael F. Stewart treats it as such but, by juxtaposing Teagan's obsession with her cell and Draven's gambling, and enveloping it all in their close brother-sister relationship, he also manifests it as a family issue. Teagan's insight into what both she and her brother are experiencing is profound, especially for a ten-year-old child. But, if it shows us anything, there is no age limit on compassion and a willingness to help.

I've always been a huge fan of novels in verse and know that those who endeavour to write in this form are challenged with choices that limit text to words and phrases that have impact. Michael F. Stewart has just demonstrated his proficiency with this form, distilling important ideas into fewer words and phrasing that has intensity. 

If anyone's a thief, it's Dad,

Stealing

Hope. (p. 16)

I wish I could tell you how Teagan's story and that of Draven resolve but that will be the story you will need to read for yourselves. Fortunately, good or bad, Michael F. Stewart has the skill and heart to tell their stories from multiple perspectives and with sensitivity to their difficulties and to tell them with an eloquence of verse that makes us understand and empathize.

The Yellow Leaves Are Coming

Written by James Gladstone

Illustrated by François Thisdale

Red Deer Press

978-0-889956834

32 pp.

Ages 4-9

November, 2023

 

While some may think that reviewing a book titled The Yellow Leaves Are Coming in November, after many of our leaves have already fallen, may be ill-timed, the story within tells another story. That story starts now, as indicated by this first line:

The yellow leaves are coming, thought the last leaf just fell.

From The Yellow Leaves are Coming, written by James Gladstone, illustrated by François Thisdale

As a young boy and an even younger girl stand out in the grayness of a cool day, they watch a single yellow leaf fall. But as they walk away, accompanied by one of François Thisdale's ubiquitous animals, they anticipate the next seasonal change. They wait and watch as the empty branches do.

From inside they watch the snow come.

I see it falling, growing thick on a hundred cold arms

reaching out for a warm, winter-coat friend.

As the grayness of winter, still magical, passes into the melting season with old leaves revealed to return some colour, the children are again wearing bright rain gear.  Then kids are outside playing baseball without coats and the trees are festooned with green leaves. Even on the balcony of the children's plex, clay pots are again filled with greenery and flowers. And François Thisdale ensures that there's always animal to watch over the seasonal scene, from a black-and-white cat to a rabbit, a butterfly, and blue jay.

From The Yellow Leaves are Coming, written by James Gladstone, illustrated by François Thisdale

The seasons may be changing, with summer transitioning to a return to school and ultimately the return of the yellow leaves, but James Gladstone continues to give us a sensory experience of seeing, hearing, and feeling. He reminds us with every poetic revelation, of the kids listening to the soft rustle of new leaves, slopping through the melting, or watching old leaves floating down curb rivers. And everything will be familiar to many Canadian children, from feeling the weather changing, watching the natural world transform, and altering their own clothes and activities with those changes. But more than telling us about those changes, James Gladstone, who has always blended science with storytelling in a compelling way (see Turtle Pond and A Star Explodes: The Story of Supernova 1054), makes us feel the seasons' changes.

From The Yellow Leaves are Coming, written by James Gladstone, illustrated by François Thisdale

The illustrations have been created by artist  François Thisdale, a recent finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Illustration (French language) for Boucar Diouf's book Le Bourlingueur de Matungoua. Blending drawings with photographs and acrylic painting as well as digital art, François Thisdale makes the illustrations both surreal and very personal. He makes us look closely but just as fittingly he makes us see the big picture. It's quite extraordinary. By giving us both the perspective from the children and of the children, François Thisdale evokes time and place while helping us see and feel what the children might. 

Our own yellow leaves are mostly on the ground now here in southern Ontario but, like the seasons that come and go and come again, I trust that they will appear again. No matter where young readers may be situated, they will recognize the cycle of seasons and nature, and anticipate the next, personalizing what they see just as James Gladstone and François Thisdale have done in The Yellow Leaves Are Coming.

Dear Elsa

Written by Marco Fraticelli

Red Deer Press

978-0-889956865

240 pp.

