The Animal People Choose a Leader

Written by Richard Wagamese

Illustrated by Bridget George

D & M Kids (Douglas and McIntyre)

978-1-77162-418-3

32 pp.

All ages

October 2024

 

The Animal People Choose a Leader, a picture book based on a short story, is something special. It's obvious from a first glance at the cover. First, there's the author, the late Richard Wagamese, one of Canada's greatest treasures to literature and an Ojibway writer from the Wabaseemong First Nation. Best known for his novels, stories and memoirs, Richard Wagamese had never published a picture book. Illustrated by Bridget George, an Anishinaabe author and illustrator from Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, The Animal People Choose a Leader offers a story, a lesson or five, and beauty.

From The Animal People Choose a Leader, written by Richard Wagamese, illus. by Bridget George

Long ago when only the Animal People inhabited the earth, they decided they needed to choose a leader. And though they spoke of the many attributes needed, from strength and wisdom, to pride and power, they could not decide how to choose until squirrel Ajidimo suggests a race. Horse, Buffalo, Cougar, and Wolverine are all in, convinced that their strengths, whether it be speed or stamina or stealth or something else, would help them win. 

 

It is decided that they would race four times around the lake with Eagle watching from above to count laps. Then Waabooz, the rabbit, decides to race too though everyone suspects that her small size would not help her succeed.  Horse, Buffalo, Wolverine, and Cougar take off, but Waabooz waits and then slowly hops away.

From The Animal People Choose a Leader, written by Richard Wagamese, illus. by Bridget George

As the four primary contenders race to complete their laps, Waabooz takes her time, determined to enjoy the challenge by taking in the land's beauty and considering her paths by smell and observation. Even when the others complete their first laps, Waabooz is far behind, refusing to stop even when Eagle suggests she can't possibly win. Her response?

"It is not honouring the challenge to stop now," she said. "It is a noble pursuit and it asks everything I have."

From The Animal People Choose a Leader, written by Richard Wagamese, illus. by Bridget George

But as Wolverine, Horse, Buffalo, and Cougar go to complete their last lap, Waabooz discovers each unable to continue because of an obstacle or exhaustion or some challenge from which they cannot extract themselves. It is only with the wisdom of Waabooz and her guidance in getting them to work together that the five contenders for leader are able to complete the race together.

 

The Animal People Choose a Leader may share similarities with many other cultural stories in which a race to choose a winner does not turn out as expected but this story goes beyond one of humility and ingenuity. Waabooz is the unlikely winner, and this is obvious to all. But Waabooz has not accepted the challenge to win it. She has taken it on as a worthwhile endeavour, claiming that "It can never be a struggle to engage in a noble cause." Even when the animals complete the race and Waabooz is chosen as leader, her response is not expected. Her intent was to learn which she did. But she shared her wisdom with others so that they might understand what a struggle truly is and how to get out of one's own way. Most of all they learned that when they help each other, they all succeed.

Richard Wagamese's lessons in mindfulness and appreciation of the natural world–"You discover much when you learn to look at things"–extends to those of compassion and empathy, seeing how we can create barriers to our own progress, whether through rushing in or not trusting others or refusing to see something from a different perspective. Wise Waabooz, through Richard Wagamese's insight, firmly embedded in Indigenous voice and culture, gives the reader, young and old, understanding that could help us lead and follow.

Bridget George's Woodland style of art, rich in earthy tones and organic lines of movement, boosts Richard Wagamese's text to story book so simply and yet profoundly, matching the importance of the story with solemn graphic representation. The consequence of his words are reflected in the depth of Bridget George's illustrations, taking it from children's picture book to a tale that can be shared with all.

 

This would be a lovely book to gift anyone at the holidays. From the story within, the Woodland style art, and even the luxurious textured cover, The Animal People Choose a Leader would be a welcome addition to any school or library, public or personal, and one that could be treasured by all. With its timeless lessons and opportunity to appreciate Richard Wagamese's words once more, The Animal People Choose a Leader is an uncontested winner.

