Wild Trails to the Sea

 

Written by Penelope Jackson

 Illustrated by Elena Skoreyko Wagner

Nimbus Publishing

978-1-77471-273-3

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

April 2024

 

Wild Trails to the Sea is a reflection of parents who are hopeful for children to enjoy play in the natural worlds of shorelines, oceans, and forests but it reads like a love song to their children, to nature and all its elements, and to curiosity and exploration. 

From Wild Trails to the Sea, words by Penelope Jackson, art by Elena Skoreyko Wagner

The day begins with a mother carrying her young daughter and looking out the window at the dawn and hoping "the peepers always wake you a little too early." And then there are a multitude of days of outdoor play, with parents watching and interacting and showing and learning as their little ones explore wild areas. It's taking off your shoes to feel the sand and rocks beneath your feet. Or tasting spruce tips. Or leaping into freezing waves. It's going from spring when the first mayflower opens to the summer of bathing suits and hot sands, and then to fall when they "climb the tallest hill to watch whirls of colour tumbling toward the ocean" and winter to fling pebbles onto an icy pond. It's a full year and life in the outdoors for this family and these children, and one that will become a tradition for generations.

From Wild Trails to the Sea, words by Penelope Jackson, art by Elena Skoreyko Wagner

Halifax's Penelope Jackson has a story to tell, whether of her own childhood or that of other children. She tells it with an almost perceptible sigh of contentment and respect and awe. The natural world is one of wonder, one of extraordinary treasures to be appreciated. Penelope Jackson's text is written in free verse but it is still rhythmic without rhyming. Her words are cadenced, almost like a song, and it is a song of hopes for children to experience their natural worlds and for nature to be recognized and valued. And it is the promise that that wonder will extend beyond themselves.

I hope that when you are grown

and making pathways of your own

you still follow every salty wind...

and walk the wild trails to the sea.

That sensibility of Penelope Jackson's words is matched with Elena Skoreyko Wagner's collage art. With an eye to both colour and shape, Elena Skoreyko Wagner, originally from Nova Scotia and now of the UK, creates vignettes that are so textured that they seem almost tangible. Whether it's a child's hair being tossed by the wind, or the layers of spruce and pine tree branches in a forest, or smoke curling from a bonfire, Elena Skoreyko Wagner has found a way to bring a new dimensionality to the people and landscapes of Wild Trails to the Sea.

From Wild Trails to the Sea, words by Penelope Jackson, art by Elena Skoreyko Wagner

We may not all have access to a maritime location, but we all have opportunities to get out and play and discover. While Wild Trails to the Sea speaks to one family and the joy and experiential learning of outdoor play, it reminds us that there is much promise if we just open our eyes and take in our surroundings for more than just a backdrop to our structured and scheduled lives.

The Halifax Explosion: 6 December 1917, at 9:05 in the Morning

Written by Afua Cooper

Design and illustration by Rebecca Bender 

Plumleaf Press

978-1-7782428-0-9

36 pp.

All ages

For release August 2023

 

On December 6, 1917, two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. The Mont-Blanc was carrying munitions, and the Imo was carrying war supplies. When the two collided, the devastation was extraordinary. Almost 2000 individuals lost their lives, with approximately 9000 injured, and whole communities disappeared. Buildings collapsed, fires erupted, and a tsunami was created. Certain stories from the explosion are memorialized, like Vince Coleman's telegraph message that saved 300 train passengers from certain death. But there are so many stories, and the ones of African Nova Scotians who lived or died in the explosion need to be recognized. So, Dr. Afua Cooper has done just this in her free verse poem.

From The Halifax Explosion: 6 December 1917, at 9:05 in the Morning by Afua Cooper, design and illustration by Rebecca Bender

Her poem begins with naming the two ships and their purposes for being in Halifax Harbour. The text is differentiated with different coloured fonts, bolding of certain words and enlarged text for emphasis. Dr. Afua Cooper's words don't just tell, they emote. The explosion as a result of the collision in monumental.

The sound of

          terror

   The sound of death

Armageddon

The angel blowing the trumpet of destruction (pg. 10-11)

Its destruction is palpable in her words. 

