One Can

Written by Lana Button and Eric Walters

Illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant

Groundwood Books

978-1-773067346

32 pp.

Ages 3–6

September 2025 

 

For many Canadian public schools, yesterday was the first day of the 2025-2026 academic year. That first day of school brings such promise. It's usually a fresh start with a promise for better and more opportunities for...everything. But for too many children, that hope may be limited, even if they don't know it. For the child in Lana Button and Eric Walters's first picture book collaboration, illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant, those limitations do not curb their generosity and compassion.

From One Can, written by Lana Button and Eric Walters, illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant

Knowing that their class is collecting canned food for a food drive, a child grabs the lone can of Zoodelicious from an almost-bare pantry. Knowing it's their favourite, the child hopes it is that for someone else too. In class, the students place their donated cans on a 100-place carpet, with the child placing the Zoodelicious on the number 100, earning their can a snowflake sticker.

From One Can, written by Lana Button and Eric Walters, illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant

Things take an unexpected turn when Mom returns with groceries a few days later and his Zoodelicious can has a snowflake sticker on it. For the first time, the child recognizes that their family may be one of those in need that they were trying to help at school. A frank discussion between mother and child helps them understand better and even how to pay it forward with some much-loved mittens. 

From One Can, written by Lana Button and Eric Walters, illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant

While there are too many adults who think that picture books are frivolous stories aimed for our youngest readers, One Can will surely remind them of the power of storytelling to present deep issues that are also commonplace. There is no frivolousness to this story. Instead, Lana Button and Eric Walters have given us a lovely story of sharing, reciprocity, need, and compassion, all told from the perspective of a young child. What is most surprising is that the child does not even recognize their family as a needy one until they see the snowflake sticker on the Zoodelicious and realizes where their mother must have gotten those groceries. Before then, they had what they needed, probably because their mother worked hard to ensure that they did. Not surprisingly, when their mother reveals their circumstances, the child thinks only of the other 99 families who would still need food and more. 

 

This could have been a very heavy story. Poverty and food insecurity are serious issues. Even as food and clothing drives become common practices throughout the year, and children such as this one are provided regularly with school lunches, here by their own teacher, the silence and secrecy and even shame are resounding. I'm so pleased that Lana Button and Eric Walters avoided those negatives with much sensitivity. The child is not ashamed to look at the school's Mitten Tree–where donated mittens and winter accessories are displayed for gifting–and doesn't hide the macaroni given by the teacher for lunch. Illustrator Isabelle Malenfant matches that powerful but tasteful approach to their story. Isabelle Malenfant, who similarly gave a softness of touch to Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress and Pinny in Summer, keeps her palest colours for the child's home and the boldest for outside. Their poverty creates a veil over their life, though outside of the home and at school, the child is seen as vibrant as everyone else. In addition to the colours of her digital illustrations, Isabelle Malenfant uses perspective to juxtapose the child against two different worlds, one of limited resources and another where there is more. It gives the reader more context for this child's reality and even enhances our understanding of why they are able to extend generosity and compassion to others.

Lana Button's picture books like Tough Like Mum and Willow Finds a Way have always spoken to young children and what they might experience at school and home. And Eric Walters never shies away from tough issues like poverty in The King of Jam Sandwiches or COVID-19 in Don't Stand So Close to Me or incarceration, bullying, discrimination and more. Together these writers have approached the reality of many children, and instead of focusing on any limitations these children experience, they highlight how children can extend compassion and generosity to others. It seems one can, whether that of Zoodelicious or the picture book, can make a difference.

 • • • • • • •

 

Please consider joining author Lana Button 

 

at 

 

A Different Drummer Books 

513 Locust St., Burlington, Ontario

905-639-0925 

 

for the launch of One Can 

 

on 

 

Sunday, September 7, 2025 

1 PM

 

If you're able, please bring a can of food for FeedHalton.  

 

Mr. Beagle Goes to Rabbittown

Written and illustrated by Lori Doody

Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides

978-1-927917-31-2

44 pp.

