When I Listen to Silence

Written by Jean E. Pendziwol

Illustrated by Carmen Mok

Groundwood Book

978-1-77306-254-9

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

April 2022

 

Listening to silence may seem like an oxymoron. After all, how can one hear the absence of sound? But Jean E. Pendziwol understands the distinction that is silence in our world and gives children a perspective on something which may often be lacking and underappreciated because it leads to greater voice and joy.

From When I Listen to Silence by Jean E. Pendziwol, illus. by Carmen Mok

As her mom struggles to work at the dining room table, a sight not uncommon to many during this pandemic, a child is asked to "Please, be quiet!" And so the child sits still and silent. But what happens when she's silent?

From When I Listen to Silence by Jean E. Pendziwol, illus. by Carmen Mok

First, she can hears that which would seem inaudible: the trees breathing. Not only do they breathe, they dance. And bears join them in the dance. But that awakens a dragon!

From When I Listen to Silence by Jean E. Pendziwol, illus. by Carmen Mok

The child is no longer just a listener; she is a participant. She is a musician, a passenger on a bird escaping the dragon's breath, and then on a steed with a knight flying to the moon. They cross an ocean of stars, end up on a pirate ship and have to be hushed by a pair of mermaids that look like her mother. Finally, the story comes full circle as it's time for the child to nap, with the whales, and she is compelled to ask her mother for quiet.

There is a profoundness and whimsy when you listen to the silence. It comes from heeding important messages about self and this child is able to take herself into her imagination with that silence. Jean E. Pendziwol shows young readers the wealth and breadth of play that can come from nothing but the imagination, when silence gives way to creativity and fantasy. Away from the noise of a TV, tablet or other riotous devices that take away the opportunity for self-directed play, this child grows and travels and experiences the fancies of being whatever she wants.

 

Carmen Mok's illustrations, rendered in gouache, India ink, dry pastel and colour pencil, take readers from the reality of an indoor room to the surreal of the forest of dancing trees and bears, across the sky and into space and onto the ocean, all from the perch of a child's imagination. The realism of a house with a mom on her computer with a cell phone at her ear, and a child playing with her toys on a window seat in her mom's view, is very honest and a foundation for the child's imaginative play. Her playthings become dancers, a mount and a pirate ship; stars, shells and plants in the decor become part of her landscape; and the toys like the drum and ukulele help her take part in her vision. Carmen Mok gives these imaginative scenes an ethereal feel, bright with the horn-playing moon, the shimmy of a river of stars, and the energy of a pirate ship resplendent in pinks and greens and yellows.  

 

Jean E. Pendziwol and Carmen Mok may show us that this child's play is all in her head but it's robust in colour, spirit and fancy. And it all comes from the power of silence.

Grandfather and the Moon

Written by Stéphanie Lapointe

Illustrated by Rogé

Translated by ShelleyTanaka

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-963-4

100 pp.

Ages 10-13

May 2017

Grand-père et la Lune won the 2016 Governor General's Award for French-language children's illustration and Groundwood Books has astutely engaged Shelley Tanaka to bring this jewel as Grandfather and the Moon to English-language readers. It's sensitive and nostalgic and emotive in a finely understated approach, blending a grandfather-granddaughter relationship with an exceptional journey into space.

Though it is evident from the subtle words and illustrations at the onset that the young girl's grandfather has passed, this is her story of how she remembers him.  He affectionately called her Mémère and, though he spoke few words, he said much to her.  He told his granddaughter of his past work, and always insisted she go to university and get her degree.  He drove around in a tank of a Chrysler and loved spaghetti that came out of a can.

From Grandfather and the Moon 

by Stéphanie Lapointe

illus. by Rogé

Life passed through Grandfather
like one long breath.
Warm,
and slow.

