One Summer in Whitney Pier

Written by The Honourable Mayann Francis

Illustrated by Tamara Thiébaux-Heïkalo

Nimbus Publishing

978-1-77108-960-9

32 pp.

Ages 4-9

May 2022

The Honourable Mayann Francis, Nova Scotia's first Black lieutenant-governor, takes us back to the Cape Breton community of her youth, a place of diversity that gives her the context for her latter vocation. This story takes place two years later from Mayann's First Ride, Mayann Francis's first collaboration with artist Tamara Thiébaux-Heïkalo, and during a 1950s summer which is bountiful with possibilities, even if Mayann doesn't see them at first.

From One Summer in Whitney Pier by Mayann Francis, illus. by Tamara Thiébaux-Heïkalo

With her best friends Eunice and Betty going away, Mayann is faced with filling her time. Though baseball seems a possibility, the Hankard Street Crew tell her she is too young. When she tells her father, a church minister, that there's nothing to do, he suggests she help her mother and him to see how much there really is to do. 

From One Summer in Whitney Pier by Mayann Francis, illus. by Tamara Thiébaux-Heïkalo

There's cooking of her many favourite Caribbean meals, learning to make fudge and soft drinks and baking of cakes and pies to share with neighbours. She helps out at the church, watches her sixteen-year-old sister play baseball, and embroiders. And then she realizes she can combine several of those activities and, with a little help from her friends who return early from holidays, do more good for her community.

From One Summer in Whitney Pier by Mayann Francis, illus. by Tamara Thiébaux-Heïkalo

The Honourable Mayann Francis takes us to a different time and place in One Summer in Whitney Pier. It's a time when summers were not filled with camps, scheduled activities, and tech, and days stretched with opportunities. It's a place where people shared food, and cooking and baking were full-day endeavours. 1950s Whitney Pier was everything to a young Mayann Francis to discover what she could and would enjoy doing and to become a part of something more significant.

That feel to the book also comes from Tamara Thiébaux-Heïkalo's artwork, a blend of pencil and watercolours, giving it a softness appropriate for a nostalgic look at Whitney Pier. The girls wear skirts and white socks, the kids ride their bikes down streets waving to others, and sewing was a skill encouraged in girls. Whitney Pier may not be like that anymore but it gave Mayann Francis a foundation for a life as a public servant and human rights authority and will now give young readers a historical perspective–as well as a couple of recipes–on summers once lived and well spent.

48 Grasshopper Estates

Written by Sara de Waal

Illustrated by Erika Medina

Annick Press

978-1-77321-484-9

40 pp.

Ages 4-7

April 2021

 

Like walking through a new neighbourhood, checking out the houses and apartments, shops and services, heading to 48 Grasshopper Estates is an eye-opener of community, seeing the people who live there and make a home with their neighbours. But it's also about the children of 48 Grasshopper Estates, separate in their apartments, but united in common tasks, even if they don't know it.

From 48 Grasshopper Estates by Sara de Waal, illus. by Erika Medina

Sicily Bridges, who lives at 48 Grasshopper Estates, is a maker. She is a maker of cookies, music, crafts and imaginative play. In the care of Mrs. Rubenstein, after Sicily's mother has gone off to work with a "skirt swish, forehead kiss," Sicily begins writing down her ideas for the day's creations: a lake submarine, a unicorn castle, a spaceship with a built-in supersonic sandwich maker. But all her ideas tell her to add one more thing she'll need to make today: a friend.

From 48 Grasshopper Estates by Sara de Waal, illus. by Erika Medina

Focused on her making, Sicily is oblivious to a little boy and his family who have just moved into 48 Grasshopper Estates. As she gathers materials on the street, in the garbage and recycling area and elsewhere, he too scours his new home for bits and bobs.

 

Since one of her tasks today is to make a friend, Sicily creates them, including a fuzzy one, a freckle-speckled friend, one with four toes, one with big ears, and another with too-big pants. She makes even more friends, imaging them all to be lovers of soup, unlike Sicily who prefers a peanut butter and cheese sandwich for lunch. Meanwhile, the little boy works tirelessly on his own creation, solo.

