Brady Brady: Teammate Turnaround

Written by Mary Shaw

Illustrated by Chuck Temple

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-6373-6

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

September 2019

Brady is called Brady, Brady because he needs to be called multiple times to get his attention. That is, except for hockey. The anticipation of his team, the Icehogs, starting their season has the boy and his buddy Chester excited and practising enthusiastically. But after tryouts for the season, Chester is placed on another team and is ready to give up on hockey. Can Brady help his friend see that playing the game is the fun part and that they'll always be best buddies?

From Brady Brady: Teammate Turnaround by Mary Shaw, illus. by Chuck Temple

After Chester learns that he has been placed on another team, he dumps all his goalie equipment at the front of the arena with a note, "Free equipment. No longer needed." While the two wait in Chester's dad's car, Brady reminds him that "We're gonna win the Stanley Cup together one day" and "We can still play hockey together. On my backyard rink, in my basement, on my driveway." But when the boys rush back into the arena to retrieve Chester's equipment, it's already gone. 

From Brady Brady: Teammate Turnaround by Mary Shaw, illus. by Chuck Temple

So begins a search for the missing goalie pads, stick and bag. They enlist the help of a group of kids hanging out in the lobby to search the change rooms, the washroom, the concession stand and finally the lost and found room. High up on a shelf, the equipment sits. But reaching it becomes a problem for the children. Together, working as team, they construct a human pyramid to retrieve Chester's equipment, before he realizes that these kids are the Rink Rattlers, the team to which he has been assigned.

From Brady Brady: Teammate Turnaround by Mary Shaw, illus. by Chuck Temple

Chuck Temple's diverse kids with the quirky smiles and palpable enthusiasm for hockey are the right composite of cartoon and lifelikeness, quirky and real to keep the story fun, funny and truthful. So many kids love playing sports but dread playing with kids they don't know. We all love the familiar to some degree, especially in new situations. By making Chester's story about finding friends to help him out, before even heading onto the ice, Mary Shaw upholds the quote (attribution vague) that "There are no strangers, just friends you haven't yet met." It's no surprise that Chester feels comfortable playing with the Rink Rattlers now that he knows who they are and that his friendship with Brady is not at stake. 

Ultimately, Chester "knew it didn't matter what uniform he was wearing as long as he was playing the sport he loved." With their overwhelming enthusiasm for hockey, these kids would make any team, whether Icehogs or Rattlers or something else, remarkable because they knew how to work together to accomplish something great.

••••••••••••••••

A number of Brady Brady stories have been published, including 3 collections and several French-language versions. Check them out at Scholastic Canada or at the Brady Brady website.

Uncle Holland

Written by JonArno Lawson

Illustration by Natalie Nelson

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-929-4

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

April 2017

Oh, Uncle Holland, he is a scamp! From the time he was a child (and not yet an uncle), Holland was always getting into trouble.  Seems Holland, one of three boys born to Palmer and Ella Lawson (note the last name connection to the author), liked helping himself to pretty things.  After being caught by the police for the thirty-seventh time (!), Holland is given the choice of jail or the army. Though his mother and brothers are devastated, his father "decided to spend the rest of this life watching his fish swim around in his fish tank" because "Fish can't disappoint me." (pg. 11) His mother takes some solace that her son, though a thief, was never a liar.  Holland chooses the army.

From Uncle Holland 

by JonArno Lawson 

illus. by Natalie Nelson

At the southern location to which Holland is sent, there are many splendid and tempting things like palm trees, parrots, flowers and exquisite fish but none he can slip into his pockets.  So Holland chooses to capture the beauty of the fish in paintings, even making some money selling this art. But when he sends money home, his parents are concerned about the origin of that money.  Fortunately, he is able to tell them truthfully that the money was not stolen but instead that he had learned that he could sell pictures of pretty things since "Not everything that's pretty can be stuffed in your pockets."(pg. 30)

You know there's probably more to this story than told here by JonArno Lawson, the author behind the wildly successful Sidewalk Flowers (illustrated by Sydney Smith; Groundwood, 2015), especially since his Author's Note explains that Holland was his Uncle Holland.  But Uncle Holland, the book, is still able to tell a story, caution children about stealing and telling lies, and provide reassurance that one can turn things around.  Okay, we know that you can't turn everything around (some illnesses, death, legal issues, etc.) but I think children would be comforted to know that sometimes you'll get a second chance (even thirty-seven of them) to make things right, though family might appear to turn their backs on you.