He adored his wife Lucille and was devastated by her death, slipping into a depression of fewer words, "Like his heart ran out of gas." When the Who Will Go to the Moon Contest is announced (though Grandfather hadn't heard of it, since he rarely watched TV, declaring that "Television is something that ends up doing our thinking for us"), the young girl is selected from hundreds of thousands of people for the space journey.

From Grandfather and the Moon 

by Stéphanie Lapointe

illus. by Rogé

After a booming launch, the girl ponders the beauty and silence of space, infusing her deliberations with her perspective on the history of space travel.  Just like the overwhelming emptiness her grandfather endured upon the death of his wife, the girl is staggered by the desolation.  Her response is stunning, to herself and others, but her grandfather in his box of a car is still there for her.

From Grandfather and the Moon

by Stéphanie Lapointe

illus. by Rogé

The relationship between granddaughter and grandfather is everything in Grandfather and the Moon.  There may be an extraordinary trip into space by an ordinary girl but even that does not surpass the profound connection between the two as the most important feature of the book.  Hardly effusive, the two still nurture their relationship as you would a fragile glass sphere, taking care with it but not engulfing it.  And even though I never knew either of my grandfathers, I know this young girl and this man who says so much in his actions and impacts her choices.  This must be a relationship very familiar to author Stéphanie Lapointe as her perspective is so intimate and touched with affection.

Award-winning artist Rogé who has illustrated countless French- and English-language books, his own and those of other authors,  uses pencil to evoke both the delicacy and the transparency of the relationship between the two generations in Grandfather and the Moon.  Moreover, the contemplative nature of the story comes out in Rogé's illustrations, from scenes of Grandfather at Lucille's bedside or the young girl's sojourn into space.  The colours are ever muted, with only glints of red, green or blue like stars in an oppressively darkened sky.  Together Stéphanie Lapointe and Rogé ensure that Grandfather and the Moon is loaded in gravitas in both words and art but with twinkles of humour and sweetness.  Because that's what life is generally like.  

Jeremy Stone

by Lesley Choyce

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-504-2

184 pp.

Ages 14-18

November 2013

Lesley Choyce has a new voice.  In general terms, it's novel in verse.  Specifically, it's the voice of Jeremy Stone.

Jeremy Stone is a sixteen-year-old whose story begins with his return to school after a three-year silence.  Voice silence, that is.  (He was always being told that he was too loud, too rude, too curious.  So he shut up.)  Though he learned from his grandfather–a survivor of the residential school system–never to live in the past, the baggage that Jeremy carries is critical to his present.  Jeremy had been close to his grandfather, Old Man, when they lived on the reserve.  Old Man has since passed, though his spirit regularly visits Jeremy and advises him on all matters of the heart and mind.  Jeremy's father suffers with the black dogs of depression and is now living Out West, cleaning on oil rigs and making money, though he always seems to be running out of minutes on his cell phone.  Jeremy lives in town with his mother, who has kicked most of her drug addictions except for cigarettes and alcohol, but still has a few demons to wrestle.

Though pegged fairly quickly as a boy of First Nations heritage, Jeremy tries to stay under the radar, often quiet still, rarely engaging with others.  But the flicking of a paper clip at Jeremy's cheek by Thomas Heaney brings Jeremy some attention, especially after he capably wins against Thomas a.k.a. Paper Clip in a phys ed wrestling match.  Caitlan, a girl with "Indian eyes", tells Jeremy about a boy she'd loved, Jenson Hayes, who committed suicide after jerks such as Thomas Heaney broke him down with their emotional assaults. When Jeremy learns Caitlan is cutting herself and thinking of joining Jenson, he realizes that he must make things right, and that does not include revenge.  Through his spiritual interactions with Old Man and others, Jeremy finds a way to help others and ultimately help himself as well.