And the City of Halifax gave one long

                           piercing scream

into the bowels of the Earth

           And the Earth moved furiously

                        Belched and vomited

                                         flames (pg. 12)

But then she speaks of the people, and specifically the Black people of Halifax. Some got to work like Clement Ligoure, a Black doctor from Trinidad, though his efforts were not dignified with the support he required. Some were lost and never returned, like Edward Hickey, a dock worker, and little Aldora Andrews. Some survived but with devastating injuries. And many others lived but had everything they'd worked their lives for taken away. Yet, they had greater fights ahead because "Old Jim Crow raised his nasty head". (pg. 19)

From The Halifax Explosion: 6 December 1917, at 9:05 in the Morning by Afua Cooper, design and illustration by Rebecca Bender

The Halifax Explosion was a tragedy. And it was all the more crushing for the racism African Nova Scotians were still subjected to in its aftermath. With The Halifax Explosion: 6 December 1917, at 9:05 in the Morning, Halifax's seventh poet laureate, Dr. Afua Cooper, goes beyond the event and instead goes with the people. She does give the basic facts, including in the "Historical Note" at the end, but her poem does more than just recount the tragedy. With powerful and weighty words, she makes us see and feel for the disaster and how African Nova Scotians were impacted. Her words come from a place beyond the archives. Unlike most picture books in which the illustrations carry much of a story's weight, The Halifax Explosion rests squarely on Dr. Afua Cooper's words. (The poem in its entirety is posted at the conclusion of the book.) Perhaps that's why there is much austerity in the cover and the artwork. The impact of the devastation is well-documented, and key photographs were used to support the details. However, by blending historical photographs with only occasional illustrations by Rebecca Bender, the book goes beyond the reality and extends to the humanity, even if that benevolence was sadly lacking towards African Nova Scotians at the time.
 

There is power in Dr. Afua Cooper's poem of African Nova Scotians whose stories are little known and perhaps less remembered. However, remembered they should be. There are those whose legacies are solid in Canadian history beyond the Halifax explosion, such as Viola Desmond and Dr. Clement Ligoure, but then there are those whose deaths are perhaps not even recorded, or their injuries and losses disavowed. Dr. Afua Cooper tells us their names and about their families. She acknowledges them. The last words of her poem are "Does Halifax remember?" With her poem, they are less lost and truly commemorated.

From The Halifax Explosion: 6 December 1917, at 9:05 in the Morning by Afua Cooper, design and illustration by Rebecca Bender

Sometimes I Feel Like a River

Written by Danielle Daniel

Illustrated by Josée Bisaillon

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-695-0

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

March 2023

 

In 2015, Danielle Daniel brought us Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox to help her own child identify with his First Nations roots and allow other children to see themselves in the strengths and behaviours of animals. Now, Danielle Daniel has teamed up with illustrator Josée Bisaillon to take children on another sensory experience, one in which her poems reflect feelings as landscape elements from rivers to oceans and even the moon.

From Sometimes I Feel Like a River by Danielle Daniel, illus. by Josée Bisaillon

In four-line free verses, Danielle Daniel compares children's moods to how they experiences different environmental attributes. When a child feels like the sun, there is brightness and joy inside of them. If one feels like a river, it's because there is bending and maneuvering around obstacles. Another feels strong like a mountain, another peaceful like the sky, and others feels like rain or rainbows. All moods are reflected and recognized.

From Sometimes I Feel Like a River by Danielle Daniel, illus. by Josée Bisaillon

Just as there are different moods, there are different children, ensuring that all young readers might see themselves within and know that they and their feelings are validated.

From Sometimes I Feel Like a River by Danielle Daniel, illus. by Josée Bisaillon

Sometimes I Feel Like a River is a lovely meditative reflection in sensory metaphors. Both in Danielle Daniel's verse and in Josée Bisaillon's art, the emotions that are reflected are true, emulating both the range of experiences within and as a part of our natural world. Danielle Daniel's words take us into the smile of a rainbow, the "boom, roar, bang" of thunder or the depths of an ocean. We feel through her words what the child feels. But the feelings are not just internal. They are also connecting with the outside world and that's what Danielle Daniel wants us to do. She completes her book with a text called "A Mindful Walk or Roll" to help children take an excursion into nature to see and feel, to hear and smell. She wants children to know that they reflect the world as the world is part of them.

 

Because Josée Bisaillon uses a variety of media, including soft and wax pastels, cut paper, coloured pencils, gouache, charcoal, and even digital art, she can depict a full range of emotions and textures of place and people. Whether a child is reaching mountain peaks into the clouds or swimming in the colourful underwater world of an ocean, Josée Bisaillon delivers us into the experience.

Even after feeling the full range of emotions portrayed through Danielle Daniel's words and Josée Bisaillon's illustrations, I was left subdued and in a contemplative mood, pondering my own natural world of snow and trees and sun. Sometimes I Feel Like a River made me feel part of something, something bigger and more important. It's a good feeling.

Fly

Written by Alison Hughes

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-0583-2

200 pp.

