The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy

Written by Erica Fyvie

Illustrated by Scot Ritchie

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-0668-6

56 pp.

Ages 8–12

September 2025 

 

As the Grade 6 Eco Club presents their project to conduct an energy audit at the school, a buried time capsule outside the school mutters away, waiting to be discovered and realizing it hasn't had many opportunities to learn. As the kids discuss the upcoming improvements to make the school more energy efficient including a rainwater collection system, a green roof, and solar panels, construction workers outside discover the time capsule—which seems to have its own thoughts as seen by its distinct speech bubbles—left by Class 6 from 1900. In the time capsule is a note from the teacher, Miss  Edna Sorman, who speaks of the impressive engineering of Birch Elementary Public School. So, with that note and the artifacts within, the kids of Class 6 of 2025 begin to see how things have changed over more than a century. 

From The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy, written by Erica Fyvie, illustrated by Scot Ritchie

With their teacher dividing the class into 4 teams to tackle the issues of electricity, plumbing, building, and transportation, the Energy League is born. Through discussions and perusal of the time capsule's contents, the students think about the past, what their lives are like now, and then aim to apply what they've learned to predicting what things could be like in 2125, sparking plans for a Future Fair.

From The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy, written by Erica Fyvie, illustrated by Scot Ritchie

Within the context of the discovery and the class's activities, young readers will learn about energy, kinetic energy, wastewater measures, retrofitting, and more. We get glimpses into the past when a hand-cranked ice-cream freezer was a luxury at $1.26, when innovations like electric light bulbs  and indoor plumbing were often seen as dangerous, and when the horse and buggy were the norm.  In addition to revealing much about where things were at around the turn of the century (the 20th century), author Erica Fyvie provides snippets about other time capsules, some accidental, some not, like the global seed vault, the Terracotta Warriors, the wreck of the Titanic, Voyager Golden Records, and Scott's hut in Antarctica, as well as reports about recycled building materials, food waste as a source of energy, and zero-fuel transportation.

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From The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy, written by Erica Fyvie, illustrated by Scot Ritchie

The Sustainable School covers a lot of information, but it does so in an engaging format. The use of a graphic-novel style to embed history, inquiry-based learning and STEM concepts will interest middle-grade readers and their teachers and parents. It is a story that does not need to be read in one sitting—though it could be—and can be used as a fabulous launching off for a myriad of science lessons on environmentalism and energy but also studies of history, particularly how things have changed. With those query lessons (see above for part of one based on the question, "Can we build a new building with only recycled materials?"; p. 40), Erica Fyvie offers educators a different way of looking at inquiry. She encourages focusing on the past as a step in the evolution of our infrastructure systems and to project how things might just change in the future. And with the illustrations by Scot Ritchie, whose artwork has enhanced the text of many picture books and non-fiction books (e.g., All Our Love, Frederica, and If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It), The Sustainable School becomes a welcome information book for middle graders and their classrooms. I always remark on the lightness of Scot Ritchie's artwork, probably because of his rendering it in pencil and then ink before colouring in Photoshop but it lends itself well to keeping information text manageable and hardly imposing or dull. In fact, Scot Ritchie's characters, who show the wonderful diversity of many classes today, and the graphic-novel format create a milieu for engagement.

From The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy, written by Erica Fyvie, illustrated by Scot Ritchie

I really hope that Erica Fyvie and Scot Ritchie can extend this style of non-fiction to other topics, perhaps One Health or education. It is very reminiscent of Linda Bailey and Bill Slavin's The Good Times Travel Agency in the blending of graphics with time perspective and information, and I believe Erica Fyvie and Scot Ritchie honour those who've first accomplished much in presenting non-fiction books in captivating and informative ways. After all, looking back isn't languishing there; it's informing the future.

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.

This House is Home

Written by Deborah Kerbel

Illustrated by Yong Ling Kang

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-380-4

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

March 2021

The concept of home has always been an important focus in literature: finding it, establishing it, cultivating it, holding onto it, and sadly even losing it. For some, it's ephemeral, fleeting in its nature, and for others it is the bedrock of life. For the families in This House is Home, it is both.

From This House is Home by Deborah Kerbel, illus. by Yong Ling Kang

Lily and her rabbit family live in a home that her grandmother says is "old and steady as mountains." But when a pair of suited foxes with clipboards approach Grandma about buying the house, she politely declines.

This house is home, and we'll live here for the rest of forever.

From This House is Home by Deborah Kerbel, illus. by Yong Ling Kang

Problem is that everyone else around them sells to the developers, and there is much upheaval as friends pack up and goodbyes are shared. And then the diggers arrive, flattening houses and trees, and constructing a road that like a "long gray tongue snaked toward our house, closer and closer, until it had pushed right up to our door. It didn't bother knocking."

From This House is Home by Deborah Kerbel, illus. by Yong Ling Kang

The construction workers might have placed pylons around their house but their house is now situated in the middle of a wide road of noisy, smelly vehicles racing past their windows. The impact on their garden was evident but also clear was the impact within their home: dirt, noise, irritability, and distress.

From This House is Home by Deborah Kerbel, illus. by Yong Ling Kang

But a solution to their problem comes to Lily, the artist, in a dream in which, "The road had melted into a sea. The cars had shrunken to fish. My house had grown sails." Their house would remain their home, just in a different location.

