Raw Talent

Written by Jocelyn Shipley

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-1834-7

138 pp.

Ages 11-14

August 2018

Everyone wants to help out Sunflower Farm, the family farm of Stonehill High students Vanessa and Heath. Since the death of their father, their mother has been struggling to keep the farm running and the school community is coming together for Farmshine, a performance and market fundraiser.  Raw Talent's narrator, Paisley who is Heath's Grade 9 classmate, intends to volunteer with her best friend Jasmeer but what Paisley really wants to do is perform. Her ambition is to be a singer-songwriter and she has no problem posting videos of herself performing but her stage fright is discouraging her from signing up to sing at Farmshine.  With a mother who is an accomplished flutist with the symphony and a university music teacher, Paisley is just not sure she can cut it on stage.

With celebrated singer-actor Maxine Gaston staying at Jasmeer's parents' B & B while her local home is being renovated and she is performing at the Stratford Festival, Jasmeer arranges for her to coach Paisley to help get over her performance anxiety.  Maxine Gaston is a great help but Paisley, who has much to overcome because of a disastrous audition at age 10 with the award-winning Sweetland Singers, is being harassed online, by phone and in person by Cadence, the self-important girlfriend of Heath and soloist with the Sweetland Singers.  Can Paisley get beyond her insecurities about her lower singing voice and Cadence's nastiness to stand up in front of an audience and do what she loves?

Raw Talent is a feel-good hi-lo novel for older middle graders and young teens. While written at an easier reading level, Raw Talent's story, part of the Orca Limelights series based in the performance arts, will resonant with young teens aspiring to new endeavours but unsure of their abilities. Jocelyn Shipley makes sure that the reader realizes that having a dream is futile if you don't set goals to achieve it.  It's up to Paisley to decide what she can and cannot do. Not her mother, not Cadence, not the director of the Sweetland Singers. Just her. She might have been devastated when she didn't get into the Sweetland Singers but she found a way to continue singing and performing albeit in the privacy of her room while still sharing it publicly. Then, with Maxine's coaching, she has the opportunity to take steps forward. Though not easy, especially with self-doubt and bullying that erodes her confidence, Paisley steps up. Jocelyn Shipley doesn't just hand Paisley the opportunity, though.  She makes sure the girl works for what she wants. Maxine Gaston is encouraging but she is not effusive and she makes it clear that, if Paisley isn't willing to put herself out there, she's not going to bother coaching her. That could be an "ouch" moment, but it's not because it's a challenge that Paisley accepts. Similarly, the bullying that Paisley experiences via Cadence is nasty but impactful and still she finds the means eventually to toss it off with a "Whatever". 

Whether Jocelyn Shipley intended, she's affirming Nietzsche's belief that "That which does not kill, makes us stronger".  Paisley's performance anxiety and Cadence's bullying can't stop her and, in fact, they give her the opportunity to be more than she could have imagined for herself.

Fatima and the Clementine Thieves

Written by Mireille Messier

Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-529-5

32 pp.

Ages 5-8

July 2017

In 2012, Fatima et les voleurs de clémentines was published by Éditions de la Bagnole and it promptly won the 2012 Prix jeunesse de l’Alliance française and was nominated for the 2013 Forest of Reading Tamarac Express award.  Now, five years later, English readers can share in this heartwarming story based on an African proverb that says “When spider webs unite, they can stop elephants.”  It’s a story of a defeat by the small and insignificant of the large and strong and ominous.  It’s a Moroccan spider vs elephant tale and the winners are Fatima and her grandfather and their clementine orchard.

From Fatima and the Clementine Thieves 

by Mireille Messier 

illus. by Gabrielle Grimard

Fatima helps her grandfather in their clementine orchard.  They are looking forward to having enough to take to market so that they can buy fish and pistachios and olives and perhaps a treat of almond paste.  And with her friends, the spiders, keeping the bugs from the trees–she treats them to clementines peeled into flower shapes as a thank-you– Fatima's anticipation is great.