Ages 8-12

May/July 2023

 

looking out the window

in his new school

the sad student (pg. 32)

 

As part of a school assignment, 10-year-olds Elsa of Boston and Leo newly of Toronto must write emails to each other as pen pals. Neither is initially keen, and Leo is especially so when he learns his pen pal is a girl. But, through revealing messages from September through the following August, the two go from strangers to something deeper.

At the outset, the differences between the two middle-graders are pronounced. Leo, who has newly moved from Montreal to Toronto for his parents' jobs as teachers, complains about everything, from not having any friends, his teacher, following rules, sending emails to Elsa of at least 250 words, and schoolwork writing poetry. Elsa, on the other hand, loves rules, has divorced parents, and, though Leo suggests she must be one of the popular kids based on the advice she gives him, calls herself an in-between kid who has a few good friends and is relatively quiet. But as she allows him to vent while still offering him a different perspective, Leo discovers some things about himself, like that he really likes writing poetry, especially haiku, which he often shares with her. Elsa is slower to reveal herself, probably because Leo is so busy complaining, but she too begins to divulge what her life is like, rather than just giving Leo the opportunity to share. Readers, and Leo, learn of her parents' relationship, her trip to Cancun, her aspirations, her prowess as an archer, and eventually her wheelchair. While Leo broadcasts about everything, Elsa holds back much about her own situation, and is delighted to be treated like she isn't someone with a disability.

Dear Elsa may be author Marco Fraticelli's first children's book but his decades of experience as a Grade 5 teacher as well as an award-winning poet have given him a strong foundation for an irresistible story of two children exploring their differences and finding common ground to be the friend the other needs at that time. Their writing relationship may continue past their Grade 5 year–that is not revealed at the book's conclusion–but it's almost irrelevant as the two derived safety, perspective, opportunity, and solicitude from their relationship.

In 2015, I prepared a post titled, Dearest readers...: A Letters in youngCanLit book list, which provided a list of books that featured characters writing letters or emails or texts as the vehicle for the plot. I will definitely be adding Dear Elsa to that list now to ensure that middle-grade readers (and perhaps their teachers) have an opportunity to visit with Leo and Elsa and witness how a friendship can develop from afar and with seemingly different individuals. All it takes is opening oneself up the opportunity, as Leo learns both in emails and at school, and perhaps some heartfelt poetry.

Smash

Written by Adam Schafer

Illustrated by Noel Tuazon

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-635-3

32 pp.

Ages 5-8

January 2023

 

This child likes to smash stuff. He smashes his own stuff and other people's stuff. He smashes with a bat, his trike, his hands–anything that can destroy.

From Smash by Adam Schafer, illus. by Noel Tuazon

But it's soon revealed that his smashing has more to do with what he can't do, like read or draw, than what he can do. Still, his frustrations are not making him a lot of friends.

From Smash by Adam Schafer, illus. by Noel Tuazon

Then he realizes that the same hands that destroy can just as easily build. He puts a couple of pieces together here and then a few there and, with simple assembly, he makes himself and others quite happy. 

This child is any toddler who lacks the power to do more complicated things, like reading or writing, and, as a way of coping, takes matters into his own hands, and that means destroying what he can. At first glance, it's simple destruction and upsetting to others. But, unknowingly, he's learning. He's learning how things fit together, how they can be manipulated, and ultimately self-control. I suspect Adam Schafer is a father who has witnessed a toddler being destructive because he sees the normalcy of a very young child trying to take control of his situation in whatever way he can. The child wants to feel good about what he can do–don't we all?–but realizes, after seeing the reactions of others, that destroying things only makes him feel good and only temporarily. When he switches to building, then everyone gets happy as does he with his sense of accomplishment.  

 

Adam Schafer has written a book for very young children about very young children. There are fewer than 100 words in the whole book and most are in sentences of two or three words. (Children will be able to read this book soon enough because of its structure.) Your little ones may be in their destructive phase but Smash will help them see the joy that comes from the building phase too as well as giving them that reading boost when they realize they can read Smash on their own.

From Smash by Adam Schafer, illus. by Noel Tuazon

Noel Tuazon's artwork of ink and watercolour gives the child's actions the power of movement both in his destruction and construction. He makes the child the center of his world, as is the case for toddlers, when he is destroying things but then Noel Tuazon introduces more colour once the child extends himself into his structures, as he builds and creates.