Having a development threaten your house, your home is a nerve-racking prospect. Undoubtedly it's a frustration of many whose abodes stand in the way of planning projects that look at the big picture and not the individual lives affected. The menace of the foxes' repeated efforts to get Grandma to sell are tangible, though she is always polite and gracious, but Deborah Kerbel's words focus on the calm and love inside the home and leaves the destruction and disquiet outside. Sadly, there comes a time when the outside encroaches on the inner sanctum of home. Still Grandma's strength of conviction that their house would remain steadfastly their home and Lily's problem-solving ensure that home will endure as such.

Illustrator Yong Ling Kang, who illustrated Tanna's Owl (2020), continues to charm with her watercolour art that adds the whimsy of a bunny family living in their home, having picnics, playing, knitting, and growing. She brightens those pages with all colours, saving the greys and browns for the mayhem of the construction, and gives fluidity to the story, indicative of the transitional nature of the house, with her brushstrokes and lines. As such, Yong Ling Kang's art echoes the joys and frustrations of Deborah Kerbel's characters from comfort through distress and back to buoyant.

This House is Home reminds us that home is more than a structure. It has roots that are grown of family, and, though it can change, as necessary, it carries the promise of steadfastness, even if in transition.

Boxitects

Written and illustrated by Kim Smith

HarperCollins Canada

978-1-44345-611-1

40 pp.

Ages 4-7

September 2019

Whether cats or kids, boxes are a source of endless fascination and play.  Now, with the proliferation of makerspaces in libraries and play-based learning in kindergarten, building with materials such as boxes is all the rage, as it is for Meg, an architect whose medium is boxes.

From Boxitects by Kim Smith

Meg's mother, supportive of her child's creative endeavours, sends her to Maker School where there are "blanketeers, spaghetti-tects, tin-foilers, and egg-cartoneers" but, as a boxitect, Meg is a unique. There she learns about making structures useful, strong and beautiful.

From Boxitects by Kim Smith

Then a new kid arrives and she is an amazing boxitect too. But Simone does not hold back her advice to Meg, directing her how to improve her structures. So Meg reciprocates. The two little makers are obviously more interested in showing who is the better boxitect than working together, and this poses a problem when the annual Maker Match is announced and the children must work in teams. Unfortunately Meg wants to build a tree house and Simone is determined to construct a ship so the two children begin to create their own structures, each continuing to amend their own to be taller and more impressive. It's not until a catastrophe befalls the structure that Meg and Simone learn some valuable lessons about working with others to create.

From Boxitects by Kim Smith

Kim Smith, who illustrated the Ice Chips series by Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor (HarperCollins Canada), adds the whimsy to her art through her use of colour and shape. There is no mistaking the boldness of Meg and Simone's creative work in the Calgary artist's illustrations produced digitally with Photoshop. Through edges straight, scalloped and round, doorways and flags of various shapes, and bright tints and patterns, Meg and Simone's maker structures reach the stars, fly off the pages, and spill out of the makerspace. They show the impact of exploration and imagination and encourage thinking outside the box. With her own originality of thought and art, Kim Smith demonstrates to little ones that looking at problem-solving from a different perspective or discovering new ways of expression is a win-win for makers big and small.

From Boxitects by Kim Smith

The Better Tree Fort

Written by Jessica Scott Kerrin

Illustrated by Qin Leng

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-863-1

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

March 2018

Tree houses offer children a refuge from the everyday, a place to dream and create, to escape and grow, and to be whomever they choose, imaginary or their true selves.  But imagine if the building of that tree fort and sharing of it was a shared experience between father and son.  How much better is that true fort than a castle in the sky?

From The Better Tree Fort by Jessica Scott Kerrin, illus. by Qin Leng

 When Russell and his dad move to a new house with a massive maple tree in the backyard, the child suggests they build a tree fort.  Russell’s dad is obviously not a handy man with wood and tools and it takes many trips to the lumber and hardware store and much guidance from others for him to construct the tree fort.  Though it doesn’t have the special features Russell had in his plans like a balcony, slide, skylight and basket for hauling, Russell declares it to be perfect.

From The Better Tree Fort by Jessica Scott Kerrin, illus. by Qin Leng

Then, three houses down, a construction crew marches in and constructs a larger and more elaborate tree fort with all the bells and whistles.  Russell makes the acquaintance of Warren, the boy whose father had ordered the plans and hired the crew, and is invited in to view the spectacular house in the tree.  But is it really a better tree fort than Russell’s?

From The Better Tree Fort by Jessica Scott Kerrin, illus. by Qin Leng

Jessica Scott Kerrin’s message is not really about tree forts.  It’s about relationships, specifically a father and son relationship, and how nothing–not something bigger, better, bolder–could ever compensate for that unique connection and special bond.  Russell’s dad is not the kind who would pay someone to make his son’s dreams come true.  He’s the kind who tries to do it himself, no matter how arduous the task or clumsy and unimpressive the results.  This father and son don’t need to bling out a tree fort when they can enjoy the simple pleasures of peanut butter and jam sandwiches , birding from the open window, or sleeping in bags on the floor.  Warren has no idea no much he’s missing in his “better” tree fort.

I have reviewed numerous books illustrated by Qin Leng and she continues to astound me with the astuteness of her artwork for interpreting the text.  In The Better Tree Fort, Qin Leng’s ink, watercolour and pencil crayon illustrations lend an innocence of task and purpose to the story, making the building of the fort by father for son an intimate endeavour.  The construction of Warren’s turreted tree fort lacks the tenderness of relationship.  Not surprising, when Russell’s dad acknowledges that “There will always be a better tree fort,” Russell knows that it’s his father that is the best component of all.

From The Better Tree Fort by Jessica Scott Kerrin, illus. by Qin Leng