Ages 10-14

October 2022

 

...my body is not all that I am. (pg. 40)

Fly is what 14-year-old Felix Landon Yarrow (a.k.a. Fly per his initials) dreams of doing. In his dreams, he is no longer trapped in a wheelchair by cerebral palsy. He is free to spread his arms and soar.

            My disability,

                         my difficulties,

                                               my pain–

often on public display–

are

in fact

all my own.

                                       Private. (pg. 59)

But, Felix is in a wheelchair. And though he feels very much like his pain is often on public display, whether he is working with his aide Levi or being driven in the "special" school bus, he knows that he is invisible to many, especially his peers. Still, that invisibility becomes his superpower, with Felix becoming a "Fly on the Wall" and ready to emulate his literary guide, Cervantes's Don Quixote, and follow truth and justice. His quest: to save his classmate and damsel in distress, Daria, from the arrogant and dangerous Carter.

As Felix watches and learns, he becomes Knightwatch and emails warnings to Daria about Carter and to Carter that his heinous and potentially criminal behaviour has been observed. But, like Don Quixote, along with battles with enemies come inner battles of understanding of self. 

Fly, a novel in free verse, may have a contemporary setting but its story is as classic as that of Don Quixote. It's about finding inner strength and fighting against injustices. But author Alison Hughes makes sure the reader realizes that much of this is also about perception. Told in Felix's voice, the reader will sympathize with his constrained physical nature and applaud his courage to pursue chivalrous goals of protecting first Daria and then others from oppressors. Going after Carter gives Felix purpose, though he doesn't realize until the end that his manner of attack may leave others vulnerable. His goal is outward, to help others, but the learning he takes from his endeavour is all about him and what he needs to do to be fair. The growth that Felix experiences, moving from annoyance at how others judge and treat him to appreciation for efforts others make, is a monumental one. And Alison Hughes takes the readers along on that epic journey through her elegant free verse. The writing flows and has shape that comes with self-discovery, engagement with others and context of circumstances. Felix's story takes a form not unlike his own body, both vulnerable and combative, and we're there for the moment of battle, within and externally, when Felix realizes that some of the limitations to the freedom to fly may be those he's imposed on himself.

What Cats Think

Art by Mies van Hout

Text by John Spray

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-087-1

44 pp.

Ages 6-10

October 2019

Dutch illustrator Mies van Hout has created a series of cat drawings to which author John Spray has matched what a cat might be thinking or feeling or doing or wishing. Each cat may be unique in its colour–rarely the grey, black, orange, brown and white cats of our world– but their expressions and their motives will be very familiar to cat-lovers while letting us into their minds and hearts to learn What Cats Think.

From What Cats Think, art by Mies van Hout, text by John Spray

In brilliant colours of lime green and red, turquoise and purple, Mies van Hout's art, created with acrylics, oil and gouache, startle and comfort the reader with an array of cats. They are skinny and scared, obese and wise, and playful and sneaky. They are no one's cat and they are everyone's cat. 

For each one, John Spray imagines what the cat feels and is experiencing (e.g., vexed, teased, worried, spooked, angry, flustered, panic, joy), what it needs to do (e.g., charm, capture, pout, dream, wash), how it acts (e.g., curious, sneaky) and who they are (e.g., grandmother, princess, clever Tom). It is in the creation of scenarios that John Spray illustrates with words what Mies van Hout's cats say in her art.

Worry

I saw him getting out the cage.

Now it's off to the kitty vet.

Needles and that thermometer–OUCH!

There'd better be treats later!

Shiver...

From What Cats Think, art by Mies van Hout, text by John Spray

The original Dutch book, Dag Poes!, had a handful of Dutch writers provide poetry about cats to accompany Mies van Hout's illustrations. John Spray's text, however, is personal and a true reflection of the thoughts of each cat as it ponders its circumstances. As a cat person, I appreciate every sentiment expressed. We probably already knew that they hate seeing the cat carrier, don't think they were wrong to sneak on the kitchen counter for a bit of turkey, or delight in a catnip toy, though I'm sad to think that my kitty chirps at birds because it's feeling teased and feels threatened by the neighbour's dogs.

Panic
Two big dogs just moved next door!
Slobbery, slathering kitty-eaters!
Maybe I'll hide behind the furnace.
My man says they're only poodles.
Gulp!

From What Cats Think, art by Mies van Hout, text by John Spray

Every cat-lover and -parent knows that cats have a lot going on in their minds and hearts. We may only hear a handful of vocalizations–and most of us can recognize their basics of demands for food, expressions of annoyance, yearnings to play, cravings for solitude–but there is so much more than to understand. With What Cats Think, Mies van Hout and John Spray have given us the context for cats' looks and sounds that will remind us of the depth of feline reasoning and expression. It's not surprising to many that cats have been celebrated and worshipped throughout history and it's best we not forget this.