If you have a little one at home who loves to smash, then Adam Schafer's story will be all too familiar. But, Adam Schafer, with the illustrative assistance of Noel Tuazon, demonstrates that the frustration of powerless can be set aside when the energy is put to building whether it be structures, self-actualization or friendships.

Fox and Bear

Written and illustrated by Miriam Körner

Red Deer Press

978-0-889956469

32 pp.

Ages 5-8

January 2023

 

Though life for most animals revolves around the search for food and may seem mundane by human standards, Bear thinks life is pretty good. He loves picking berries while Fox hunts for eggs. And in between the search for food, Bear takes naps and enjoys the daily sunset while Fox searches for treasures and hides them. But then Fox has an idea. What if he could make their food forays more efficient?

From Fox and Bear by Miriam Körner

They start with cages to trap geese and keep them as egg-layers. They also gather more berries and seeds and plant them. Though their aim was to spend less time searching for food, all their chores require more effort, and Fox and Bear rarely have time for the pleasures of naps, treasure hunting and sunsets. So, Fox comes up with another idea.

 

This time, Fox draws up plans for a complex set of machines to gather eggs, feed the birds, water the plants, and pick the berries. Unfortunately, they have to dig up mountains and cut down trees for their contraption. And there were new jobs of gathering wood for the steam engines, filling the bird feeder and building more cages. As their work became more efficient, it became bigger and more involved and time-consuming. Eventually Bear realizes that their new efforts are greater than their past ones and their original daily tasks were the best of all.

From Fox and Bear by Miriam Körner

Fox and Bear could be an updated version of an Aesop's fable. Whether the message is about greed or ensuring that progress is actually an improvement, Fox and Bear remind us that bigger is not always best. A simple life of earnest food-searching and basic pleasures like napping and sunset-watching are not to be dismissed. Our world today is so focused on getting bigger and more that those who adhere to the principles of simple and meaningful are disregarded. It's reassuring to see that, although Bear goes along with Fox's plans, he eventually realizes what is best for him. What Fox decides is up to the reader as Miriam Körner leaves it open as to whether he too will return to his former life or stick with his new busy and overworked lifestyle. (This would be an interesting lesson for students to consider.)

Author-illustrator Miriam Körner lives in Northern Saskatchewan, and I suspect that the very landscape she sees outside her cabin's window is what has given her Fox and Bear's story. The destruction of forests for development must be seen in her northern community, whether for commercial farming, forestry, mining or settlements. Perhaps those behind all that economic planning should be reading Fox and Bear along with young readers.

From Fox and Bear by Miriam Körner

Behind her impactful story is Miriam Körner's artwork which is extraordinary. She has created dioramas from recycled paper and cardboard packaging painted with graphite pencils, soft pastels and acrylic paint. Through a limited palette of browns with red for fox and occasional hints of blue or black, Miriam Körner gives Fox and Bear an organic and very realistic feel to the natural world. Even when she introduces the machinery that Fox implements for efficiency, the cut of the paper and shape of her structures, though of the same colours, shouts of the manufactured and the synthetic. I'm a big fan of textures in picture book illustrations and, by photographing dioramas she has made of the paper and cardboard, Miriam Körner introduces even further textures with shadows and a three-dimensionality to the art. Miriam Körner's artwork presents a story of such quality that readers will be drawn in by the art but will stay for the fable that simple is sometimes actually best.

Anna Maria & Maestro Vivaldi

Written by Jan L. Coates

Illustrated by François Thisdale

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-645-2

32 pp.

Ages 6-9

2022

 

Though a fictionalized account of the relationship between historical persons Anna Maria dal Violin (also known as Anna Maria della Pietà) and composer Antonio Vivaldi, Anna Maria & Maestro Vivaldi is a telling story of a child's musicality and a mentorship that galvanized it.

From Anna Maria & Maestro Vivaldi by Jan L. Coates, illus. by François Thisdale

An orphan at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, Anna Maria is guided by the school's music director, Maestro Vivaldi. While other girls laugh at her ways, the child finds family and friendship, as well as her voice, in her violin through the music she sees as colours and textures. As a synesthete –"Music paints beautiful colours for me, and shapes"–Anna Maria is encouraged by Vivaldi who calls it a rare gift. Though she is only eight, he places her in the exclusive orphan choir called the Figlie del Coro. Ignoring the disapproval of the older musicians, she thrives, following his instructions–"Let your bow dance delicately, like a bee sipping nectar"–and pours herself into her music.

