Room for More

Written by Michelle Kadarusman

Illustrated by Maggie Zeng

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-252-3

32 pp.

Ages 5-8

June 2022

With fire season upon us, Room for More reminds us of the fragility of habitats and the vulnerability of animals to destruction too often wrought by humans, whether by carelessness or climate change. Fortunately, animal species such as the Australian ones Michelle Kadarusman has highlighted here do better than we do at showing compassion, generosity, flexibility and reciprocity.

From Room for More by Michelle Kadarusman, illus. by Maggie Zeng

Two wombats, Dig and Scratch, know that when they smell the smoke of a bushfire that they will be safe in their deep burrows. But when they hear other animals scurrying for safety outside, Dig offers them shelter, though Scratch keeps reiterating that, "There is no room." Still, Dig tells a wallaby with a joey in her pouch who was already succumbing to the smoke that, "We have plenty of room."

From Room for More by Michelle Kadarusman, illus. by Maggie Zeng

When Dig spots a koala clinging to a tree, he again helps a stranded animal, against Scratch's grumblings of limited space. When a tiger snake is spotted, there is much trepidation about a venomous snake that might bite but Dig is convinced the snake will behave.

From Room for More by Michelle Kadarusman, illus. by Maggie Zeng

Though very snug in the wombats' burrow, the motley group of animals survive until a rain comes and puts out the bushfire. But, with that rain, comes a new worry for the wombats whose home is in danger of flooding. However, their new friends find a way to reciprocate the relief provided, showing a generosity of spirit all around.

 

Australian-born author Michelle Kadarusman's "Author's Note" reveals that Room for More is based on the science that animals other than wombats would find safety in their deep burrows during the horrific bushfires of 2019-2020. Perhaps there weren't discussions between wombats about helping out or animals uniting to engineer an embankment, but Michelle Kadarusman reminds us that all animals, even unlikely allies, can cooperate for greater good and without compulsion for mutual benefit, though in this case that is exactly what happens.  Though the consequences of bushfires are often devastating, Michelle Kadarusman has emphasized a gentler story, that of animals surviving and by unusual means. And that's the good story. But Michelle Kadarusman also gives us the science of Room for More, providing a glossary of the species involved in the story as well as explaining important issues like climate change, environmental disasters and Australian Indigenous land practices.

From Room for More by Michelle Kadarusman, illus. by Maggie Zeng

That gentle touch to what is a heartbreaking and devastating circumstance is emulated in artist Maggie Zeng's digital illustrations. While there is an orange hue of fires and a pall of grey haze to the landscape, Maggie Zeng does not overwhelm the art with angry flames or blackened scenes of destruction. Instead, she takes us to a dry and warm setting that is softened with the kindness of benevolence. In her colours and shapes, Maggie Zeng offers generosity and compassion.

I know teachers will love to share this story with their students whether for STEM lessons regarding habitat, characteristics of living things, different world biomes or climate change or for character education centered on empathy and goodwill but at its heart it is a sweet story that goes beyond teaching by captivating readers and transporting them to other worlds. It would seem there's always room for another fabulous picture book on the youngCanLit shelves.

The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk

by Jan Thornhill

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-865-5

44 pp.

Ages 8-11

October 2016

The story of the Great Auk, a bird of unique anatomy and behaviour, is truly a tragic one, and Jan Thornhill takes great care to ensure the details of that tragedy are thorough, though never explicit, and the basis for some ecological contemplation.

The Great Auk, which inhabited areas of the North Atlantic including Iceland, Greenland, Scandinavia and Newfoundland, was a part of the history of Stone Age humans, the Vikings, the Inuit and the Beothuk, and then that of the Europeans who arrived on North American shores.  The bird was a magnificent bird in size and structure, a lethal fisher spending 10 months of the year in the water.  But, its downfall–or at least a couple factors contributing to it–was advanced by the bird’s inability to fly and its clumsiness on the land upon which their eggs were laid.  Though they laid their eggs in highly-inaccessible areas in order to afford them some protection, humans found ways to reach them and exploit them.

Though the various cultures came to kill the birds for meat, some respectfully ensured that the rest of the animal was not wasted, instead used for clothing, oil, tools, and weapons.  But once the Europeans arrived in North America, the slaughter of the Great Auk went beyond just meeting their needs to survive.  The disappearance of the Great Auk from Funk Island, off the coast of Newfoundland, may have been the canary in the mine shaft but it just encouraged the continued exploration for and exploitation of Great Auks and their eggs for museum and private collections.

From The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk

by Jan Thornhill

Yet in this historical and natural history story, Jan Thornhill who excels at comprehensive but accessible non-fiction for middle-grade readers (e.g., I Found a Dead Bird, Maple Tree Press, 2006; This is My Planet: The Kids’ Guide to Global Warming, Maple Tree Press, 2007; Who Wants Pizza?: The kids’ guide to the history, science and culture of food, Maple Tree Press, 2010) the story of the Great Auk is told with insight and hindsight.  The bird’s own nature limited its ability to adapt and escape humans as predators but the role of humans in the Great Auk’s extinction is sadly obvious.  Still Jan Thornhill, whose illustrations of the bird in various natural situations and a few unnatural ones depict the Great Auk’s former glory and reality, makes a point to note the bird’s extinction in allowing other species, such as the Puffin, to flourish where it once could not.  Sometimes, though not always, there is a silvery lining to a story of extinction.