Govern Like a Girl: The Women Who Became Canada's First Ministers

Written by Kate Graham

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-210-4

112 pp.

Ages 9-12

August 2021

Any book that focuses on the accomplishments of women in Canada needs to be applauded. There are already more than several that have highlighted women athletes, scientists and pioneers among others and several that celebrate individual achievements. But Govern Like a Girl is a bit different in that it honours political leaders who have reached premier or prime minister status in our country. Thirteen women across the provinces and territories have been recognized for their leadership and, while not every province is represented, Govern Like a Girl shows us the promise for greater equity in reaching influential government positions in Canada.

From Govern Like a Girl: The Women Who Became Canada's First Ministers by Kate Graham

After a brief introduction about government and voting, and the need for diversity at all levels of government but the paucity of women throughout, Kate Graham highlights thirteen incredible women who were able to rise to the top jobs in our governments. The women selected for this book are: 

• Premier Eva Aariak (NU);
• Premier Catherine Callbeck (PE);
• Premier Christy Clark (BC);
• Premier Caroline Cochrane (NT);
• Premier Nellie Cournoyea (NT);
• Premier Pat Duncan (YT);
• Premier Kathy Dunderdale (NL);
•  Premier Rita Johnston (BC);
• Premier Pauline Marois (QC);
• Premier Rachel Notley (AB);
• Premier Alison Redford (AB);
• Premier Kathleen Wynne (ON); and
  
• Prime Minister Kim Campbell.
  

For each leader, Kate Graham provides details about their personal life, including place of birth, parents and schooling, their employment history and their motivations for entering politics. Whether their trajectories for leadership began with careful steps up the ladder as school trustees or committee chairs, community involvement or advocacy, these women all chose to enter politics to enact change and to work for the people of their province or territory. In addition, the details of their elections and their defeats are recorded as is the work they were able to accomplish. But along with each exposé, Kate Graham gives readers a personal look at women who saw the opportunities lost to their female ancestors, or who endured discrimination because of the limitations some placed on their gender, and who were still able to move forward for change.

From Govern Like a Girl: The Women Who Became Canada's First Ministers by Kate Graham

Every story is different yet the same. They had support and they had opposition. They struggled to be seen as leaders and be effective fighters for their communities and counter those who perceived women as limited by their gender. But how their stories played out are all different. It's evident that there is not just one route to leadership, with many rocky and some longer than others. What matters most is the action.

These women have lots to say and I could quote each one, as Kate Graham does, to highlight their perspectives, from Catherine Callbeck who said that "the strength of a society rests on the willingness and ability of its citizens to share in the decisions which affect it" (pg. 14) to Nellie Cournoyea who spoke of "an evolutionary need to do something about something" (pg. 32) and Christy Clark who addressed opportunities by saying that,

"My view of life is that opportunities are raining down around us all the time. Some people have fewer opportunities , as their circumstances haven't put them in a particularly rainy spot–but, opportunities are always there. Look around, figure out what opportunities are there, and choose which ones to grab." (pg. 22)

With each, Kate Graham has given young readers role models of civic duty and reinforced the idea that governing like a girl is a compliment. 

Torch (The Flight and Flame Trilogy, Book 3)

Written by R. J. Anderson

Enclave Publishing

978-1-62184-160-9

239 pp.

Ages 11+

February 2021

 

 

When we first met the piskey Ivy in Swift, the first book in R. J. Anderson's The Flight and Flame Trilogy, she'd been determined to look out for her family and friends of the Delve, worried about poisonous air and long-held conflicts with spriggans, faeries and even humans. But, because of her unique wingless nature, Ivy has always had to prove herself. In the second book, Nomad, while looking to help the piskeys of the Delve escape the tyranny of her Aunt Betony, the Joan i.e., the queen of the Delve, Ivy becomes romantically involved with the spriggan-faery Martin whose own story needed telling. Then, after a violent confrontation with the Joan, a handful of piskeys, including Ivy's little sister Cicely, brother Mica and his fellow hunter Maddock, follow Ivy above-ground.