From Anna Maria & Maestro Vivaldi by Jan L. Coates, illus. by François Thisdale

When the Maestro takes her to see Marco Ricci's landscape paintings, to witness the inspiration for his latest poems which would become his Four Seasons, he decides Anna Maria will be the soloist for the concertos. And when she ultimately performs the masterpiece, her music paints each season as an image rife with colours and textures and heart. She is no longer alone; she has a famiglia musicale.

From Anna Maria & Maestro Vivaldi by Jan L. Coates, illus. by François Thisdale

Historical fiction does not often take a picture book format though it is an inspired configuration for blending the real with the fabricated. We know that Nova Scotian author Jan L. Coates builds her story on the real Vivaldi and Anna Maria but embeds it in speculation of the child's synesthesia–seeing colours and shapes with the music–and Vivaldi's mentorship of her. By allowing Anna Maria's music to grow and her gift to be nurtured, Vivaldi elevates his music along with the child. Anna Maria dal Violin may be known in musical circles, but Jan L. Coates introduces her here as a child with challenges. By focusing on her humble beginnings as an orphan without family, Jan L. Coates inspires young readers to find their passion, ignore the detractors and focus on that which brings joy and accomplishment. Anna Maria had to find her family in her music and she does so successfully, with Vivaldi's help.

I have always said that there is an ethereal quality to François Thisdale's illustrations. He blends acrylic painting and drawing with photography and digitally creates sublime artwork that may be grounded in reality, here in an 18th century Venice, but it has a heavenly nature with its filmy backgrounds. There may be a very real basilica and a charming tuxedo cat ever present, but Anna Maria's music takes her life into the celestial. Her feet may be planted on a patterned floor or rug but, when she sees the music which François Thisdale helps us see, she and her story are elevated to greater heights.

Anna Maria dal Violin may or may not have had synesthesia but her musicality which was nurtured by her relationship with Maestro Antonio Vivaldi is not in question. The two musicians may have been inspired in different ways but, in Jan L. Coates and François Thisdale's story, they will forever be linked as protégée and master, or rather Maestro, and their story will remain as colourful and textured as the music Anna Maria voiced.

A Soft Place to Fall

Written by Tanya Christenson

Red Deer Press

978-0-889956384

409 pp.

Ages 12+

January 2022

 

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars. 

~ Kahlil Gibran 

Kahlil Gibran's words may end Tanya Christenson's debut novel, A Soft Place to Fall, but they work well as a preface to a story of struggles, challenges and loss from which triumphs emerge from the ordinary.

The story is told from the perspective of Creighton Fischer, a boy whose singing mom, Gracie Rae, left when he was just five, and whose father's work with the carnival has kept them moving for many years. When, after Creighton's Grade 7 year, Dad decides it's time for them to settle down, they move to Breton, Mom's old home town. Because of gaps in his learning and attendance, it is recommended that Creighton join an alternate school. There, under the compassionate and diverse teaching methods of Ms. Hayworth, Creighton becomes part of a unique cohort. The dozen or so students soon reveal themselves to be impacted by various traumas and disabilities but Ms. Hayworth's approach is to meet their needs and not slot them into the rigid curriculum. And by showing flexibility and empathy, she brings out the best in most of them. That is, except for Carlos a.k.a. Carcass. And for Creighton, he finds his first real friends in Carin, Ratchet and Schooner and the support system he and all of them need to brave the loss of loved ones, economic hardships, bullying, past traumas, criminal charges, and even love.

The twelve kids in Ms. Hayworth's class may attend L.O.S.E.R. (Lane Oslo School of Educational Reform) but they aren't losers. They may be flawed through trauma, mental health, disability or circumstances beyond their control but they are not losers. They are human. Their resilience may at times be shaky but it is undeniable and it thankfully allows them to persist.