The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk will be a useful text for talking history, birds, ecology, human interference and so much more–the addenda are very informative–and for opening discussions to help young people address their own role in the natural world and ensuring that world's endurance without our manipulation of it into a sorry state of irreversible destruction.

Kah-Lan The Adventurous Sea Otter: Book Launch (Vancouver and Kelowna)

Celebrate 
Sea Otter Awareness Week, 

Science Literacy Week, 

and 

the launch of children’s author Karen Autio’s new book!

Kah-Lan, the Adventurous Sea Otter

Written by Karen Autio

Illustrated by Sheena Lott

Sono Nis Press

978-1-55039-244-9

64 pp.

Ages 7-12

September, 2015

on Saturday, September 26, 2015

10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

at

Vancouver Aquarium

845 Avison Way

Vancouver, BC

AND

on Saturday, October 3, 2015

2:30 - 4:30 p.m.

at

Okanagan Regional Library

1380 Ellis Street

Kelowna, BC

Special to this event:

Contest for students!

A free author presentation 

for the school or homeschool co-op 

with the most students attending the event

Door prize for teachers!

Draw for a reading circle set of 6 copies 

(donated by Sono Nis Press)
for teachers who attend

Both events include:

• a reading by Karen Autio

• a Q & A with Karen Autio, and 

• a book signing.

Here's the description from Sono Nis Press, the book's publisher, retrieved here:

Kah-Lan, a young sea otter, is hungry. He is sure there are big crabs and sea urchins, his favourite foods, around the point, but his mother won’t let him out of her sight. Then, one day, Kah-Lan sees his chance. He and his friend Yamka race to the point and soon they are swept into danger. At first, the challenges are familiar: strong currents, crashing waves, the open ocean, and Orca, who is hungry too. Then, as the sea otters travel unfamiliar waters, they encounter new and strange dangers: two-legged furless creatures; fearsome, noisy, smelly things that pull log islands; and fish-filled webs that threaten to tangle them up and drag them down. All the while, they struggle to find enough food to keep going. Will they ever get back home? 

The heroic travels of two dynamic and realistic sea otter characters are a wonderful introduction to sea otters, and to the human activities that threaten them. Warm and appealing illustrations by Sheena Lott and a triumphant ending will inspire readers to learn more about these remarkable animals, helped by the factual notes and resources provided by author Karen Autio, who has loved sea otters from first sight.  

This is the fourth book by popular author Autio, and her first foray into illustrated chapter books and natural history.

Giraffe Meets Bird

Written and illustrated by Rebecca Bender
Pajama Press
978-1-927485-35-4
32 pp.
Ages 2-5
May, 2015

Rebecca Bender’s award-winning duo, Giraffe and Bird, from Giraffe and Bird (Dancing Cat Books, 2010) and Don’t Laugh at Giraffe (Pajama Press, 2012), have returned in Giraffe Meets Bird and young readers will finally learn how the two unlikely but perennial friends came to be.

When little Bird emerges from his shell in the very tree which Giraffe has enjoyed, the two begin the dance of friendship, a fascinating play of learning more about each other’s personality quirks.

Then, not unlike many a friendship, a conflict creates a turning point. Scratching himself against the tree, Giraffe accidentally pitches little Bird into the grass, not far from a reclining lion! Giraffe springs into action, saving Bird and ensconcing them safely back in the tree (I know!) to wait out the departure of their potential predator. But then what?

As a teacher I might be tempted to use the text of Giraffe Meets Bird to demonstrate the richness of synonyms (e.g., fascinated/tickled, surprised/amazed, cross/angry) as the pair of creatures respond similarly but differently to their circumstances. Or I might focus on the value of sharing and thinking of others. But as a reader and lover of children’s illustration, I prefer to revel in a charming story about an unlikely friendship. Rebecca Bender’s story is sweet and hopeful and enchanting. But it’s her artwork that would charm birds out of the trees. (Oh wait, it already has!) Bird is a bundle of lime fluff, with a singing stance worthy of any Idol wannabe, whereas Giraffe has the wide-eyed wonder–and gorgeous lashes!–of a lanky and clumsy juvenile. They are young and naïve and innocent and generous of heart. And the rich turquoise sky and the flirty acacia tree (I used the book's endpapers of acacia branches as a frame for the book cover above) will transport young readers to a very real savannah, even one with a lion and elephant or two.

Rebecca Bender could have taken Giraffe and Bird on another adventure with a life lesson about friendship, but I am so glad that first she made sure that Giraffe Meets Bird and had the two became the extraordinary friends they are today.

Blue Mountain

by Martine Leavitt

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-423-7

165 pp.