Ages 3-6

July 2020

This new picture book from Newfoundland's Lori Doody is a true allegory about a multicultural society, emphasizing the precarious balance of acceptance of self and community, of staying true to oneself while trying to fit in.

From Mr. Beagle Goes to Rabbittown by Lori Doody

In Rabbittown, a town alive with colour, all the bunnies know each other.  Then Mr. Beagle comes to town and opens up his convenience store. Because the bunnies–this is Rabbittown–"didn't know what to think of him," Mr. Beagle's business is slow. At the same time, mittens begin to go missing. Having a "good nose for sniffing out trouble," Mr. Beagle goes on the hunt for the lost mittens.

From Mr. Beagle Goes to Rabbittown by Lori Doody

He prowls the streets and businesses and eventually detects an odd scent in Rabbittown, finding one "fishy" bunny.  When this rabbit is revealed to be a cat who'd just wanted to fit in to the neighbourhood and was borrowing mittens for his kittens who kept losing their own, the community comes together to embrace the new arrivals and any others who decide to make Rabbittown their home. 

From Mr. Beagle Goes to Rabbittown by Lori Doody

Rabbittown, with its Hare Salon, Hop's barbershop and Hoppington Post, reflects a community that, on its surface, appears to be segregated but is not. They may be different species in a town settled by rabbits but it becomes evident that all belong and are welcomed.

And now Rabbittown was a neighbourhood where 
any bunny, dog, cat, mouse, squirrel or fox
could find new friends 
and warm mittens.

As she did in her earlier books Capelin Weather (2017), The Puffin Problem (2017), Mallard, Mallard, Moose (2018), and Paint the Town Pink (2019), author and illustrator Lori Doody paints an important message in a charming story. Older readers will understand the complexity of a story about diversity and inclusivity, though our youngest readers may only see a tale about rabbits and a dog and some cats, and be captivated by the colours of Lori Doody's artwork. But, with re-readings of the story, and looking back, as I did, to see whether they can spot the wannabe rabbit from the onset, they will be excited to realize the clues were there all along and will endeavour to fill in more of the story for themselves. As welcoming as her illustrations of bold colours and folksy shapes, Lori Doody's story invites the reader into a community where everyone and anyone can reside and be accepted.

Mittens to Share

by Emil Sher

Illustrated by Irene Luxbacher

North Winds Press/Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-4296-0

32 pp.

Ages 3-8

October 2016

In this study of contrasts (up/down, here/there, cold/warmth), a child enjoying a winter wonderland with a parent loses her blue mitten while sledding, making snow angels, watching a chickadee and creating a snowman.

From Mittens to Share 

by Emil Sher, 

illus. by Irene Luxbacher

Returning to the warmth of their home, the girl searches through the myriad of mittens–doesn't everyone have a mitten box in Canada?–and, with new mittens upon her hands, delves back outdoors to locate that obviously-holed and unravelling mitten and ultimately share it with the world outside.

From Mittens to Share 

by Emil Sher, 

illus. by Irene Luxbacher

Emil Sher's story is a simple one for the winter season and one that even the youngest children will be able to read fluently quickly. (The word count is less than 70 words, many repeated.) Enjoying the wonders of winter and the outdoors is a pleasure for most Canadians, and one that Emil Sher relates through both the child’s and parent's actions.  But it's Irene Luxbacher's art, a blend of dry-rubbed acrylic paint with collage work, that elevates the story to something extraordinary.  The snow is cold and wet, the landscape is magical, the mittens diverse and outrageously clever, and the story comes to life.  As Canadians, we know the story of lost mittens far too well (even as adults) and the shared experience of a lost and found mitten in a setting so familiar creates an tale evocative of winter memories of long ago and today.  With our own wet snow upon the ground here in southern Ontario, I hope that everyone has Mittens to Share with those they love and those who need them.

From Mittens to Share 

by Emil Sher, 

illus. by Irene Luxbacher

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

If a French-language edition is more to your liking, Une Mitaine Pour Deux has been released at the same time as Mittens to Share.