 

BC's Tanya Christenson, a teacher and school counsellor, knows kids and she's written these kids as human as you and I. And she doesn't wrap up their struggles with happy endings, ribbons or balloons. Tanya Christenson makes their outcomes as real as the kids. They've suffered abandonment, abuse and upheaval, and they have endured. Sometimes they've triumphed over those struggles and  sometimes not, and like all of us, they have needed support and a soft place to fall. Because, after all, we will all fall some time, some way. I just hope that there will always be a soft place to fall, perhaps even land, for anyone challenged by life. And that's everyone.

Sully, Messed Up: Q & A with author Stephanie Simpson McLellan

Yesterday I reviewed Stephanie Simpson McLellan's new middle grade/young adult novel Sully, Messed Up from Red Deer Press. This story about bullying was so compelling that I asked author Stephanie Simpson McLellan if I could do a Q & A with her to learn a little bit more about Sully and his story. She graciously agreed.

Sully, Messed Up

Written by Stephanie Simpson McLellan
Red Deer Press
978-0-88995-637-7
312 pp.
Ages 11-15
April 2021

Reviewed here

Today I present that interview with author Stephanie Simpson McLellan about Sully, Messed Up.

Author Stephanie Simpson McLellan

HK:  When Sully wakes up on the first day of Grade 9, his face is messed up, with his nose, ears, mouth, nose and eyes relocating themselves around his head. Throughout the story, his facial landscape changes, but no one, except the Purse Lady, can see it. What was the purpose of giving Sully this transforming face?

 

SSM:  When I wrote the first draft of this story many years ago, my own three children were journeying through the often confusing and anxious space called adolescence. I remember well navigating this time myself. Every emotion feels so big and significant, and certainly anxiety – Sully’s prevailing emotion - can feel very physical. Most of us can relate to feeling sometimes that whatever emotion we’re feeling must be obvious – as plain as the nose on our face. So, at the most basic level, Sully’s messed up face is a metaphor for what he’s feeling inside.

Over the last year as I worked with Peter Carver on the book, I started to think also that it was an especially apt metaphor given that, with the popularity of social media, little is private. Both the good and bad things that happen to you— and everything in between—are very public. It’s like one giant bulletin board where everything about you is posted for everyone to see. No hiding! We even post emojis to tell people how we’re feeling, which is like giving people permission to look into your heart. In this vein, the metaphor of Sully’s messed-up face plays with how public everything is these days by taking it out of the digital space and putting it back into the physical world. Sully’s misery feels very public to him—so real and uncomfortable that surely everyone must be able to see his fears and insecurities.


HK:  I loved Mr. C’s fence of figurines whose scenes predict or illustrate Sully’s life and those of others in it. The characters you chose to represent each of the story’s characters, like Charlie Brown for Sully, Sleeping Beauty for Blossom and Madonna for the Purse Lady, were brilliant.  Please tell us about the inspiration for this fence, and how you chose the figurines to symbolize the characters.

 

SSM:  True Street, where the fence is located, is loosely based on a real street in my town that comes off Newmarket’s Fairy Lake Park. While I’ve taken some creative liberties with the actual geography and look of the house that sits on this short street, the real house actually did have a snake-rail fence about a decade ago, to which plastic figurines were affixed and often rearranged. While I never knew (or even saw) the owner, those figurines on the fence intrigued me, and I wondered what motivated someone to do this.

The character of each plastic figurine took some time to sort out. The final cast of characters is probably version six, changing each time I rewrote another draft. I wanted it to be at least somewhat plausible that each figurine could exist, and that readers would know who they were, but also wanted each figurine to reflect and reveal the character it represented. It’s a pretty eclectic mix, but then life (and high school as a subset of life) is a little like that – throwing people together from all sorts of backgrounds.


HK:  As an educator, I was saddened by the ineffectiveness and ignorance of Sully’s teachers and even his principal with regards to his bullying and the hazing carried out in the school. Why do you think they were all so oblivious of these goings-on? Or were they?