Sadly Sicily's friends will be unable to accompany her in her spaceship to Mars as they are all afraid of heights. So she decides to give her friends to her neighbours, matching them with the attributes she has observed in each.

From 48 Grasshopper Estates by Sara de Waal, illus. by Erika Medina

Now devoid of her created-friends, Sicily sees a box of materials outside one apartment door. With a knock on a door and an introductory question, a collaboration is made and Sicily ticks more than one item off her maker list.

BC author Sara de Waal also ticks all the right boxes with her story of imaginative play and friendship. There are so many positives of a young girl who loves to make stuff and dream stuff up and who uses her community as fodder for her creations, whether it be the materials she can uncover or the inspiration for them. With the right bits, Sicily can create just about anything because her imagination tells her she can. She thinks outside the box and is encouraged by Mrs. Rubinstein to do so. Still when she decides that none of her newly-made friends will be able to accompany her to Mars because of their acrophobia, those creations are the means by which she truly does make friends, creating a positive impact on others and for herself.

This self-confidence of childhood exploits is affirmed by Erika Medina's illustrations of diverse and engaged characters who collect, construct, observe and interact. Her gouache artwork boldly invites the reader to peek into the worlds of a painter or a dog-walker, of the elderly and the children who turn visions into tangible projects. There is life in this neighbourhood of 48 Grasshopper Estates which feeds itself and creates more community.

The story of 48 Grasshopper Estates may be about a little girl who imagines and engineers and meets a friend and collaborator because of those enthusiasms but it's important to see beyond the obvious that opening oneself up to possibilities, including people, is what is truly creative.

Your House, My House

Written and illustrated by Marianne Dubuc

Kids Can Press

978-1-55253-0490-3

24 pp.

Ages 3-7

October, 2020

 

Now, when our homes are more important than ever, being our places of safety and comfort, sometimes our schools and our workplaces, our gyms and our doctors' offices, Your House, My House from the incomparable Marianne Dubuc reminds us how much our homes really mean to us.

 

This is 3 Maple Street and there is so much life here. The text may be focusing on Little Rabbit whose birthday it is but it's what's going on in and around the apartment of four floors that makes for a bigger celebration of life. So while Little Rabbit prepares invitations and bakes his cake with Mama Rabbit and little sister Lily, multiple stories evolve in and around the homes at 3 Maple Street.

From Your House, My House by Marianne Dubuc

There's a phone call from Mr. Fox asking if Mama Rabbit can watch Little Fox but it's Marianne Dubuc's intricate illustration, with an empty nursery and a very pregnant Mrs. Fox, that hints at what is really going on with that family. Then there's the Cat family moving in and everyone–Rabbits, Mice, Hedgehogs–helping. There's Mr. Bear who is sick in bed, but who pops downstairs to drop off his gift, while Mr. Owl returns from his nightly ventures and heads to bed. And there's a trio of mice up to no good while their parents help their neighbours. (Did I mention a golden-haired little girl making herself at home at the Foxes while a wolf searches for a red-caped little one, and three little pigs come visiting too? Seems there's a fairy tale or three making themselves at home in the neighbourhood as well.)

From Your House, My House by Marianne Dubuc

I was especially looking forward to what was happening with the Hedgehogs as Little Hedgehog crosses off dates on a calendar labelled "Papa," anticipating the return of his father. And there's even a little drama in the tree above the moving van as parents seek worms and a little one leaves the nest for the first time.

From Your House, My House by Marianne Dubuc

Ah, but there's so much happening at 3 Maple Street and most of the fun of Your House, My House is looking into each apartment and on the street and on the stairs and in the trees to see everything. (It's like looking into the homes of Zoom meeting participants.) The details on characters' faces and in the apartment decors tell more of the story and become a treasure hunt for young readers (and perhaps a lesson in visual literacy for their teachers). From the little bird covering its ears from squawking parents, the ear plugs used by the sleeping owl, or the little attic ghost that grabs the postal worker's hat, there is so much to see and about which to smile. Marianne Dubuc's words tell a story of community, most coming together for a party, but each with their own lives of joys and troubles, normalcy and the unusual. But it's always her illustrations that will charm. Every double-page spread (which I could sadly not reproduce from the large book of 28 x 35 cm size) is essentially the same in scope, encompassing the four-storied building with trees on either side and a portion of street in front. But, and it's a big but, every spread is different in detail of action, content, expression and story. It reminds us that there may be one story upon which we all focus but there are many more that may never be seen. Thankfully Marianne Dubuc has invited us in to this city of homes, where your home is my home, and shared with us glimpses of lives and the abodes of foxes, cats, mice, rabbits, hedgehogs, birds, a bear, an owl, and a ghost and those who might venture into their community intermittently.