Grandmother from What Cats Think, art by Mies van Hout, text by John Spray

🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈

Get this in your calendar as

 John Spray and his publisher Pajama Press 

are launching 

What Cats Think

on

Saturday, December 7, 2019

6 - 8 p.m.

at

Queen Books

914 Queen St. E.

Toronto, ON

Though there will be hors d'oeuvres and drinks, I think the best reason to show up and purchase an autographed copy is that the author's royalties are being donated to Toronto Cat Rescue.

Novels in verse: Updating a great booklist

Recently I've had multiple requests from readers asking about novels in verse, a genre which is becoming more plentiful but which still isn't recognized as it should be. I had put together a post over six and a half years ago about youngCanLit written in free verse (see that original post here) and listed 12 titles. In a few short years, that list has more than doubled. I'm pleased to share with you this updated book list of one of my favourite genres, the novel written in free verse style.  Enjoy!

Ann and Seamus
Written by Kevin Major
Groundwood Books
108 pp.
Ages 13+
2003

The Apprentice's Masterpiece: A Story of Medieval Spain
Written by Melanie Little
Annick Press
310 pp.
Ages 12+
2009

Audacious
Written by Gabrielle Prendergast
Orca Book Publishers
336 pp.
Ages 14+
2013

Burn
Written by Alma Fullerton
Dancing Cat Books
255 pp.
Ages 10-14
2010

Capricious
Written by Gabrielle Prendergast
Orca Book Publishers
352 pp.
Ages 14+
2014

Closing Down Heaven
Written by Lesley Choyce
Red Deer Press
176 pp.
Ages 12-17
2016
Reviewed here

Counting Back from Nine
Written by Valerie Sherrard
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
198 pp.
Ages 14+
2013
Reviewed here

The Crazy Man
Written by Pamela Porter
Groundwood Books
214 pp.
Ages 8-12
2005

Ebb and Flow
Written by Heather Smith
Kids Can Press
232 pp.
Ages 9-12
2018
Reviewed here

The Gospel Truth
Written by Caroline Pignat
Red Deer Press
328 pp.
Ages 12+
2014
Reviewed here

I’ll be Watching
Written by Pamela Porter
Groundwood Books
280 pp.
Ages 12+
2011
Reviewed here

In The Garage
Written by Alma Fullerton
Red Deer Press
112 pp.
Ages 12+
2006

Jeremy Stone
Written by Lesley Choyce
Red Deer Press
184 pp.
Ages 14-18
2013
Reviewed here

Karma                                  
Written by Cathy Ostlere
Razorbill
544 pp.
Ages 12+
2011

Libertad                               
Written by Alma Fullerton
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
211 pp.
Ages 9-14
2008

Macy McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess
Written by Shari Green
Pajama Press
240 pp.
Ages 8-12
2017
Reviewed here

Missing Mike
Written by Shari Green
Pajama Press
248 pp.
Ages 8-12
2018
Reviewed here

My Book of Life by Angel
Written by Martine Leavitt
Groundwood Books
246 pp.
Ages 14+
2012
Reviewed here

Nix Minus One
Written by Jill MacLean
Pajama Press
296 pp.
Ages 12+
2013
Reviewed here

Prince Puggly of Spud and the Kingdom of Spiff
Written by Robert Paul Weston
Illustrated by Victor Rivas Villa
Puffin
207 pp.
Ages 8-12
2013
Reviewed here

Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles
Written by Shari Green
Pajama Press
240 pp.
Ages 8-12
2016
Reviewed here

Stay
Written by Katherine Lawrence
Coteau Books
128 pp.
Ages 9+
2017
Reviewed here

Walking on Glass
Written by Alma Fullerton
HarperCollins Canada
144 pp.
Ages 14+
2006

Wolf Pack of the Winisk River                                        
Written by Paul Brown
Lobster Press
192 pp.
Ages 12+
2009 

Yellow Mini
Written by Lori Weber
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
234 pp.
Ages 13+
2011

Zorgamazoo
Written by Robert Paul Weston
Razorbill
169 pp.
Ages 9-13
2008

Stay

Written by Katherine Lawrence

Coteau Books

978-1-55050-681-5

128 pp.

Ages 9+

April 2017

Stay is a simple middle-grade novel in its length, its form and its story.  But within those few pages and free verse form is a powerful story of a family in transition and a young girl’s need to make a family from its pieces, adopting a few more bits as required.

