The Cold Little Voice

Written by Alison Hughes

Illustrations by Jan Dolby

Clockwise Press

978-1-988347-11-0

32 pp.

Ages 5-9

February 2019

Listening or not listening to the voices in your head is a skill that we develop with time, practice and experience. Telling the difference between valuable instinct and unproductive doubts is crucial and The Cold Little Voice is all about helping children know how to silence a negative one.

From The Cold Little Voice by Alison Hughes, illus. by Jan Dolby

The purple-haired child in The Cold Little Voice could be any child. It's a child whose bad-tempered blue voice, like a black cloud raining on a child's joy, points out anything that might be perceived as a weakness.

It points out that I bite my nails, laugh too loudly, trip when I run upstairs, talk too much, blush, cry too easily, make smacking sounds when I chew, sing off-key, get the hiccups too often, and have sloppy writing.

From The Cold Little Voice by Alison Hughes, illus. by Jan Dolby

The child plugs their ears and tries not to listen but sometimes that voice is far too insistent.  In response, the child stops being who they are.

I become small and still and grey.
And not me.

Fortunately, a new voice, a warm voice of yellow is heard, encouraging the child to look for goodness in cuddles with creatures, in the sun in the blue sky and in a supportive community. And if that cold little voice tries to speak again? Well, the child pities it and soothes it until it can become a big, warm, kind voice that whisper-shouts affirmations and helps turn others' cold little voices into big warm ones too.

From The Cold Little Voice by Alison Hughes, illus. by Jan Dolby

Just like the warm voice that sends positive messages and encouragement, The Cold Little Voice, the book, is transformative, inspiring light from dark thoughts and support rather than isolation.  Alison Hughes, who has helped children deal with anxious thoughts in her picture book The Creepy-Crawly Thought (2019), recognizes that there are voices in most of us that tell us that we're not good enough as we are and that these voices prey on our insecurities and fears. But Alison Hughes doesn't just negate those thoughts. She helps transform them into positives and reassurances.

A voice that says:
"You can do it!" 
or "Who cares if it's silly – 
you're having fun!" 
or "Everybody makes mistakes!"

Similarly, Jan Dolby, who illustrated Lucky Me (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2018) and Gabby, Wonder Girl (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2016) among others, brings that metamorphosis to her artwork. From the sombre blues and greys of the cold, little voice to the yellows and lime greens and pinks of the warmth of good thoughts, Jan Dolby carries young readers from a dark place to one of hope.

Negative thoughts that become doubts and apprehension cannot always be silenced immediately. But The Cold Little Voice will be very reassuring to children as they learn that it is possible to influence those thoughts to becoming good ones that can boost not belittle.

From The Cold Little Voice by Alison Hughes, illus. by Jan Dolby

Mad Miss Mimic: Book Launch (Toronto)

Author
Sarah Henstra 

and

will be launching her first book

Mad Miss Mimic

by Sarah Henstra

Razorbill

978-0-14-319236-7

272 pp.

Ages 13+

on

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

7-10:00 p.m.

at

High Park Curling Club

100 Indian Road

Toronto, ON

Wear a fancy hat (DIY embellishments encouraged!)
and participate in a contest  (judging at 8:30 p.m. sharp)
to win a free, signed copy of Mad Miss Mimic and other prizes

Special performance by Cantores Celestes Women's Choir

Book City will have copies on sale

Mad Miss Mimic

by Sarah Henstra

Razorbill

978-0-14-319236-7

272 pp.

Ages 13+

For release May, 2015

Fitting in is a dilemma for young people the world over and throughout time, whether it be contemporary Canada or 1870s London.  But the constraints of Victorian England were highly embedded in the strict social hierarchy of the day.  Young women of standing, such as seventeen-year-old Miss Leonora Somerville, niece of the Countess of Hastings, were expected to make suitable marriages, partaking in endless social engagements, while the men were to engage themselves with business and politics.  But, as lovely as she is, Leonora’s stammering and learned ability to mimic others–she has heard them call her Mad Miss Mimic–have put her at a great social disadvantage, and one which her older sister Christabel, wife of Dr. Daniel Dewhurst and mother of two, is determined to hide–afterall, “Madness will take the shine off gold” (pg. 21)–in order to procure an engagement for Leonora and finally move her out of Hastings House.

Currently, Christabel’s efforts are focused on the wealthy merchant seaman Mr. Thornfax, a new business partner of Daniel’s and the son of the Lord Rosbury.  And all Leonora has to do it not speak.  But when Mr. Thornfax asks her questions directly, she has no choice but to answer, unconsciously mimicking her sister.

