Everybelly

Written and illustrated by Thao Lam

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-764-3

40 pp.

Ages 3-6

April 2025 

 

When did we learn to judge people based on how they look? When do we learn that bellies are not seen as beautiful or that because someone is different that they don't belong? Young children are often accepting of everyone, until or unless they are taught otherwise. For this child, the people whom she sees at their local pool are a rich mosaic of professions, preferences, and looks, and she appreciates all of them.

From Everybelly, written and illustrated by Thao Lam

Maddie and her mama go down to the community pool to swim. Everybody is there, from Stan and Dan who bake cookies, Vibhuti who is in a band, and Mr. Mendoza who talks to his daughter in Argentina on Sundays. There are artists and shopkeepers, students and the elderly. There are those with a walker or a prosthetic leg, or using a pool lift to move them from their wheelchair into the water. Everyone is there and enjoying the pool in their own way. Some float on inflatables, while others swim, and some just relax poolside. They are different and they are beautiful.

From Everybelly, written and illustrated by Thao Lam

It's obvious that Maddie notes everything and everyone. Whether it be how bellies can be used as tables for phones or drinks, or that bellies can stretch bigger and bigger until they pop like her friend's mom's who's giving her another brother. (Uma wanted a dog.) Maddie knows that there are some who work hard to keep their bellies flat though she likes when her belly is full because her mother works hard to keep them fed. (Maddie thinks about all the foods she would fill her belly with, from jelly beans and gimbap, to gỏi cuốn, and fried chicken.) Every belly is different, supported by bodies that vary in their abilities, their challenges, their attributes, and their clothing and adornments that include scars and tattoos. With all these people, Maddie's world is richer and more colourful.

From Everybelly, written and illustrated by Thao Lam

Everybelly is a tribute to the diversity of people that make our lives fuller. By seeing all the people whom she knows and even those she doesn't, Maddie is learning empathy and an appreciation for a wide variety of cultures, bodies, preferences, and more. She may notice what they look like, such as the size of their bellies, and what they are doing, like breastfeeding, but she accepts them as part of her community. Thao Lam, who both wrote the text and illustrated Everybelly, gives us the words to help see the innocence and openness of Maddie's perspective–like her claim that Mr. Popov was keeping time with his broom on the ceiling as she tap-danced (!)–and her acceptance of her world as full and vibrant. For her, this is the norm, and she relishes it.

From Everybelly, written and illustrated by Thao Lam

But beyond Maddie's words and thoughts, Thao Lam has given the child and her community exuberance via the artwork. Thao Lam's cut-paper collage as seen in earlier books like One Giant Leap and The Paper Boat is even bolder and splashier, giving greater depth and texture to a setting that is basically a pool and poolside. But that setting is all the richer for the people that inhabit the space, even if only temporarily. There are so many different bathing suits, hats, towels, and sandals. They are colourful and patterned. Some like burkinis hide more than others and some leave it all out to be seen. I could spend hours poring through the book, finding details that intrigue, like the heart surgery scar on one gentleman, the pigeons eating spilled popcorn, or the imprint of sunglasses left on a sunburned belly. Thao Lam lets us see this community in all its glorious bodies and lives to appreciate a mother-daughter relationship and a communal appreciation for diversity.

Swimming, Swimming

by Gary Clement

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-449-7

48 pp.

Ages 4-7

April 2015

It's summer and a boy who is obviously obsessed with swimming (note the posters hanging on the blue water walls of his room, his t-shirts, and the goggles and flippers on the floor) is just getting up, getting dressed, packing his backpack and meeting his friends. Any guesses where they’re heading?  Yep, it’s summer so it’s the local swimming pool.

And once they’re changed and pre-showered and on the deck of the massive outdoor pool, it’s time for the Swimming, Swimming song.  What? You don't know the camp song “Swimming, swimming, in a swimming pool?” No worries.  Gary Clement will take you along for a colourful and quirky illustrated rendition of the song, and even share with you, via video (which I've also shared below), the gestures that go with it.  Ready?  Sing!

Swimming, swimming
In a swimming pool.
When days are hot
When days are cold
In a swimming pool.
Breaststroke
Sidestroke
Fancing diving too!
Oh don’t you wish you never had anything else to do?

From the boy and his friends, to moms and dads with little ones, swimmers with balls, flutterboards, an innertube or waterwings, everyone is getting into Swimming, Swimming.  I defy you to not find yourself amongst the goggled, sunglassed, gotteed, bearded and clean-shaven, bikini- and tankini-ed, full-suited and trunked floaters and active swimmers at the swimming pool.  Gary Clement has included everyone!  And when the day is done and they leave the community pool, stopping at the Mister Ice Cream truck before heading home for dinner, the boy ends the day tending to a small orange swimmer for whom he is responsible, before he’s in bed resting so he'll be ready for another day of Swimming, Swimming in a swimming pool.

Many Canadian readers will be familiar with Gary Clement’s political cartoons in the National Post but I believe that his illustrations have that originality and funniness that are the heart of great humourous picture books.  Obviously others think so as well, since Gary Clement did win a Governor General’s Award for Illustration for his book The Great Poochini (Groundwood Books, 2010).  Just like his loveable relatives in Oy Fey So? (Cary Fagan, Groundwood Books, 2013), Gary Clement’s very real characters who are less-than-perfect-morphologically steal the story, again bringing all readers into the book, whether they want to go swimming or not. (And, for reference, the endpapers will show you the different strokes!)

(BTW, thanks, Gary Clement, for keeping the Speedo-ed strutter out of the community pool!)

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Swimming, Swimming Sing Along

Uploaded by House of Anansi on April 27, 2015 to YouTube.