From Your House, My House by Marianne Dubuc

On this one day, there are at least a dozen stories playing out, and Little Rabbit's is but one of them, but together they make a world of complexity and community.

What Grew in Larry's Garden

Written by Laura Alary

Illustrated by Kass Reich

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-0108-7

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

April 2020

What Grew in Larry's Garden is far more than meets the eye, or the tongue, in this picture book about fruits and vegetables that help build community.

Larry, a teacher, has a small but impressive garden next door to young Grace who likes to help him.

From What Grew in Larry's Garden by Laura Alary, illus. by Kass Reich

There were buttery yellow carrots and purple potatoes. Rainbow chard and scarlet runner beans. Rosy tomatoes the color of ripe peaches. And black ones with red insides.

Together they garden, nurturing the plants and enjoying harvests. When problems arise, like bugs and squirrels, Larry always says, "We can figure this out." His positivity and efforts lead him to encourage his students to grow their own tomato plants from seed and to gift them to others, explaining in letters why they'd been chosen. From gifts of thanks or apologies or to helping them face their fears, Larry was actually allowing his students to connect with others.

From What Grew in Larry's Garden by Laura Alary, illus. by Kass Reich

But when a neighbour adds a big panel to the top of his fence, blocking the sun out of Larry's garden, it's Grace who figures out a way to make things right, echoing back to Larry that he will just need to "Wait and see" what her idea is.

From What Grew in Larry's Garden by Laura Alary, illus. by Kass Reich

Laura Alary based What Grew in Larry's Garden on Toronto teacher Larry Zacharko's project to use tomato plants to help his students connect with their community. Although this endeavour is but a portion of the story of What Grew in Larry's Garden, the whole story is supportive of the need to build community, whether it is by gifting a tomato plant, helping others, making compromises or reaching out to those who seem immovable. Laura Alary makes sure to communicate through her text that community comes with time and effort and is worth both.

Versatile artist Kass Reich–she has written and illustrated a series of Hamster concept books as well as provided art for the Megabat series and other picture books–uses gouache and coloured pencils to bring Larry's garden and his community to life. She uses colour and shape to embrace the reader in a neighbourhood of picturesque houses and arboreal splendour and a garden so textured with life that it's hard to believe there's room for Larry and Grace and a ginger cat to work and play. Fortunately, their efforts at creation and connection produce far more than a garden of fruits and vegetables. They also create a closeness of people and place.

What Grew in Larry's Garden is rosy reciprocity, budding bonds and sprouts of support. Ah, for every garden to be this lush. 

From What Grew in Larry's Garden by Laura Alary, illus. by Kass Reich

My Deal with the Universe

Written by Deborah Kerbel

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-5756-8

240 pp.

Ages 8-12

June 2018

The uplifting cover of My Deal with the Universe hides the anxieties with which twelve-year-old Daisy is overwhelmed but thankfully it does tip us off to a resolution that is lightness and sparkle.

School is ending for the year and, though Daisy enjoys days with her best friend Willow playing at their Junglecamp, scheduled days of activities, too soon Willow would be off to summer camp for seven weeks. Sadly, there are no other friends, as Daisy, often called "Weed" lives in a house overgrown with vines and a yard dense with vegetation–called the Jungle–which is a source of ridicule and even contempt by schoolmates and neighbours. Mr. and Mrs. Pitt, next door, are especially horrid, always filing complaints against Daisy's parents and spraying Daisy with water "accidentally." Though the Jungle may be a source of embarrassment, Daisy loves her home, especially the quiet and darkness that comes with vine-covered walls and windows.