Now, Ivy is challenged to providing a safe home for the piskeys who've followed her, but worries that she could never become the Joan they need, as she lacks the skill of making fire at will. Things become worse when a deception is perpetrated to make her appear to make fire, and she is compelled into a betrothal with Maddock who offers to act as her Jack, the consort to the Joan. But Ivy and the piskeys know that Betony will not stand to lose her people to Ivy and an attack is sure to come. Fortunately for Ivy, she can rely on the help of faeries Thorn and Broch, and especially Martin who comes to her aid time and time again. Unfortunately, Martin is a spriggan and hated by the piskeys for being so, and Ivy must hide her love for Martin from her people.

But Martin, who had always believed himself to be the last of the spriggans who'd been killed off in conflicts with the piskeys, discovers a barrow of chambers with spriggan treasure, arms and stores. Most surprising are the egg-like shells harbouring young spriggans. While Martin nurtures the awakened young spriggans, about thirty boys and girls, becoming a true leader to his people, Ivy is torn between being with Martin, doing what's right for her own people, and contending with their distrust of all spriggans and faeries. Though Ivy knows that Martin has had his own issues with her people, she has come to trust him and he repeatedly shows himself to be worthy of that trust. But can Ivy find a way to save the piskeys, from the poison in the Delve and the tyranny of Betony and her Jack Gossan, bring peace between those who distrust and discriminate, and still be with Martin?

 

R. J. Anderson may be writing about fantastical creatures like piskeys, spriggans and faeries but the hostility between these groups and Ivy's need to balance her own wishes with the obligations she feels to her people are as human as anything we might experience. Mica's infuriating knows-better attitude and Cicely's petulance when she doesn't get what she wants are all too human, as is Ivy's unhappiness with being pressured to do what everyone else decides is the right thing to do. When she leads with her heart, driven by her love for Martin and her people, she leads well as a true Joan would.

But Torch is also a book of fantasy, of incredible people who inhabit Cornwall and beyond. Some are tasked with digging while others protect treasure. They can shape-shift and cast glamours and spells and wards of protection.  The worlds of Torch, as in Swift and Nomad, are both imaginative and real, and R. J. Anderson has excelled at making the reader feel everything from the gentleness of love to the anger of frustration with her characters. Thankfully through all that emotion and otherworldliness, R. J. Anderson has resolved her tale of the Cornish piskeys and their neighbours with much heart, happiness and hope, demonstrating that it's possible to find the way through conflict and prejudice to understanding and love.

Kid Coach

Written and illustrated by Rob Justus

Page Street Kids

978-1-62414-886-6

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

February 2020

For children who feel that their parents and teachers and other adults are always dragging them to do things they'd rather not, Kid Coach will offer them a funny flip-flop of circumstances and some valuable lessons on sportsmanship and competition.

From Kid Coach by Rob Justus

Dad who is a "couch potato extraordinaire" loves his wrestling, watching it on all his devices. But his son is determined to make him into a champion. Through small challenges in lifting weights and eating healthily, Kid Coach gets his dad to the Wrestle-Rumble Mania Kingdom Tournament of Champions to take on an assortment of colourful wrestlers like the Flamingo and the Cheetah, using his signature move, the Tater Tangler.

From Kid Coach by Rob Justus

But as Dad piles up win after win, his ego gets the better of him and his over-the-top celebrations show his lack of good sportsmanship. Kid Coach knows that "A true champion is about more than just being number one."

From Kid Coach by Rob Justus

When Dad realizes how alone he is, Kid Coach teaches him another lesson, one about sincere apologies for bad behaviour and sharing some potato treats with his competitors.

From couch potato to true champion, Dad's finally earned these friend chips.