From Fatima and the Clementine Thieves 

by Mireille Messier 

illus. by Gabrielle Grimard 

But the young girl and her grandfather awake to broken branches, trampled fruit and even uprooted trees. A nighttime vigil reveals a mother and two baby elephants are the culprits, surprising Fatima's grandfather who declares elephants have not been seen in the area for centuries.  Though they try to scare the animals off with noise and water and even throwing pistachios at them, the elephants continue to do their damage.

Grandfather in his traditional djellaba and turban and belgha slippers seeks out the advice of others in the market, finally relenting to the purchase of a rifle.  But Fatima is sure there has to be a better way to save their clementines.

Fatima enlists the help of her seemingly insignificant spiders–she actually asks them and they agree–to spin a thick wall of spider webs, thwarting the elephants whose way is blocked.

"You have saved the orchard!"
"AND we saved the elephants," adds Fatima, proudly.
"You may be small, but what you have done is very big." (pg. 29)

The message in Mireille Messier's text is very clear: even the smallest, most insignificant creature can achieve astounding success when united in purpose and working with determination.  By setting the story in a land of clementines and elephants, she has honoured a very African saying and acknowledged the moral without leaving the continent from which it arises.  Fatima and the Clementine Thieves celebrates a culture of which many Canadian children will be unfamiliar but about which they will appreciate learning, especially since they are undoubtedly familiar with daunting tasks.  Learning a new math skill or studying for a test or dealing with family dramas may not be the same as an elephant destroying your clementine orchard but they are all predicaments or stresses one must handle.  As such, children will be able to empathize with the plight of Gabrielle Grimard's Fatima and Grandfather who appear kindly and sympathetic because of her soft artwork that always emotes beyond the page. (Previous reviews of her artwork include When I Was Eight, Not My Girl, and The Fabulous World of Mr. Fred.)

Fatima and the Clementine Thieves is a feel-good story about problem-solving and triumph and purposeful work. Thank you to Mireille Messier and Gabrielle Grimard for giving all readers a wonderful back story for every clementine we might enjoy in future and for a new illustrated lesson on achieving success with little but determination and a united front.

From Fatima and the Clementine Thieves 

by Mireille Messier 

illus. by Gabrielle Grimard

🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊

Author Mireille Messier launches Fatima and the Clementine Thieves this Saturday in Toronto.  This free event will take place at the Indigo at Yonge and Eglinton. Details are listed here.

A Year of Borrowed Men

by Michelle Barker

Illustrated by Renné Benoit

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-83-5

40 pp.

Ages 6-9

November 2015

Of course young readers will always hear of the brutality of war.  It's in the news, in video games, in the movies.  But picture books can illustrate the kindnesses shown during war, the ones that keep people from truly becoming barbarians.  A Year of Borrowed Men is one such enlightening and enlightened read that will touch young readers and the adults fortunate to find this book and share it with them, whether it be in classrooms or home.

Based on Michelle Barker’s mother’s childhood memories of Germany in the final year of World War II, A Year of Borrowed Men recounts the time when three French prisoners of war–Gabriel, Fermaine and Albert–come to live and help on the family farm.  Seven-year-old Gerda sees them as “borrowed men”, on loan just until the ones the German government borrowed from their community to aid in the war effort, including her Papi, are returned.

The family which includes Gerda, her mother, one brother and three sisters knows that they are supposed to treat the men like prisoners, forcing them to sleep in the area off the animals’ barn.  But Gerda comes to see the men as “our French family: gentle Gabriel, prickly Fermaine, and cheerful Albert, who loved games” (pg. 9).  Though trouble arises when the local police are notified by a neighbour of a simple kindness the family shows the men, Gerda and her mother continue to  interact with them in a familial way, seeking ways  to make their lives a little more pleasant, a kindness which they extend back to the Schottke family.