But Daisy's greatest concern is for her twin, Jack, who'd been diagnosed with cancer just before they turned eight. At the time, she'd made a deal with the universe: her life for Jack's. Coincidentally, as Jack went through treatment and started getting better, Daisy stopped growing. Apparently her deal worked. But now her parents are taking Jack, who is in remission, for doctors' appointments and tests, and Daisy comes up with a new plan to save him.

Then the Pitts' great niece and nephew, Violet and Zack, come to stay and befriend Daisy and Jack. This new friendship could change everything but would it help or hurt?

As in her most recent middle-grade novel Feathered (Kids Can Press, 2016), Deborah Kerbel makes us realize that young people, when faced with difficulties, find the means to mitigate those concerns through action. They may do so by unconventional means but making deals with the universe is probably less offbeat for children and those who are desperate than some medical treatments purported to benefit those who are ill. It would seem that Daisy is far more normal than she suspects: she's embarrassed by her parents but loves them; she's angry when she feels ignored by her friend; she doesn't want her twin to die; and she wants to be liked. But Deborah Kerbel makes it clear that normal is different for everyone and it can change with circumstances and these are lessons that Daisy ultimately learns. But she learns more than that. Daisy also accepts that some answers to life's problems can be a lot closer than anticipated and even a child can help make things right.

And how sometimes life's not all that different from a crossword puzzle.  How there's usually a solution lurking behind the blank spaces. You just have to keep trying different things to find that one that fits. (pg. 231)

The Snake Mistake Mystery: The Great Mistake Mysteries, Book 3

Written by Sylvia McNicoll

Dundurn Press

978-1-45973-973-4

224 pp.

Ages 9-12

January 2018

But my mind tries to sort through all the details that float through my thoughts: a missing snake, an empty ring box, spray-painted cars, a stolen phone and laptop, a stolen Mr. Universe medal.  What do they have in common? Not Noble Dog Walking. Can't just be Noble Dog Walking. (pg. 89)

As in The Best Mistake Mystery, the first book in Sylvia McNicoll's Great Mistakes Mysteries, there are plenty of mistakes to be made and a new collection of mysteries to be revealed and solved.  And Stephen Noble and best friend Renée Kobai who walk dogs for his father's dog walking company are on it.  If they could just keep Noble Dog Walking from being blamed for all the mishaps, some criminal, happening in their Brant Hills neighbourhood, then Dad wouldn't lose all his clients and he wouldn't have to give up and take on telemarketing from home.  That's a lot of what ifs but Stephen and Renée are an astute pair of twelve-year-olds who take note of much in their neighbourhood: suspicious vehicles, coincidences, human and animal behaviour. If anyone can solve all the mysteries within The Snake Mistake Mystery, they can.

When a powerful storm hits, Stephen is instructed by his flight attendant mom to check on King, the pet of a new neighbour.  But with a power outage, Stephen and Renée are delayed and by the time they access the house via a hidden key, they find the ball python gone. When the kids return to Stephen's, they learn Mrs. Irwin, the owner of five Yorkies, has accused Noble Dog Walking of leaving her door unlocked and allowing the theft of a Mr. Universe gold medal while Mr. Mason, a former client, claims his cell phone and laptop disappeared because they still had a key to his house. Knowing none of these crimes have anything to do with them, Stephen is determined to find the culprit, hoping to solve the mystery, plus a few more, while he and Renée determine how to locate and capture a missing snake.

At every turn around the neighbourhood, there is something else either going amiss or being revealed.  With a motley band of neighbours–their techie friend Reuven; Renée's brother Attila and his girlfriend Star, both taggers; artists Mr. Kowalski and Mrs. Irwin; Principal Watier and her love interest Mr. Sawyer; skateboarders Serge Watier and Red; Mr. Mason; the Bennetts; Mr. Ron and his mother; the wacky Janet Lacey of the Burlington Animal Shelter; neighbourhood patrol Mr. Rupert–there are plenty of suspects for the crimes and just as many red herrings.  Add to that an assortment of canine friends, including leads Ping, a Jack Russell, and Pong, a greyhound, and The Snake Mistake Mystery is a whodunit with a colourful cast and entertaining riddles. Fortunately, like the multiple leads of a professional dog walker, the plot lines may get twisted but there is much satisfaction when all are straightened out.