“Mimic had leapt in to rescue me from trouble. She’d allowed me to adopt my sister’s voice and manners wholesale, so that I could say whatever Christabel would say–or whatever I might imagine her to say–in precisely the way Christabel would have said it.” (pg. 30)

Fortunately, her cousin Archie Maverty, a reporter, who knows of her mimicry, rescues her, though more for her benefit than for Thornfax whom he regards as suspicious. But it is Daniel’s work at his surgery, where a young man named Tom Rampling assists him, that makes Leonora suspicious, especially after a young servant girl, Hattie, dies.

Because of her household interactions with Hattie, and her curiosity about Hattie’s involvement with Daniel and Mr. Thornfax, Leonora develops a rapport with the clever and creative Tom, to whom she is drawn because of his compassion for others and his acceptance of her mimicry.  However, Leonora is still being courted by Thornfax, London is still being held hostage by the dangerous Black Glove and his fatal explosions, and Leonora is troubled with doubts about Tom’s honesty, Christabel’s frequent agitation, and Daniel and Thornfax’s business.  That very simple but necessary betrothal begins to be the least of Leonora’s worries soon enough.

At its heart, Mad Miss Mimic is a Victorian mystery, all the more perplexing because of the information that the characters choose to share of themselves.  Yes, the Black Glove chooses to remain concealed, but everyone else–Tom, Thornfax, Christabel, Daniel– including our narrator herself also chose what secrets and fears and guilt they share and which they do not.  The reluctance of all to speak with their own voices–save perhaps their Aunt Emma, but I suspect age and privilege have helped beget that courage–creates the mystery of Mad Miss Mimic.  And, with Sarah Henstra’s brilliant characterizations and historical setting, the mystery and an unexpected and sweet romance at its core, Mad Miss Mimic reveals the need for voices to be given the freedom for expression if life is to be worth living.

 *   *   *   *   *   *   * 

Special post tomorrow: Q & A with author Sarah Henstra about her first novel, Mad Miss Mimic

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.

M in the Abstract

by Douglas Davey
Red Deer Press
978-0-88995-487-8
216 pp.
Ages 14+
March, 2013

We all have voices in our heads directing our actions.  They may be the voices of our parents who reminded us what to do or not do; our consciences lacing our decision-making with guilt or clarity; our inner children begging to be heard; or even our own voices silently repeating a mantra for living a better life.  Most of us can tell the source of those voices and heed them accordingly.  But what if you couldn't discern the source of the voices?  Or they're so loud and insistent that they're impossible to ignore?  Or what if they seem to be accompanied by dark wispy shadows that torment and tantalize?  How do you make sense of your voices then?

This is Mary's reality (or maybe not).  For Mary, whose real name is Mariposa (though her mother always calls her Posey), the voices are persistent, often warning her against interactions with others and arguing with her choices or suppositions.

This is not a place for you (pg. 38)
Remember the last one seemed friendly (pg. 60)
Stop this before you get in over your head (pg. 63)

But with a move from the suburbs to town, Mary is exposed to new people at school and elsewhere.  Her mom may want Mary to change her look, to make new friends and to wipe away all memory of her dad (who'd inexplicably left ten years earlier), but these stresses continue to bring forth the voices and the dark shadows that drift around her.

Mary tries to appease her mother and even thinks about making herself happy, considering having a boyfriend after two different boys show an interest in her.  But her lack of experience interacting with others have her reconsidering every decision she makes, sometimes overreacting and confusing others.  As Mary tries to navigate successfully into new relationships, she begins to consider what the voices and shadows truly mean.

Douglas Davey presents Mary's situation in haunting colours of loneliness, confusion, dismal weather, and wispy shadows.  Even as Mary meets new people and experiences positive interactions, Douglas Davey does not allow the reader to forget the trepidation that accompanies each new encounter.  Sadly even as she enjoys moments of camaraderie and fleeting affection, they're sabotaged.  But the source of the sabotage is unclear.  When I began reading, I wondered whether M in the Abstract was speculative fiction and the voices fantastic elements of a new world. (In my defense, I try not to read too much about any book before I read it to ensure my review is truly my own.)  I realized soon enough that I was wrong. As the title suggests, Mary is an enigma, unsure of herself. When she signs the class register, she signs it as M, not Mariposa, not Mary.   The book M in the Abstract is as abstract as its protagonist in that it is a complex examination of a girl with legitimate worries and in transition.  How she interprets and deals with those concerns is profound, as is how the story resolves itself.  To its very end, the story is abstruse, just as it would undoubtedly be in reality.