Love is for Roaring

Written by Mike Kerr

Illustrated by Renata Liwska

Bloomsbury

978-1-68119-124-9

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

January 2022

While I probably should have reviewed this lovely picture book in January when it came out so that it would be ready for Valentine's Day, I think that books about love in all its forms are important all year round, don't you think?

From Love is for Roaring by Mike Kerr, illus. by Renata Liwska

At school, the animals are given the assignment of showing their love as a crafty card. But this work distresses Lion who is perplexed by what is required.  Mouse can see the stress this causes Lion and tries to draw out of Lion what he understands love to be and what he might love. But that doesn't go well. Everything Mouse suggests, from hugs and kisses and sweet treats, are negated by Lion whose experiences with or perceptions of those are aggravating.

From Love is for Roaring by Mike Kerr, illus. by Renata Liwska

Finally when Mouse suggests activities like running and playing, roaring and chasing, Lion realizes that there are many things he loves doing, including being and having a friend.

From Love is for Roaring by Mike Kerr, illus. by Renata Liwska

As teachers, we know that understanding any assignment relies on both the teacher's ability to explain it and the student's ability to make connections with it. It's no wonder that Lion, a fearless creature, finds the homework assignment to "Show your Love" to be "impossible, the undoable, the unimaginable" and it causes him much anxiety. Thankfully Mike Kerr gives Lion a friend in Mouse, an animal with infinite wisdom and the patience to help Lion see that love is possible and even familiar. Mike Kerr may be an instructor of illustration at the Alberta University of the Arts but the text of Love is for Roaring suggests that he has the right words to tell a story beyond the artwork. Lion's distress is palpable as is Mouse's concern. And Renata Liwska's illustrations elevate the story with something special. It's a mixture of soft colours, cushioned textures and recognizable body language. From frustration to solemn introspection and playful exertions, Lion and Mouse and their classmates are the children who will read this book and see themselves within the digital artwork. They will know about frustration and wanting to help a friend. They will know distress and confusion and the relief of resolution. Love is for Roaring may be every child's story of uncertainty about school work and finding a connection where one might not have been evident initially.

The Little Book of Big What-Ifs

Written and illustrated by Renata Liwska

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

978-1-32876-701-1

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

May 2019

I like to think of Renata Liwska's new picture book as a consequential book of big ideas and hopeful opportunities. It's an opening to look at the world from different perspectives. In a world rife with dissension, isolation and fear-mongering, The Little Book of Big What-Ifs provides an opportunity for little ones to see the possibilities for turning that world inside out in a positive way.

Renata Liwska sees common worries that might plague children like What if you slept through your birthday? or What if you make a mistake? and turns them around into What if you're surprised? and What if we all work together? It would seem that, for every uncertainty, there is a possibility for goodness and hope and community.

From The Little Book of Big What-Ifs by Renata Liwska

Sometimes Renata Liwska presents the different perspectives in a double spread as in the example below in which What if you can't think of anything? could also be What if your imagination runs wild? Other times she addresses the two disparate perspectives separately, starting the book with more of the worries but ending it with the positives of What if everyone shared? and What if it spreads? before deviating from the questions and asserting What a difference it would make!

From The Little Book of Big What-Ifs by Renata Liwska

These big ideas, though, come through subtly and intimately, never preachy nor scarily. Renata Liwska's words pack meaning and consideration but at the right level for her audience. Similarly, her illustrations are profound in their quiet resolution of feeling. Perhaps it's because her pencil drawings, coloured via Photoshop, seem touchably soft, like pages of stuffies that include bears, lynx, elephant and mouse. Perhaps it's the emotion with which she infuses her characters, through expression and action. The reassurance the lynx feels from another after spilling milk, or the pleasure of the elephant sharing a radish sandwich with a mouse. Every illustration gives depth of feeling and sensitivity to children's unease about their world and daily events.  Fortunately, Renata Liwska's The Little Book of Big What-Ifs reassures, soothes and uplifts while still acknowledging those qualms as familiar and honest.

From The Little Book of Big What-Ifs by Renata Liwska

Waiting for Snow

by Marsha Diane Arnold

Illustrated by Renata Liwska

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

978-0-544-41687-1

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

November 2016

Polish-born Calgary artist Renata Liwska may be the author-illustrator of her own picture books including the Governor General Award-nominated Red Wagon (Philomel Books, 2013) and Little Panda (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), but she is best known for providing artwork for award-winning American writers such as Deborah Underwood (The Quiet Book, The Loud Book), Doreen Cronin (Boom Snot Twitty and Boom Snot Twitty This Way That Way), and Nina Laden (Once Upon a Memory).  In Waiting for Snow, Renata Liwska again provides the distinct landscape of art that takes Marsha Diane Arnold's words from story to showpiece.

From Waiting for Snow

by Marsha Diane Arnold 

illus. by Renata Liwska

Badger is desperate for snow to come.  He studies the sky, bangs pots and pans to wake it up, and follows his friends’ advice.  Rabbit recommends punching holes in the clouds with pebbles to allow the flakes to fall.  Vole suggests a snow dance. Possum proposes Badger wear his pajamas backwards.  His friends even use sugar to simulate snow when the winter flakes don’t appear.  But, just as Hedgehog in his cryptic way advises, the snow does come when it is time.

From Waiting for Snow 

by Marsha Diane Arnold 

illus. by Renata Liwska

Renata Liwska's pencil drawings coloured digitally effuse the story of childlike desperation with a tenderness and softness that materialize the animals from two-dimensional to stuffie.  Though you know that the fur of badgers and opossums may be more coarse in reality, Renata Liwska makes all her characters appear downy.  And her landscapes from outdoors to bedrooms and classrooms, both in daytime and night, are similarly relaxed and serene.  Waiting for Snow is for anyone who has ever waited for something or someone to come and been told that it will only happen in its own time.  It’s the old saying of a “watched pot never boils” acknowledging time as the truest measure of when something will happen.  No matter how much you crave it or are determined to make it happen, with snow dances or rituals or superstitions, time will be the determinant.