Ages 8-12

November, 2014

The struggle for survival may bring readers of adventure stories regularly to the brink of their seats, anticipating the worst and hopeful for the best outcome but always calmed by the fictional nature of the story.  But, though a fictionalized account of a herd of bighorn sheep in the Rocky Mountains, Blue Mountain reads as authentic and harrowing as any biography of an explorer or a leader making life-and-death decisions for others.  Blue Mountain may be about bighorn sheep but the story of Tuk and his herd mates is a heart-rending tale of life on the edge, an account of the struggle to survive in both the natural and man-made worlds.

The story of Tuk, a male lamb, begins on the lambing cliffs with the other new lambs– Ovis, Rim, Nai, Mouf, Sto and Dall–learning the story about the mountain's gifts to the animals.  Lord Denu, the first bighorn, was gifted with tricky feet, strong jaws, and powerful horns, providing his descendants with the moniker of peaceable, since they did not fight but rather stayed in herds that helped protect their numbers.  When the lambs and their mothers return to the main herd at the summer range, meeting the yearlings and the barren ewes, Kenir the matriarch declares that Tuk is reminiscent of the strong lambs of many years ago and has been gifted to them by the mountain to help keep the herd from dying.  This is corroborated by his vision of a great blue mountain, so rarely seen that it is called story mountain.

This is a heavy responsibility placed on Tuk and, though he suffers ridicule from a yearling named Balus and others, one that he does not take lightly or is convinced belongs to him, especially after he fails to save a lamb from an eagle.  But when a mother puma and her kitten put the herd at risk, Tuk uses his lamb horns to bat the kitten off a ledge, resulting in its death and its mother's vow of revenge.  Ultimately, the king of the rams instructs Tuk,

"You must find a way west from the winter valley to blue mountain before she hunts again."..."Son, it is the only way to save the herd." (pg. 38)

And so begin Tuk's journeys, the first being one of personal growth and learning so that he might lead the second one, a trek through inhospitable territories to one where the herd might thrive.  Enduring food shortages, threats from wolves, men with shotguns, monster machines, and unusual altercations with a wolverine, a bear and an otter, Tuk brings them to a place where

Tuk saw that the herd would always be, and that he had been part of the always. (pg. 159)

He couldn't have asked for a better legacy.

Martine Leavitt tells of her father, James Webster, and his love for the natural world and particularly the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep that he studied.  Blue Mountain is her own story based on his notes of observations of these majestic animals through the seasons and years.

My story became a very different thing than his beautiful and perfectly accurate rendering, but we tell the stories we can. (pg. 164)

As Tuk succeeds so nobly after questioning his own leadership as a bighorn sheep, I believe Martine Leavitt has honoured her father's research and reconfigured it into a splendidly beautiful and accurate saga.  I'm sure he couldn't have dreamed of a finer gift.

Skink on the Brink

by Lisa Dalrymple

Illustrated by Suzanne Del Rizzo

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

978-1-55455-231-3

32 pp.

Ages 4+

June 2013

This Saturday, Lisa Dalrymple and Suzanne Del Rizzo will be holding a launch for their picture book, Skink on the Brink, and I implore you all to go, pick up your own copy and share in the experience that is Stewie the Skink.

Lisa Dalrymple's text follows Stewie from his early days as a blue-tailed skink whose contentment with his name, appearance, unique defense feature, and his forest habitat adjacent to a pond is evident in the clever little songs he makes up.  Judging by Suzanne Del Rizzo's rich plasticine illustrations of various animals and vegetation in the area, Stewie has many reasons to be happy. 

But, as with all living things, Stewie will grow and mature, and he does, but into a less colourful skink of grey about which he can't find much to sing.  Hopeful for inspiration in a new habitat, Stewie sets out, finding a new pond that has its own set of attributes.  Instead of seeing what he does have, Stewie focuses on what he has lost.  That is, until a wise woodpecker shares with Stewie the nature of his endangered status and that his original habitat was best for keeping him safe.

Skink on the Brink shares the need for self-acceptance and seeing beyond the superficial.  Stewie is so enamoured with his blue tail that he cannot see anything as wonderful once it's gone.  Luckily a woodpecker with great rhythm brings out the song in Stewie and, surprisingly, mating throughout the forest and pond! But, as the title suggests, Skink on the Brink goes beyond the individual and introduces young readers to the concept of species endangerment and the importance of habitat in ensuring the survival of species such as Stewie.  To enhance a young reader's understanding of these concepts, Lisa Dalrymple provides comprehensive notes about endangerment and habitat protection, as well as the life cycle, classification, and defense mechanism of skinks.  And for a little fun, there are the rules for a game of Skink-Tail Tag and Suzanne Del Rizzo's instructions on making Stewie from plasticine.

Though a welcome addition to any primary/junior teacher's collection of science picture books, Skink on the Brink is for young readers who enjoy the texture-rich illustrations of plasticine art done well and learning about the natural world, with encouragement to involve themselves beyond the book.  As such, Skink on the Brink is the best of children's non-fiction in a visually-enhanced fictional context. Be sure to save this one.