From Kid Coach by Rob Justus

This may be Ottawa author-illustrator Rob Justus's debut book, but I suspect we'll be seeing more of his work soon enough. (He has a 2021 graphic novel coming out called Death & Sparkles that is described as a cross between "Adventure Time" and "The Good Place.") The cartooning is dauntless in its bold colours that often spotlight pink, purple and yellow and in the weird and wacky shapes of the wrestlers in costume and in action.  Dad, with his long and chiselled face and front-curl pompadour, wearing a red wrestling singlet and head- and wrist-bands, cuts an interesting figure, even more so when covered up in his lime green-printed robe with yellow faux fur trim. Between his off-the-wall wrestling characters, the role reversal of father and son, and text peppered with clever spud puns, Rob Justus will make children laugh and learn about healthy living and sportsmanship.

Even if this Kid Coach had never spurred his couch-potato dad into wrestling greatness, he would still be a winner in our books for his attitude and determination. Without a doubt, he is the greatest Kid Coach around. Get this kid a trophy of his own!🏆

Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined

Written by Danielle Younge-Ullman

Razorbill

978-0-425-28759-0

368 pp.

Ages 13–17

February 2017

After, I stand for a few moments looking out over the water, the moon reflecting off its glass-like surface.  It's beautiful, yes.  But the beauty doesn't reach me the way it's supposed to because I feel like it's been shoved down my throat.  I register the stark gorgeousness of the dying day, and what it fills me with is unease, and an ominous sensation of cracking inside–of cracking open, of a corresponding excruciating pain I have kept at bay by incredible discipline beginning to seep toward the surface. (pg. 87)

Ingrid Burke must feel like she's been deposited in another world, and one not of her choosing.  In fact, not even one like in the brochure her mother, retired opera singer Margot-Sophia Lalonde, had shown her of Peak Wilderness, an outdoors camp in northern Ontario, to which Ingrid has agreed to go so her mother would permit her attendance at a prestigious music school in London England.  Worse yet, Ingrid, who perceives herself to be “a model citizen and paragon of stability” (pg. 53) compared to the miscellany of other troubled youth campers, must survive three weeks of hiking, canoeing, roughing it, and sharing under the supervision of leaders Pat and Bonnie who seem to enjoy the group’s failures at near impossible tasks.

What happened that led Ingrid to this challenging and repeatedly dangerous situation is told in alternating chapters, organized by Ingrid's age, that speak to her life before Peak Wilderness.  They tell of her life travelling the world with her famous mother and then, after damage to Margot-Sophia’s vocal chords leads them home to Toronto,  the reversal of roles when Margot-Sophia is overcome with depression.  Revealed slowly but with ease are Ingrid’s experiences at school and home, feeling vulnerable and frustrated, fearful and positive, and her attempts to achieve normalcy and some happiness. Eventually we also learn what led her to Peak Wilderness.

My words cannot do justice to the depth of Danielle Younge-Ullman's characterizations and story-telling.  There is so much to share with readers that my words seem sparse and ineffective. But I can tell you that Danielle Younge-Ullman weaves Ingrid’s present and past into a fabric of ordinary and extraordinary, creating a life of tenacity to which most of us could aspire.  Though Ingrid doesn’t want to acknowledge the vulnerabilities that brought her to the camp, Danielle Younge-Ullman provides hints throughout the story–Isaac, an axe and an injured leg–that there is more to the teen’s story than she reveals to others and even to herself.  Her go-to survival mechanisms include a strained positivity —“How exciting, and what a magnificent opportunity to get in touch with my inner savage” (pg. 29)— and silence with a dose of denial.  But beyond Ingrid’s inner turmoil are the relationships the teen has with her mother, her new father, a boy with whom she has a connection, and all the campers.  These relationships drive Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined.  They ebb and flow, both serene and passionate, not unlike the music of a great opera that Margot-Sophia might have performed.  Though Ingrid might think she knows the music of her life really well, she’s just learning to perform it with passion so that she can make it successfully to the triumphant finish. And Danielle Younge-Ullman makes sure that we want to stay for the whole performance without ever nodding off.

****************

On May 6, 2017, Danielle Younge-Ullman will be speaking at the Stratford Writers Festival Young Adult forum along with numerous other YA authors.  I'll post about it here soon but you can get details at http://digiwriting.com/stratford-writers-festival-young-adult-2017/

I'll be there and you should be too!