The story in A Year of Borrowed Men ends with the liberation of the “borrowed men” and their departure for home but the message that generosity of spirit goes on forever is a meaningful one at this time of year.  Released on Remembrance Day, A Year of Borrowed Men will be a valuable and touching read for years to come in classrooms commemorating those whose lives were touched by war.  But on the cusp of Christmas–also a memorable event in the story–A Year of Borrowed Men will speak to inherent kind-heartedness and be a reminder to demonstrate our humanity even in the most challenging of circumstances.   The potential, unspoken, that the Schottke family’s adherence to the golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” might extend to their own family members away at war, is undeniable.  But their charity to strangers in a time of war, when others only demonstrate anger and suspicion, is a worthwhile lesson in empathy.  Michelle Barker gets the tone right for this message, telling her mother’s story simply and forthrightly, as a child might see the circumstances.  The fear and confusion is there but it is superseded by a fundamental goodness to do what is right.  Look at Renné Benoit’s unassuming illustrations of this child, this farm, the men and relive a simple though still harsh time, when war was horrific but there was a gentleness that could still be found. Thank goodness.

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.

Summer's On! A youngCanLit Picture Book list

Time to go on summer holidays, enjoy or endure vacations with or without family, and savour our Canadian summer, whether it be on the coast, in the city, in the north or in the bush, or even away.  Summer's on!

PICTURE BOOKS

Are We There Yet?

by Nancy Crystal

Scholastic

32 pp.
Ages 3-7
1991

Camping

by Nancy Hundal

Illustrated by Brian Deines

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

32 pp.

Ages 8-11

2002        

Checkers and Dot at the Beach
by J. Torres
Illustrated by J. Lum
16 pp.
Ages 0-3
2012

Dippers

by Barbara Nichol

Illustrated by Barry Moser

Tundra Books

32 pp.

Ages 8+

1997

The Fishing Summer

by Teddy Jam

Illustrated by Ange Zhang

Groundwood

32 pp.

Ages 4-9
1997

Goldsworthy and Mort in Summer Fun

by Marcia Vaughan

Illustrated by Linda Hendry

HarperCollins

64 pp.

Ages 5-6
1990

In the Tree House

by Andrew Larson

Illustrated by Dušan Petricic

Kids Can Press

32 pp.

Ages 5-10

2013

Kitten's Summer

by Eugenie Fernandes

Kids Can Press

24 pp.

Ages 1-4
2011

Mayfly

by Marthe Jocelyn

Tundra Books

32 pp.

Ages 2-7
2004

My Family Vacation   

by Dayal Kaur Khalsa

Tundra Books

24 pp.
Ages 6-9
2003

Nana's Summer Surprise

by Heather Hart-Sussman

Illustrated by Georgia Graham

Tundra Books

32 pp.

Ages 5-7
2013

A Prairie Boy's Summer
by William Kurelek
Tundra Books
48 pp.
Ages 8-12
1975

Prairie Summer
by Nancy Hundal
Illustrated by Brian Deines
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
34 pp.
1999

Ready for Summer

by Marthe Jocelyn

Tundra Books

16 pp.

Ages 1-3
2008

Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach

by Mélanie Watt

Kids Can Press

32 pp.

Ages 5-10
2008

Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping

by Mélanie Watt

Kids Can Press

32 pp.

Ages 5-10
2013
Reviewed here

Simon in Summer

by Gilles Tibo

Tundra Books

24 pp.

Ages 3-8
1991

The Summer of the Marco Polo
by Lynn Manuel
Illustrated by Kasia Charko
Orca Book Publishers
32 pp.
2007

Travels for Two: Stories and Lies from My Childhood

by Stephane Poulin

Annick Press

32 pp.

Ages 5-8
1991

The Twelve Days of Summer

by Jan Andrews

Illustrated by Susan Rennick Jolliffe

Orca

32 pp.

Ages 4-8
2005

When We Go Camping

by Margriet Ruurs

Illustrated by Andrew Kiss

Tundra Books

32 pp.

Ages 6-8

2001

Zoe's Sunny Day

by Barbara Reid

Scholastic Canada

10 pp.