Lesley Choyce often takes on mature issues, even discomforting ones, in his young adult books, from life on the street in Last Chance (Lorimer, 2009), to grief in Shoulder the Sky (Dundurn, 2002), imprisonment in The Book of Michael (Red Deer Press, 2008) and physical bullying in Gone Bad (Lorimer, 2011).  But in Jeremy Stone, Lesley Choyce has taken on the voice of a First Nations teen and channelled the issues of dysfunctional families, bullying, grief, spirituality and suicide from his perspective.  Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised, but Lesley Choyce achieves this with resounding success, never making the reader believe that anyone but Jeremy Stone, with his own strengths and weaknesses, has shared these thoughts and feelings.

Novels in free verse have to say a lot without a lot of words at their disposal.  For that reason, Jeremy Stone is a fast read.  But it is also one that must be contemplated in depth.  In all novels in verse, the reader must read between the spaces and the lines and the letters to see beyond that which the author chooses to share up front.  Jeremy Stone, the book, is very much like Jeremy Stone, the teen: there is so much more than the words.  The richness is realized by those who take the trouble to see beyond the cover and the obvious.

The Silent Summer of Kyle McGinley

by Jan Andrews

Great Plains Teen Fiction

978-1-926531-68-7

200 pp.

Ages 12-15

2013

This year in January I had the pleasure of introducing Jan Andrews at the Ontario Library Association's SuperConference as winner of the 2012 Silver Birch Express Award for her book When Apples Grew Noses and White Horses Flew: the Tales of Ti-Jean (Groundwood, 2011), stories starring Quebec’s traditional folktale hero. I emphasized that Jan Andrews is foremost a storyteller, able to weave tales in text and spoken word for all audiences, sharing cultures and wisdom, entertaining and teaching. While her first foray into young adult fiction may not be what many would judge as a storyteller's story, The Silent Summer of Kyle McGinley is very much a tale in that it teaches, it exposes, it shares, and it entertains. It opens one's eyes. Isn't that what every good story should do?

Kyle McGinley is a fifteen-year-old boy who, on the way to his latest foster home, makes a drastic decision that gives him a feeling of control, something he has lacked since his mother died and his abusive father abandoned him at age 8.

"I, Kyle McGinley, have given up on talk of any kind." (pg. 7)

The talk he gives up is the out-of-his-mouth kind, starting with his newest social worker and his new foster parents, Jill and Scott, consultants that work out of their rural home. But Kyle still does a lot of talking in his head with two significant voices that cohabit there: his father's bold and italicized abusive comments, and the helpful, encouraging italicized suggestions of a scientist he calls Ingen.

Strangely, on a large property with a barn, stream, trails, cattle, a deep pit, and a swamp of lifeless trees, Kyle admits to himself that he's "never been less frightened in my life." (pg. 66) That is, until Jill and Scott hear via the social worker that Kyle's dad has engaged a lawyer to help him reconnect with Kyle. That sends Kyle into a tailspin that has him twisting both with the memories of his father's abuse and with the chance to have a father in his life again. Jill and Scott seem to be pretty cool, letting him sleep out in the loft of the barn, making a space for himself, driving the tractor and then letting him care for a little crow that has been physically abused and abandoned too. But Kyle barely knows them and he's been been through enough types of parenting –abusive, negative, negligent, excessive– to anticipate their rejection of him. Sadly, Kyle doesn't recognize caring.

Like Kyle, the little crow whom he names Lady C is just an avian version of the teen: frightened, flightless by abuse, abandoned and speechless, though the thoughts are clearly there. His heart goes out to Lady C, bringing her into his loft and his life, engaging with her in ways that he cannot with others, yet. Jan Andrews draws on the parallels between Lady C and Kyle, and Kyle and Jill, using expressive dialogue (I know it seems strange considering Kyle doesn't speak aloud) to draw you into Kyle's head and heart. And the uncertainty about the issues with which Jill seems to be dealing and about Kyle's dad's potential for positive change will keep readers wondering and apprehensive and hopeful.