The Night is Found: Blog Tour begins

Let the Blog Tour begin!

by Kat Kruger

Fierce Ink Press

978-1-927746-57-8
978-1-927746-59-2 (epub)
978-1-927746-60-8 (Kindle)

301 pp.

Ages 14+

For release July 22, 2014

Reviewed from eARC

Being lost can be so much more than not knowing your location.  It can be the confusion that comes with new knowledge or revelations, and Connor Lewis' learning that he is a werewolf would be reason enough to feel lost and out of touch. For a kid, almost eighteen, going from geeky gamer to werewolf and now to pack leader and target of the Luparii (werewolf hunters), Connor needs a lot of finding to happen.

When Rodolfus de Aquila a.k.a. Roul, pack leader and owner of Fenrir Pharmaceuticals, chose to take a bullet meant for Connor, he gave the young man the task of bringing together the packs of Europe.  With the Luparii in possession of Wolf's Bane, a bio-weapon cure against lycanthropy produced by Henri Boguet, and with the Hounds of God led by magistrate Breber aiming to kill off werewolves, Connor needs to determine how best to organize the packs quickly. To that end, Connor and Amara travel to New York City to learn from the werewolves who'd left the Old World in the 1600's to avoid persecution and were rumoured to have become unified.  Meanwhile, Arden is tasked with visiting other packs and warning them of the Luparii and inviting them to Paris to witness their damaging effects.

Connor and Amara are received by a NYPD captain, Marrock, and the bored rich girl Esrin, who represent the Founders, short for the Wolf Conservation Foundation.  They manage their own pack as well as seven territories (wildlife sanctuaries) of the Wilds, werewolves who are ignorant of the outside world.  When the Luparii make their presence known using a device made by Phenix Industries, the arms technology business that funds the Founders, Connor recognizes that,

"I have a sense that what we bury here today is any hope of understanding of how to make things right overseas." (pg. 168)

Things overseas aren't necessarily faring any better.  Madison, Connor's love interest, has been under wraps at Fenrir Pharmaceuticals in Frankfurt since he accidentally bit her and changed her into a full-fledged werewolf.  Trajan, the biochemist, has been using her as a test subject for an antivenin for Wolf's Bane but Madison wants to play a part in helping Connor. Unfortunately, because of her relationship to Connor, Madison has become a commodity that has the Luparii, the Hounds of God and even ex-boyfriend Josh trying to get to her.

The complexity of The Night is Found is wild. Based on critical information from the first and second books in the series, The Night Has Teeth (Fierce Ink Press, 2012) and The Night Has Claws (Fierce Ink Press, 2013) respectively, The Night is Found twists the key characters of Connor, Madison, Arden and Amara into new personas as they accept their new attributes (bitten, cured, healed, safe, human, wolf, werewolf–whatever) and try to make things right while working with and against others.  Kat Kruger's characters are so real that I'd consider looking up some of the companies and locations mentioned in the book to see if they truly exist.  Yeah, I know werewolves aren't real (I do have to keep reminding myself of that) but Kat Kruger has developed all her characters so fully that it's sometimes hard to believe they're not.

If I hadn't enjoyed the first two books, keeping the storylines straight would've been difficult.  But I did, and I could, and appreciated Kat Kruger's complex storytelling all the more.  She's able to juggle the multiple subplots of teen angst and romance as well as biotechnology and belief systems easily with the paranormal and create a riveting tale that's imbued with sarcasm, sweetness and savagery. And still Kat Kruger convincingly allows Connor, Arden, Amara and Madison to un-lose themselves and amicably position themselves in their paranormal reality now that The Night is Found.

 ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ 

Here's your CHANCE TO WIN a free digital copy of the entire Magdeburg Trilogy:

Just leave an appropriate comment below about why you'd like to read the whole Magdeburg Trilogy, and I'll choose a winner for Wednesday.

Easy peasy.