 

SSM:  My own kids had some great and not so great teachers. That’s probably true for all of us. I think, truthfully, that the bully/victim dynamic is tough on everyone, and as much as a school can say they don’t tolerate bullies, there are many things that make this difficult to regulate. For one, much of what happens to Sully occurs off school grounds. Secondly, Sully himself hides what’s happening from the teachers and other adults, fearing reprisal from the bullies. My goal wasn’t to paint the school administration as ineffectual but perhaps instead to reflect that there are some kids who fall through the cracks for one reason or another. In my son’s case, I knew there were teachers and administrators who cared, but it didn’t change the outcome. Mr. Green and Ms. Winters are parodies of real teachers I’ve known. The wonderful Ms. Wippet embodies many of the incredible educators I’ve encountered, but even Ms. Wippet can help only so far as Sully permits her to. 

HK:  Outside of bullies Tank, Ox and Dodger, so many characters could have altered the course of Sully’s story in Sully, Messed Up if they had spoken, listened or acted. Sully needed to speak up sooner, teachers and administrators needed to listen and open their eyes, and Sully’s classmates could’ve stepped up rather than act as silent bystanders or reinforcers who perpetuated the bullying with name-calling and laughter.  Which character or characters, outside of the trio of bullies, do you think was most important in that they could have changed everything for Sully by acting differently?

 

SSM:  Sully himself, as he came to realize, was the key to changing everything. Blossom and Morsixx tried very hard to help Sully but I believe that no matter how much we are loved and cared for by others, we are each ultimately responsible for ourselves. We make our own choices. It is up to us to advocate for ourselves. When I reflect back on some of my other books (such as Hoogie in the Middle and The Christmas Wind) I realize the thread of this is in much of what I write.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I’m not saying bullies can’t gain power over others (history gives us enough of those examples), but I believe that on a personal level, you can shrink a bully’s power by refusing to consent to the opinion they have of you. Decide that their opinion is not valid and then live that. Making a decision like this changes the way you think, feel and act. It changes the choices you make.

At one point in the book, I quote Barack Obama’s eloquent line: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” I think all the people in the world could have come to Sully’s aid, but it was only when he was ready that he became able to change is outcome.


HK:  Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott” figures prominently in Sully, Messed Up, both as part of an English assignment but also as reflective of Blossom’s story. Why use this classic ballad to mirror one character’s story?

 

SSM:  My undergrad major was English Lit (with a minor in Economics) and I loved nineteenth century literature. “The Lady of Shalott” poem and the beautiful rendering of it by John William Waterhouse, always stayed with me. When I first conceived the character of Blossom (at a Motocross park in Chatsworth, Ontario where my son was riding), it was with the image of “The Lady of Shalott” in my head: someone ethereal and mysterious; strong and individual, but also someone under the control of something bigger than her and, thus, ultimately fragile.

HK:   Though readers cannot help but feel bad for Sully as a victim of bullying, he is not always a likeable character. He’s so wrapped up in his own issues, monumental as they are, that he can’t see how rude he can be to others like Winston and Blossom and Morsixx. Why make Sully worthy of both our sympathy and occasionally our scorn?

 

SSM:  Not all of us are born leaders and heroes, and certainly Sully isn’t either of those for much of the book. But I think most of us have, or have had, a little bit of this in us. A preoccupation with our own story, unable to see outside our own heads. I wanted to make Sully real, someone deeply flawed who would really have to work at creating the best version of himself. Throughout much of the book, he giftwraps himself as the victim Tank is seeking. He does understand this on some level but hasn’t grown enough to alter it. I do love books where the protagonist is a hero waiting to happen, someone who already has the right ingredients for greatness, but I wanted to pay homage to someone who might never have completely realized his own potential without first being dragged kicking and screaming to this point. I think there are real Sully’s in every school. Kids who are under the radar, who don’t believe in themselves, who are fearful and anxious. I wanted to volley the idea that even these “through the cracks” kids have the potential to pull themselves in a different, and perhaps better, direction.

HK:  If there was one message you would like readers to take from Sully, Messed Up, what would it be?

 

SSM:  I would like readers to reflect on the idea that we are each captain of our own ship. That change starts with us and if we’re not happy with our current reality, it’s up to us to make different choices – including asking for, or accepting, help from others.

• • • • • • •

Sincere thanks to Stephanie Simpson McLellan for agreeing to be interviewed and providing such thoughtful and honest answers to my questions. 