Ages 1-3

2001

The Woefield Poultry Collective

Written by Susan Juby
HarperCollins Canada
978-1554687442
336 pp.
Ages 14+
2011

Reviewed from audiobook
Audible Audio edition
ASIN: B006ODFCK0
Narrated by Carter Hayden, Kate Griffin, Jennifer Walls, Michael Fletcher
7 hours, 51 minutes
2011

Whether reading the hardcopy or ebook or listening to the audiobook of The Woefield Poultry Collective, ensure that you are in a secure location where your outbursts (n.b. plural) will not disturb others, because they will be frequent and they will be hearty. Luckily they won't be prolonged because there isn't time to laugh endlessly - the next chortle is imminent.  So you will end up laughing, looking around to make sure you haven't caught anyone's attention, continue reading and then laugh again.  Ah, it's a vicious cycle.  But, if you need to explain, just tell your audience to read Susan Juby's The Woefield Poultry Collective to fully comprehend the nature of your lack of self-control and note that it had been shortlisted for the 2012 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. 

Though an apartment-dwelling New Yorker, Prudence Burns lives by the principles and practices of environmental responsibility.  She has vermi-composting with red wigglers; she installed solar panels; she passionately sorts her waste for recycling; she buys organic, free-trade and local; and her only foray into writing, a YA novel titled, "The Sun Doesn't Always Forgive," focuses on the consequences of global warming.  Luckily for her, just as her relationship with the pompous Leo goes down the tubes and she considers her options for a career, she inherits Woefield Farm from her great uncle, Harold, her only relative and one she'd never met.

Convinced her dream has come true, Prudence embraces the opportunity to become a farmer and packs herself up to move to Woefield Farm, a scrubby piece of land off the coast of B.C.  With her passion for challenges and all things earthly, Prudence sees the limitless potential in the overgrown, rocky land with its old house, burned down barn, Bertie, the half-sheared sheep, and the elderly curmudgeon, Earl, who lives at the cabin on the property.

With her energetic charm, Prudence has no problems drawing people to her vision and to helping out, usually without them even realizing they've been snagged by her.  First, there's Hugh the cabbie who drops her off at Woefield.  Then it's Earl, the cantankerous banjo playing, TV documentary fan, who was her uncle's right-hand man, who first sticks around to protect and advise Prudence but ultimately grows to care, in his own way, for her passionate ways. Then, Seth, an alcoholic, heavy metal and celebrity gossip blogger, who has secluded himself for a few years (there was an unfortunate incident at the high school) until his mother kicks him out, joins the farm.  Finally, eleven-year-old Junior Poultry Fancier, Sara Spratt, becomes a regular fixture at Woefield after Mrs. Spratt pays to have a coop built there to house her daughter's chickens.

Prudence learns from the bank that Woefield is essentially a negative asset and she is responsible for paying the mortgage, a home equity loan and long-overdue taxes and bills.  But, far from discouraged, Prudence finds the means to make Woefield the farm of her dreams, armed only with her limitless energy, menagerie of sidekicks, and positive attitude.

The Woefield Poultry Collective has been acclaimed as adult humour but I believe that teens in high school would delight in Prudence's story, especially as Susan Juby's skills are founded in YA literature.  Prudence may be a twenty-something character, but her voice and those of Susan Juby's other characters are so distinctive and familiar that teens will revel in their humour and odd perspectives.  Seth, from whom expletives pour like beer, may be twenty-one but he's still living in his high school years since having never graduated or achieved closure after the "incident" at the school play.  Sara may be smart enough to manage in a dysfunctional family and share her knowledge of poultry practices, but she is still a child, naive enough to misunderstand Seth's drunkedness, her dad's "misappropriateness" at the bank (which cost him his job) and Earl's swearing and lack of initiative.  With Susan Juby's evocative text, the narrators on the audiobook of The Woefield Poultry Collective do not just read the words, they become their characters.  Listen to a preview of it at Audible.com to share in the flavour that is Earl.

While Prudence may seem far too upbeat and environmentally-conscious for some readers, I know a few persons just like her, and the virtue that is Prudence's is that she doesn't preach or tell others how to live their lives.  Even when Seth is falling down drunk, Prudence tries to find a way to help rather than just berate him.  She's just the embodiment of the old adage, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade."  Prudence makes lemonade with sparkly ice-cubes made of well water.