Penguin Days

Written by Sara Leach

Illustrated by Rebecca Bender

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-053-6

104 pp.

Ages 7-10

November 2018

Eight-year-old Lauren of Sara Leach's Slug Days (Pajama Press, 2017) has returned and now the young child on the autism spectrum must find new coping strategies beyond the school and home situations with which she contended in her first book.

From Penguin Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

Lauren and her parents and baby sister Lexi have driven from western Canada to North Dakota for the wedding of her Auntie Joss, who is getting married to Almost-Uncle Charlie. It's a long drive but far better than a repeat of the screaming plane fiasco years earlier. But the travel stress is just step one in the journey that Lauren must take to act as Auntie Joss's flower girl. She must also prepare herself for the many people who will be present, including her cousins: Sophia, 12; Zoe, 10; and Kevin, 9.

I didn't want to have a restful summer. I wanted to have a fun summer with Irma ... I had to meet my cousins instead. Which wasn't restful at all. It made my insides feel like squirmy snakes. (pg. 25)

But Lauren's unrest moves into the realm of confusion when Kevin mentions that he has to wear a penguin suit (slang for a tuxedo) and Lauren thinks wearing a penguin onesie would be preferable to the itchy purple flower girl dress she must wear. Unfortunately, when she learns that Zoe and Sophia will also be flower girls, and she twirls in her dress like Sophia, she makes herself dizzy and throws up.

From Penguin Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

The reactions of those around her embarrass her and she dashes outside and encounters Kevin who takes her to see the cows in the barn. Though he warns her about being in the barn, she climbs onto fence and falls into a stall with calves. In the mayhem of her screaming, the calves run out and Almost-Uncle Charlie comes to the rescue.

From Penguin Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

From the dress to the barn and the rehearsal and its dinner, things always get resolved when Lauren remembers to use her strategies like square breathing or focusing on things she likes to talk about, like lizards and penguins, and when those around her consider how stressful new situations are for her and attempt to make things work for Lauren. But there are many circumstances which Lauren must endure first in order to get through to the other side of okay. Thankfully Sara Leach shows us that Lauren can have slug days when everything goes wrong, and penguin days when she has to dress up and get along with people she rarely sees, and still have wonderful butterfly days when all is right with the world. With the addition of Rebecca Bender's charming black-and-white illustrations that depict Lauren in all her moods, Penguin Days becomes a story of resiliency and overcoming anxiety and stressful situations for all children, with ASD and not.

From Penguin Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

Mission Mumbai: A Novel of Sacred Cows, Snakes, and Stolen Toilets

by Mahtab Narsimhan

Scholastic Press

978-0-545-74651-9

272 pp.

Ages 9-12

March 2016

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Dylan Moore, 12, has gone a long way to get away from the worries of his parents’ impending breakup in New York City after finagling an invitation to go to India for three weeks with best friend, Rohit Lal.  For Dylan, it’s all about the adventure, the new experiences, especially the food, and taking photographs, determined to win a National Geographic contest and show his dad that his hobby is a worthwhile endeavour.  Problem is that Rohit isn’t that keen on going back to India, having accustomed himself to the amenities of life in New York City, and his displeasure is evident in every interaction he has, most notably with his mother and his Bua (father’s sister) whom Dylan dubs Boa for her venomous attitude.  Sadly Rohit’s rudeness has Boa deciding that, since she has financed the family’s stay in the U.S. including Rohit’s schooling, Rohit needs some discipline and will remain to go to school in Mumbai.

Even with the boys’ worries, everything is thrilling, flavourful and photogenic for Dylan.

My life in New York was so predictable, and this was so exciting! It was almost like starring in my own Bollywood adventure. (pg. 28)

But Dylan is trying to balance being a good guest and being a supportive friend, while navigating a culture with which he is totally unfamiliar.   Not surprising, Dylan gets himself into quite a few scraps, not including a scandalous shooing of a sacred cow, a swim in sewage-polluted water, a bladder-stressed train ride, and getting them banned from a restaurant.  And Rohit, desperate for his mother to take him back to NYC asap, resents Dylan’s wanting to stay on and takes advantage of Dylan’s ignorance time and time again.

It’s adventure after adventure for the two boys, as they bicker their way through their holiday in India, each resenting their own family dynamics and envious of the other’s, not realizing how much they both have.  Their friendship is so honest and complex and simple and real that every reader will understand the ups and downs of it, all against the unique backdrop that is India.  Mahtab Narsimhan has demonstrated her ability to capture the essence of other cultures in multi-layered plots in her previous books which include the 2009 Silver Birch Fiction award-winning The Third Eye (Dundurn, 2007) and The Tiffin (Dancing Cat Books, 2011), reviewed here, but Mission Mumbai takes her writing into more humourous realms.  Think of the lightness of Gordon Korman’s books with the flavours of Rohinton Mistry for middle-grade readers.  It’s a dazzling combination of characters, atmosphere, plot and humour.

