My City Speaks

Written by Darren Lebeuf

Illustrated by Ashley Barron

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-0414-9

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

September 2021

When a young girl and her father head to her outdoor violin recital, the city becomes their companion, sensory-rich and amazingly diverse in its scope. This visually-impaired child, as evidenced by her white cane, listens as her city speaks and she hears, as well as smells and tastes and feels. Her city is alive.

From My City Speaks by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

As she and her father walk to the park, she "sees" everything but her seeing is with all her senses except her eyes. The reader will see the neighbour pruning his shrubs and the lady walking her terrier and her father locking the door but the child will know them in her own way. We see them reach the tactile paving at the busy intersection while she hears the city moving.

It rushes and stops and waits and goes.

From dropping a letter off in the post box to watering plants in the raised garden beds near a construction site, the child hears the city growing in different ways. But the city is really a spectacle of contrasts: busy and relaxed, playful and working. And she hears it all.

From My City Speaks by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

After stops at a playground, ice-cream shop and grocer's, filled with their own sensory experiences, the weather changes.

It pitters and patters and drips and drains.

From My City Speaks by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

Finally after a subway ride, alive with "whispers and giggles and sometimes meows," the girl and her father reach the outdoor venue where she and other children are to perform. Then, her city not only speaks, it listens.

Vancouver's Darren Lebeuf may take us to his neighbourhood–though maybe not–to experience it through the senses of a child whose eyesight is impaired but this could be any city. There are roads and parks, stores and playgrounds. There are quiet areas and busy ones, and the girl notices everything around her. By choosing to make his character less dependent on her eyesight, the sense that most of us rely on as we navigate our neighbourhoods, Darren Lebeuf helps us hear and occasionally smell and taste, reminding us of everything we undoubtedly miss when we use only our eyes. Moreover by giving a rhythm to his words, like the "hasty honks, impatient beeps, distant chimes, reliable rumbles, speedy sirens and urgent clangs," Darren Lebeuf has found the city's heartbeats, those that come from its people, its infrastructure, and more.

But while Darren Lebeuf's character cannot rely on her eyesight, readers will get the full visual experience from Ashley Barron's cut-paper collages of the most vibrant colours and the most intricate details. There's a hot pink Vespa, a raccoon peeking out from a trash container, and the family's cats playing with a toy mouse. On the subway, the child may not see the hijab-wearing woman sharing earbuds with a wheelchair-bound young man or the pink-haired person beside another with pencil-skewered hair, but we do. And so the child's amazing sense of what is going on around her is all the more impressive. 

 

Darren Lebeuf and Ashley Barron's My City Speaks certainly speaks to an awareness for one's environment but it also celebrates the richness of an urban landscape in stimulating all our senses and the importance of being ever present in its distinct quality.

The Paper Boat: A Refugee Story

Written and illustrated by Thao Lam

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-363-7

40 pp.

Ages 6-10

September 2020

 

Told exclusively in the glorious collage art of Thao Lam, The Paper Boat follows the flight of a little girl and her mother away from Vietnam, a journey paralleled by an army of ants who strive for their own survival.

From The Paper Boat by Thao Lam

As the front endpapers illustrate, The Paper Boat begins amidst a history of the war in Vietnam. The conflict between South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese escalates until April 30, 1975 when Saigon falls and the South Vietnamese surrender. While a family tries to curtail an invasion of ants with sugar water, and a little girl uses her chopsticks to rescue them and send them on their way, the Vietcong tanks roll past their window. Soon the family is packing up and saying their goodbyes, with mother tearing her daughter away from her father and grandparents who have their own journeys.

From The Paper Boat by Thao Lam

As mother and daughter escape through long grass, hiding from soldiers, they follow a parade of ants in the moonlight to the water's edge. But while they wait for Vietcong patrols to leave, the mother distracts the child by fashioning a paper boat from the wrapping around their food. When their escape boat arrives, the paper boat is left behind but discovered by ants who will begin their own escape by boat.

From The Paper Boat by Thao Lam

The ants endure a multitude of hardships–undoubtedly mirroring what the child and her family bear on their own boat–from limited food and water, to calamitous weather and the capsizing of the boat before making landfall. Even as they help each other, some are lost, before they come together at a new table in a new place.