While Sylvia McNicoll writes superb young adult fiction (e.g., Crush. Candy. Corpse., 2012; Dying to Go Viral, 2013; Best Friends Through Eternity, 2015), with strong characters and intriguing plots, her middle-grade fiction is outstanding, giving readers fun adventures, compelling mysteries and real characters.  She knows what will get readers interested and she delivers.  And did I mention the bounty of animals that round out the cast of The Snake Mistake Mystery?  Of course there are the dogs of the Noble Dog Walking, both current and former clients, but there are lots of cats up for adoption, mice as bait and pets, and a ball python.  In fact, while Sylvia McNicoll makes reference to snakes in the news, it is her attribution of Stephen and Renée having read Snake in My Toilet that is wonderful and deeply personal. I can't think of a nicer way to honour her dear friend and author Gisela Tobien Sherman who passed away unexpectedly last year.  She'd probably be chuffed to know her snake found a place with that of Sylvia McNicoll's in an adventure in which middle-graders succeed where adults mess up.

The Great Mistake Mysteries

🐕🐕🐕🐕🐕🐕🐕

There's a short video that was uploaded just days ago to celebrate the release of The Snake Mistake Mystery.  It features a reading by author Sylvia McNicoll and her own Mortie, the model for the book's Ping. Do check it out (as well as Sylvia McNicoll's cool Jack Russell pin)!

Uploaded on January 14, 2018 by Sylvia McNicoll to YouTube.

Oscar Lives Next Door

A story inspired by Oscar Peterson's childhood

by Bonnie Farmer

Illustrated by Marie Lafrance

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-104-6

Ages 4-8

September 2015

Canadian jazz lovers will all know pianist Oscar Peterson very well.  But with Oscar Lives Next Door, author Bonnie Farmer and illustrator Marie Lafrance will introduce younger readers to the legendary musician and his musical beginnings while providing a glimpse into a less-than-famous life-changing event that sent the young Oscar to the piano.

Told from the perspective of Mildred, the little girl who lives next door to Oscar in the predominantly black community of Little Burgundy in Montreal, Oscar Lives Next Door focuses on the musical family of brothers and sisters of which Oscar is but the trumpet player.  Yes, the trumpet player.  And as much as she is Oscar’s playmate running the streets of Little Burgundy, Mildred sees Oscar as a magician of music.

He blows a few notes and, like magic, a turbaned genie curls out of the trumpet’s mouth and floats above the telephone wires. (pg. 13)

Then Oscar’s red handkerchief, a common accessory of horn players, which was usually flying out from the boy’s pocket, is drawn lying useless on the ground. Oscar is ill with tuberculosis and hospitalized, and the music, the play with Mildred, and even the talking stops for Oscar. It is only after a year’s hospitalization and his return home that Oscar tries to find the magic again,  first taking apart his trumpet and then looking within the family piano.

Oscar sits at the piano.  His fingers pause over the keys for a moment before playing.  When they finally touch the keyboard, it sounds like rolling thunder. (pg. 29)

While Oscar Lives Next Door is a fictionalized story, his love of the trumpet, his life-threatening illness (the same illness from which his brother dies), and his subsequent though temporary lack of speech were all key events in Oscar Peterson’s life, helping to create the pianist he became and for which the world loved him.  Bonnie Farmer gets the right tone of reality and fiction by creating a neighbourhood friend who experiences Oscar’s musicality–sometimes to the chagrin of her hard-working, sleep-deprived father–and is there to offer a child’s perspective on his music and his illness.

Be sure to take note of Marie Lafrance’s touching illustrations which transport the reader to the working-class neighbourhoods of Little Burgundy and adjacent Saint-Henri of the 1930s.  With the easily-identifiable Union Church and the train tracks, smokestacks and cars, trucks and horse-drawn carts, Little Burgundy comes alive and becomes the playground and home of Oscar and Millie and a character in its own.  Marie Lafrance, whose artwork has graced numerous youngCanLit classics (including The Tweedles Go Online and The Tweedles Go Electric reviewed here on CanLit for LittleCanadians) conveys a time and place when children could play safely on the streets, when music streamed the air, and life was full, following the seasons and the workings of fathers.  What a treat it would’ve been to have Oscar live next door.