Jan Andrews gives Kyle a distinct voice that stirs and startles, never letting the reader completely understand how the boy thinks. Fortunately, without wrapping up the story with a predictably saccharine ending, Jan Andrews allows Kyle to find, in his own time, his voice, a home and himself.

The Color of Silence

Written by Liane Shaw
Second Story Press
978-1-926920-93-1
269 pp.
Ages 13-17
2013

Does silence have a colour?  Or does silence have different colours?  If I'd been asked those questions, I might have initially given silence the colour black - a void, without filling, a black hole of nothingness but the potential for sound.  But Liane Shaw shows us that The Color of Silence will vary with the listener, here specifically two teens: one whose world had been filled with laughter and song, and then terror, before she chooses not to speak; and one whose silence is involuntary as a result of a medical condition which has denied her a voice since birth.  And just as she did in Fostergirls (Second Story Press, 2011), her novel which was reviewed here on December 5, 2011, Liane Shaw demonstrates that perspective is everything and nothing is the same for everyone.

Alternating chapters between Alexandra and Joanie, and the reminiscences and present situations of both seventeen-year-old girls, Liane Shaw has the two connecting first due to a court order, definitely involuntarily, and then emotionally and naturally through silence.  Alexandra Taylor is court-ordered to provide 200 hours of community service after an accident in a borrowed car leads to the death of her best friend, the popular Cali Prescott.  While both Alex and Cali had loved singing, Cali's talent seemed more innate and now Alex can't even bear to speak.  With her dad, Alex is somewhat more forthcoming, although accepting the guilt for Cali's death and recognizing the futility of her words in preventing it have numbed Alex's desire for verbal communication. Unfortunately, Joanie is the one whose brain doesn't relay messages to her body and suffers through repeated bouts of severe respiratory distress, necessary feeding tubes, a lack of muscle control (except for her eyes) and no voice.  And yet she is the one who works tirelessly to understand Alex and to connect with her.

Joanie, whose poor health and absence of real family would give her great reasons for bitterness, shows only acceptance and understanding, trying to learn more about Alex's reluctance to speak (she doesn't know anything about the court order) and still appreciating the silence she brings.

I rather like having someone here who understands about silence. (pg. 69)

Joanie's silence is coloured with the prisms of light, i.e., rainbows, that reflect from a stone necklace that has been hung above her hospital bed.  The colours trigger her memories of happier times, staying at the group home, going out on school trips, and just being able to leave her hospital bed. So much of her day is quiet because of the dearth of visitors, essentially only her care staff.  Until Alexandra.  Joanie is delighted with Alex's visits, although Alex barely groans out a gasp or yes or no for her first visits.  But Joanie takes it upon herself to get Alex speaking.

Finding the words in silence is one of the things I do best. (pg. 123)

Though the two girls seem to be voiceless, they are attentive to each other.  For Alex, she is too distracted at the beginning to notice much about Joanie, spending much of her efforts anticipating others judging her for her past "crime" and her lack of skills.  Similarly, Joanie worries about others' perceptions of her, even wishing that,

there was a magic mirror that could show him who I really am.  I don't want either of us to keep on looking at the outside of me. (pg. 93)

 When Joanie is given the opportunity to turn her eye movements into words using technology called the Eye Gaze (which they affectionately call the Wizard), the two girls are finally on the same page, with Alex realizing that she has something to offer Joanie i.e., the time and effort to ensure the Wizard is everything it can be.  They are only limited by Joanie's health and consequently time to see what the Wizard can help her achieve.

Liane Shaw ensures that the readers see that voicelessness can be selective or involuntary but the consequences similarly disheartening.  For each girl there is a degree of shame (justified or not, as much shame is) but understanding, appreciation and  effort can mitigate the effects, if only temporarily.  The Color of Silence is not a plot-driven novel of adventure, intriguing subplots or parables to teach us how to live. It's a story of two characters and how they develop and evolve into better functioning individuals, finding the colour in their lives.