Being Me (A Rosie the Red Book)

by Rosemary McCarney

Illustrated by Yvonne Cathcart

Second Story Press

978-1-927583-93-7

24 pp.

Ages 4-8

April 2016

Still sporting the red cape from Tilt Your Head, Rosie the Red that helps empower and define her, Rosie the Red returns in her second story. This time she is thinking about what she should be when she grows up when she is realizes that that way of thinking negates any contribution she can make as a kid.  “That made Rosie feel unimportant…not very useful…a little smaller…as if she would only matter when she got big.”

A walk with her dad introduces Rosie to the local food bank where the manager, Mr. Santino, shows them around the busy warehouse and allows them to help pack cartons. While there, Rosie spots her friend Sam and his mother getting a box of food. Because he’s obviously embarrassed, Rosie spends the rest of the day thinking about how she could make him feel better.  With a tilt of her head–her standard thinking mode–Rosie comes up with a plan to help the food bank and Sam both.

Rosemary McCarney’s picture books consistently impart positive messages and, in Being Me, Rosie the Red is a great vehicle for teaching kids about food banks and that those who avail themselves of its offerings are no less than those who have enough food to eat without help.  By having Rosie acknowledging Sam’s artistic ability, she’s saying that everyone has strengths and everyone needs help with something, whether it is drawing a poster or getting enough food to eat.  That constructive and optimistic attitude is represented in Yvonne Cathcart’s cherry illustrations with their upbeat reds, greens, turquoise and golds.  The art is as sunny as Rosie’s approach to making life worthwhile and fair for all which is an important lesson to foster citizenship and community.

From Being Me
by Rosemary McCarney, illus. by Yvonne Cathcart

Tilt Your Head, Rosie the Red

by Rosemary McCarney

Illustrated by Yvonne Cathcart

Second Story Press

978-1-927583-59-3

24 pp.

Ages 4-7

April, 2015

Rosemary McCarney whose Every Day is Malala Day (Second Story Press, 2014) was just awarded the 2015 Golden Oak readers' choice award of the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading has found her voice in bringing social justice issues to young readers.  In Tilt Your Head, Rosie the Red, the first in a series called A Rosie the Red Book, Rosemary McCarney introduces our heroine of compassion as she attempts to help a friend.

Rosie who likes to wear a red cape, because “It just feels right”(pg. 4) she tells her brother, is chagrined to see a classmate Fadimata bullied at school because she wears a headscarf.  As in most bullying situations, there are a few mean and hateful children but there are also those who are present but fearful and unable to act to help the young girl in the hijab.  But Rosie the Red is determined to find a solution, as she follows her protocol to help her think: Tilt your head, Rosie the Red. (pg. 9)

Not only does Rosie get Fadimata to help fashion a headscarf for her out of the red cape, she leads the way for other girls to support Fadimata in similar ways.  With the message that, “If we remember to look at things in new ways, everything is possible” (pg. 22), diversity in the school yard becomes acceptable as it should be.

Rosemary McCarney gets the right and light tone for her books, ensuring that she never preaches but always enlightens.  And the illustrations by Yvonne Cathcart, who has illustrated some favourites by Rachna Gilmore, Jo-Ellen Bogart and Shenaaz Nanji, are bright and bold and resonant with movement, adding to the story’s surge to justice and resolution.

I think this Rosie the Red series will be a welcome one for teachers and schools who are always looking for books to support important themes of diversity and social justice.  It continues to be evident that, with another new series, I’m a Great Little Kid, also being launched this spring, Second Story Press has strengthened its position as a Canadian publisher of worthwhile reads for young people.