With her dead twin brother Billy as her sounding board,

My twin is buried in a wooden box
lined with white silk
soft as dandelion fluff, the stuff I blow
to the wind, to you,
Billy. (pg. 1)

pre-teen Millie attempts to survive the “family squalls” that have sent her father first to the basement and then to his own apartment. After helping to rescue a starving dog, Millie’s desperate longing for a dog becomes an obsession that pervades her days and nights.

Is love like a tree leaf that browns and drops to the ground? If I had a dog, I would love my puppy evergreen. (pg. 30)

But the two-residences situation is a stumbling block to getting a dog–Dad’s building has a no-animals policy and Mum refuses to be responsible when Millie and her older sister Tara are away–as well as to the copacetic custody of the girls, especially after Mom goes off on a weekend with her new love interest and Dad forgets it’s his weekend with his daughters.  Though Millie is convinced she will be saddled with a “companion named Baggage” for the rest of her life, a chance encounter with the compassionate Mrs. Irene Tootoosis, who’d adopted the dog Millie and her friend had saved, and an unexpected cancer diagnosis brings the family together in a new configuration.

Three tents, two canoes, one pup
sounds like a family. (pg. 115)

Though the plot of Stay is relatively straightforward, Katherine Lawrence’s writing is not.  An accomplished writer of several books of poetry for adults, Katherine Lawrence pens a novel in verse so profound and complex in its voice and subtle in its story that rereading Stay will be necessary to appreciate all the nuances.  She gives Millie the freedom to obsess about a dog, talk to her dead brother (and play soccer against his headstone), sneak reading of her mother’s cell phone texts, and  be a good friend, while still looking to reconstruct her family as it was or as it might be.  Stay may be a quick read but it’s one that should not be hurried.  As Millie might attest, staying with it is definitely the preferred option, though it might be a lesson that needs to be learned both by dogs and people.



(A version of this review was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)

Kubiw, H. (2017, June). [Review of the book Stay, by Katherine Lawrence]. Quill & Quire, 83 (5): 35.

A Boy Asked the Wind

by Barbara Nickel

Illustrated by Gillian Newland

Red Deer Press

978-0-889-95480-9

40 pp.

Ages 5-10

November, 2015

It's hard to believe that A Boy Asked the Wind is Barbara Nickel’s first children’s story book, especially as I'd enjoyed her YA book Hannah Waters and the Daughter of Johann Sebastian Bach (Penguin Canada, 2005) and had no idea she is the poet she is. Fortunately Barbara Nickel has applied her skills in verse-writing  and created a story based lovingly on an innocent query asked by her son about where the wind lives.  Thus, A Boy Asked the Wind was born.

The boy may ask his question from the familiar front yard of his house, but the wind cannot answer him without taking him around the world.  A visit to the plains and prairies of the bison and the Blackfoot introduces the boy to the overwhelming Chinook.  But just as the boy is convinced that he now knows where the wind lives, he is taken to the Pacific Ocean and witnesses the Papagayo winds as they increase upwelling and impact marine life. Still the boy does not have the complete answer, though he naively believes he has. Next a visit to South Africa exposes the boy to the Cape Doctor, the strong southeasterly winds that shape the cape and clear town life of its atmospheric debris. And then the Shamal winds toss and storm the sands of Iraq and the Persian Gulf countries, as violent as the soldiers and the violence therein. Finally, as the Shamal dies down for the night, the wind returns the boy to his house and becomes the gentle west wind of his home.

As powerful and as immeasurable as the wind depicted within, A Boy Asked the Wind will take readers on a global journey while overwhelming them with its lyricism and grace.  Barbara Nickel's verse reaches beyond its basic words and traverses the world and careens through its landscapes and people to become unstoppable.

plunging with a mighty whoosh,
horns and hooves, a mighty swish
through dry grass and coulees, rushing
everywhere until the winter vanished. 

Then he and Chinook lingered to whistle
spring into the land, tussled
through shoots of silverweed, flew faster
than homecoming geese, ran past 

a herd of bison pounding, leaping
over the cliff. (pg. 9)

A Boy Asked the Wind, pg. 8, illustration by Gillian Newland

Imagine the complexity of illustrating a book about the wind.  Ask yourself, “What colours and textures, shape and line would best depict an entity so omnipotent?”  Using watercolour, ink and pencil, Gillian Newland easily makes the readers feel that entity, a character that is only line, by focusing on that which the wind touches: plains, bison, ocean, cliffs, deserts, plants and animals, communities.  What she is able to accomplish is both alluring and admirable, not unlike the wind itself.

A Boy Asked the Wind should be on every school and child’s bookshelf as a powerful read about nature’s airstreams but more as the supremacy of wind to shape our worlds and those of others.