From the clues in Thao Lam's story, as well as her "Author's Note," it becomes evident that The Paper Boat is based on the author-illustrator's own family history of escape from Vietnam. This tale of migration is laced with trauma and danger and, by telling it through the parallel story about the ants, Thao Lam tells us so much without the reader witnessing the horrors of their fleeing. They, like the ants, come to make a new home, with the child together with both parents and even a new little one–though a photograph with incense on a side table suggests a grandmother who did not survive–in a city teeming with families undoubtedly with some of their own stories of migration.

By creating her story without text, Thao Lam invites the reader to delve into the story and make connections between the two families, one ant and one human, finding the similarities and differences in their plights and the relationships between and within. By using her collage art with images on cut paper layered to create depth and texture, Thao Lam brings us to a table, onto a boat, and into a city. Moreover, by using a limited palette, mostly sombre colours like dark blues and black with splashes of pink and golden for hopeful elements like the sun, the boats and food, Thao Lam makes us see where hope lies. Reassuringly, their new home is filled with the colour of promise.

From The Paper Boat by Thao Lam

Sky Pig

Written by Jan L. Coates

Illustrated by Suzanne Del Rizzo

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-98-9

32 pp.

Ages 4–7

April 2016

Ollie is a little pig with a big dream and, though he doesn’t speak (he is after all a pig and pigs can’t talk), his friend, Jack, a boy with a big heart and a bigger imagination, tries to help Ollie achieve his dream.

Ollie from Sky Pig by Jan L. Coates,

 illus. by Suzanne Del Rizzo

First Jack fastens leafy branches onto Ollie’s back and they climb to the top of a very high hill. Even though a fast run and a jump has Ollie believing that he’s flying, an “Oooooomph!” and a “Plop!” make it evident he did not.  Having Jack create a kite with some garden stakes, twine, a feed sack and scraps of fabric is Ollie’s next plan to become airborne.  A couple of oinks and another “Oooooomph!” and “Plop!” again foretell the futility of their endeavour. Finally, taking their cues from the geese, chickens and other birds, Jack fashions a set of wings for Ollie. Made from an assortment of papers, including maps and wrapping paper featuring airborne creatures, and miscellaneous gears and leather, Ollie takes to the sky like a kind of steampunk flyer.  Alas, that flight ends similarly.  Even a Mary Poppins-like contraption of umbrellas is unsuccessful.

It’s only when the two make use of an already-tried-and-true flying machine that Ollie is able to stay aloft and experience the joys of floating in the sky, even if only for a short time and at a cost of $5.

Dreamers can dream but, with a friend like Jack, Ollie’s dream that a pig could fly comes true.  It takes a little determination, a lot of imagination and being in the right place at the right time but Ollie’s dream, courtesy of Jack’s friendship and piggy bank, becomes a reality.  Jan L. Coates’ story is uplifting like much of her previous work including A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk (Red Deer Press, 2010), The Power of Harmony (Red Deer Press, 2013), and The King of Keji (Nimbus, 2015), and even more so with Suzanne Del Rizzo’s spectacular art, previously enjoyed in Skink on the Brink (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2013) and Gerbil, Uncurled (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2015).  The doughy art (plasticine with polymer clay) with mixed media collage features adds the textures and colour to elevate the story even higher.  Beyond the cuteness of Ollie and Jack is a rich landscape of green pastures and trees, chickens and groundhogs, and flowers and dandelion fluff and sweet details of a chicken protecting her egg in a life-vest or basket and thwarting a mouse that tries to get too close.   There’s so much more to Sky Pig than making a pig fly and young readers will love going along for the ride.

From Sky Pig by Jan L. Coates, illus. by Suzanne Del Rizzo

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There will be two great opportunities to check out Sky Pig with author or illustrator.

Illustrator Suzanne Del Rizzo will be participating in the I Art Books Exhibit and Sale of Children's Book Illustration on April 30, 2016 at Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge, ON. Details here.

Author Jan L. Coates will be launching Sky Pig on May 7, 2016 at The Box of Delights Bookshop in Wolfville, NS. Details here.