 

Learning even more about Sully, I encourage all educators and school administrators and parents to read Sully, Messed Up to help the young people in their lives.

 

• • • • • • •

Though Sully, Messed Up is Stephanie Simpson McLellan's first novel for young people, she has an impressive collection of children's picture books. Do check out these titles too.

Sully, Messed Up (2021)

The Sorry Life of Timothy Shmoe (2021)

The Christmas Wind (2017)

Tweezle Into Everything (2013)

Hoogie in the Middle (2013)

Leon's Song (2004)

The Chicken Cat (2000)

Sully, Messed Up

Written by Stephanie Simpson McLellan

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-637-7

312 pp.

Ages 11-15

April 2021

Who is Sullivan Brewster? He's Sullivan to his mom, Rooster to his little sister Eva, and Van to his stepdad Bill. He's Sully to his friend Morty, who has changed his own moniker to Morsixx since reinventing himself over the summer before their first year in high school. And to those who don't know him or want to target him, he becomes Bella, Sally and a host of horrible nicknames. Is it any wonder that thirteen-year-old Sully doesn't know who he is or what he should be doing or who his friends are? He truly is messed up, and that doesn't even count the messing up he's getting from a trio of bullies named Tank, Ox and Dodger.

 

Sully's story seems to start on that first day of Grade 9 when he wakes up with his facial elements relocated around his head.

His nose, pink and dripping, hunkered sideways on his left temple. One of his ears–it was hard to tell which one from the unfamiliar angle–bulged where his nose should have been. The other protruded, antenna-like, right above his lips, which quivered, post-scream, in the middle of his forehead. (pg. 9)

But no one seems to notice. Still, Sully uses his long hair to hide his potential disfigurement. This instead grabs the attention of Tank, the overlord at Wild Forest Secondary, and his sidekicks Dodger and Ox. Worried that he will now become the victim of the Gr. 9 hazing called the Naked Niner, whereby a selected student is unclothed and photographed and publicly humiliated, Sully tries to stay out of Tank's field of view. Unfortunately, everything he does seems to garner him more unwanted attention. 

 

First, he believes his friend and locker partner Morty/Morsixx is drawing too much attention with his new emo boy look and attitude so Sully starts avoiding him by carrying his backpack everywhere, hiding out in the parking lot at lunch and abstaining from taking the bus. Even though Morsixx and Blossom, a new girl who adorns her face and arms with ink of vines and flowers, try to support him, Sully continues to reject their efforts. Then he's given the topic of menstruation for his Sex Education class and Dodger pranks him with countless tampons, earning him the displeasure of the principal and a host of new nicknames.

 

When he begins to walk to and from school, past a purple house on True Street, with its fence adored with an unusual assortment of figurines in ever-changing scenes, Sully becomes acquainted with the Purse Lady who gets his attention when she asks him, "What happened to your face?" (pg. 80) But who is she and why does Mr. C, the strange man in the purple house, seem to know her and Sully and maybe even what is happening in his life, all represented in the figurines of Charlie Brown, the Knight, Sleeping Beauty, Darth Vader and more?

 

School can be a place of refuge for some but for others, especially those who become marked as victims, it can be brutal. And for Grade 9 students, it can be especially challenging. With an implicit hierarchy of power and confusion about the supports which they may or may not have, those preyed upon by bullies may become even more isolated. This is Sully who confuses his friends with contributing to his victimization and who doesn't want to worry his family. He is awkward in discussions with his teachers and his principal and then makes further choices that complicate things for himself. But, while Sully has been victimized, Stephanie Simpson McLellan tries not to play up the young teen as a victim. He is instead confused or rather messed up. He's got all the basics–friends, family, the will– to make things right but, like his face, things just haven't fallen into place correctly. Fortunately, when he can see beyond his personal disasters and into those of others, Sully learns to stand up for himself and help himself adapt. This is an important message for young people and, amidst all Sully's struggles, it's one that Stephanie Simpson McLellan emphasizes. With some insight and a little help from others, Sully is finally able to put to rights his situation and find himself.

• • • • • • • • •

Tomorrow I interview author Stephanie Simpson McLellan about Sully, Messed Up. For middle-graders and early young adults and their parents and their teachers, this Q & A will speak to all of you.