American illustrator Natalie Nelson's art, collages of mixed media, are both mischievous and sobering, not unlike Holland's situation.  There is gravitas associated with his infamous acts, often illustrated in neutral shades of black and greys, with only smidgens of colour in tears and fish in water.  Not until Holland is in the southern climes, witnessing beauty that must remain because he cannot squirrel it away, that the colours become vibrant and the art more playful.

From Uncle Holland 

by JonArno Lawson 

illus. by Natalie Nelson

Every family has a relative or two (or many) with incredible stories, some nefarious, some ridiculous, but we don't always like to share those embarrassing anecdotes.  That's unfortunate because they can be, like Uncle Holland, amusing learning and character-building opportunities. Thank you, JonArno Lawson, for choosing to share yours with young readers.

An Inheritance of Ashes

by Leah Bobet
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers
978-0544281110
388 pp.
Ages 12+
October 2015
Reviewed from advance reading copy

An Inheritance of Ashes is a dark tale.  A dark, dark tale. And, though it has supernatural elements, An Inheritance of Ashes is a familiar tale of fears and love and heroes and isolation and pride, and family.  And it has a force within.  A force that good may come from evil.

The emptiness grew, and split, and ate the whole world in its wake.  It was never going to be all right again. (pg. 126)

Hallie, 16, and her sister, Marthe, 26, both inherited Roadstead Farm from their abusive father, and now run it–raising barley, goats, poultry, etc.–with Marthe’s husband, Thom Clarlund, or they did until Thom went to war against the Wicked God and his general and prophet Asphodel Jones and army of irregulars, and their creatures, nay monsters, everyone calls Twisted Things.  Though the two young women are cautiously hopeful of Thom’s return, now that a man named John Balsam who “by magic, skill or cunning killed the Wicked God” (pg. 23), Hallie and Marthe take on a vet named Heron for whom “No one’s waiting for me to turn life normal again” (pg. 13) to help with the harvest and running the farm.  

But things are far from normal at the farm. Twisted Things begin to appear, one here, another there, killing the air, burning whatever they touch, contaminating the remnants of their lives.  And Hallie worries that the Great Army, desperately searching for John Balsam, will quarantine the farm, if not take it away from them.  Though Hallie is reluctant to ask for help, Heron and their neighbours, the Blakeley’s, come to their assistance.  Moreover, even though Hallie recognizes that, because of the abuse of their father, “We were ruined for loving people.  We were ruined for being loved” (pg. 244), Tyler Blakely who has his own war ghosts begins to court her and, with his sister Nat and Heron, help her recognize that she doesn’t have to take on the evil alone, or hide or run from that which seems too much. “We made each other less alone.” (pg. 272)

There are things not of our world in An Inheritance of Ashes, and there are things that were never of their world either, including a Wicked God that is more storm than substance and bird- and lizard-like creatures that burn and kill that which they touch, and a violent purple and green world that is evident only through a hole in the air.  But fighting evil and finding strength with others and holding onto that which is everything–a home, family, friends–are our world, and Leah Bobet easily supplants readers from their comforts into the darkness of Hallie’s world.  Rife with atmosphere and Hallie’s longing for rightness, An Inheritance of Ashes demonstrates that what we get from family is not always what is expected.  If might be an inheritance of a family farm, or of fear, or isolation, but it can be the fortitude to continue on, when all expect failure to reverberate.  And, with powerfully evocative text, Leah Bobet allows Hallie and others in An Inheritance of Ashes to sift through the cinders and residue after a horror and find something worth keeping.