Kerosene lamps smoked, a temple bell at a roadside shrine tinkled, and the air was thick with smells–some good, some gross.  Rohit swore softly under his breath as the cab inched forward.  After being in the air-conditioned flat, the heat was borderline torture.  It was like being in a malfunctioning steam room with the temperature stuck on “cook”.  My face was burning witht the heat and probably beet red. (pg. 48)

Whether a young reader is like Dylan, new to Indian culture, or Rohit, for whom the culture is familiar, Mission Mumbai will engage, enthrall and entertain.  And I haven’t even mentioned the monsoon, the wedding, the fire at the theatre, the wise old woman who gives them shelter, the heat, the scooties, and the glorious food!  So much to delve into and it’s all sweet and savoury and spicy and wholesome.

Dojo Daytrip

by Chris Tougas

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-142-8

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

September 2015

They may be ninjas but they are still children:  boisterous, inquisitive, energetic and rowdy.  And a field trip with Master to a farm doesn't do anything but fuel their fires!  Remember Chris Tougas' six little ninjas from Dojo Daycare (Owlkids Books, 2014)?  Well, they're back and as effervescent as a newly opened pop bottle.

And Master must feel the same way as the six ninjas–never named but each unique and recognizable by hair or lack thereof–explode off the bus and begin to explore and cause ninja mayhem! But, it's Master who continues to find himself in buckets of awkwardness: falling in the pigs' trough, or running from a bull, or spooking a horse.  The little ninjas have just not been paying attention, distracted by the chicks, or other farmyard entities, and

It's a big barnyard disaster!
No one's there to save the Master.
The ninjas all forgot their creed:
Always help someone in need.

But after a few "Yikes!" and "Yee-ow!" moments, the ninjas realize the Master needs help and they jump in to make things right.  It's a full day of activities and activity and rhyming and word play, and it's not surprising that the little ones seem tired on the road home, though a taurine stowaway suggests more mayhem is in their future.

Dojo Daytrip is a fun romp at the farm with Chris Tougas' agile ninjas and their adult wrangler, reminiscent of many school field trips with their "if something can do wrong, it will" moments.  But Chris Tougas twists that story line by having the Master at the heart of the craziness and allowing the little ninjas to solve the problems and go beyond the call of duty.  The Master may be harping on the little ones forgetting their creed but they're just too busy having fun.  Chris Tougas' words are light and rhythmic and work so well with his bold characters and sparse settings.  It's a fast read, perfect for a read-aloud before a school trip, but take the time to notice all the details like the red scarf that riles the bull, or the one farting ninja, or the little chicks that wave good-bye, or the ninja teddy-bear.  There's a richness of details and facial expressions and such that add so much to the simple story of helping out those in need that Dojo Daytrip will be a fun keeper to use in the classroom for field trip prep, for rhyming exemplars and for a pastural past-time without getting on a bus.

Grant and Tillie Go Walking

by Monica Kulling

Illustrated by Sydney Smith

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-446-6

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

August, 2015

Although I’m feverishly trying to catch up on overdue book reviews since health issues have me backlogged, I dreamed over and over again about the book Grant and Tillie Go Walking last night and felt compelled to review it today.  

A farm boy in Iowa, Grant was a part of the rural landscape, though he dreamed of adventure and excitement beyond the farm or so he tells his cow Tillie, his faithful companion and great giver of milk.  So off he goes to Paris, hopeful of becoming a true artist.  But, try as he might look like an artist in his beret and goatee, his artwork is missing something.  Just as Tillie is missing Grant, Grant is missing home,  “the place he loved and the people he knew best.” (pg. 31).  And returning home, a place he’d thought he hadn’t belonged, brought the inspiration for one of his most famous paintings, that of his sister Nan and the family dentist as a stern farming couple.

While the Grant of the title is modern artist Grant Wood (1891-1942), the story Monica Kulling has created about the American is a fictionalized account of how he became an artist and the artist of the iconic painting American Gothic (1930).  It’s about trying to belong and be who you think you are and of coming home.  Whether illustrator Sydney Smith feels any connection with Grant Wood’s modernist ways, I don’t know.  But I do know that both artists’ work demonstrates the heart of his community at its core.  Sydney Smith might live in Toronto and not in rural Iowa (see his sketches at http://sydneydraws.tumblr.com) but his subtle, speckled illustrations in Grant and Tillie Go Walking radiate the down-to-earth art of Grant Wood without mimicking it.  Grant and Tillie Go Walking is an exemplary story of how an artist came to be an artist appreciatively told through the words and pictures of two artists in their own right.