The Spotted Dog Last Seen

by Jessica Scott Kerrin

Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press

978-1-55498-387-2

196 pp.

Ages 8-11

August 2013

The Spotted Dog Last Seen may focus on a cemetery and headstones and the dead, but it's really a story about buried secrets and making things right. And with a motley crew of characters led by our narrator Derek (whose passion is collecting sayings to put on t-shirts e.g., Change is good.  You go first.) and the cotton-ball eye-browed Mr. Creelman, The Spotted Dog Last Seen takes the story from grave (pun intended) to middle-grade perfection.

Imagine having Grade 6 students volunteer once a week for the last three months of the school year and getting the assignment of helping the Twillingate Cemetery Brigade tend to the grave markers.  Along with Pascal Bender and Merrilee Takahashi, Derek gets lessons from the trio of elderly men, led by the emphatic Mr. Creelman, about reading numbers, symbols, epitaphs, shapes, and composites of stone, all with the aim of helping them clean the markers. While Derek reacts strongly to stone-carved hands and his recurring nightmare about an orange rubber ball, he starts to enjoy their Wednesday afternoons together.  Pascal is entertaining and asks quirky questions, Merrilee engrosses them in a mystery involving codes linked to some library books, and Derek finds himself learning so much that his fear of cemeteries is diminishing.

"Creelman had been showing us all along that cemeteries were much more about the living than they were about the dead." (pg. 118)

The Spotted Dog Last Seen is a mystery at its heart so I can't give much more away except to say that it involves a school's time capsule, a Mystery Book Club, hidden memories, guilt and much more work in the Twillingate Cemetery. 

Knowing author Jessica Scott Kerrin from her Martin Bridge early-reader series from Kids Can Press, I am familiar with her capable writing with boys as protagonists.  With The Spotted Dog Last Seen, Jessica Scott Kerrin can now add middle-grade writing to her skills.  Boys will enjoy the irreverence of Derek's t-shirts, Pascal's lack of self-control and the grim aura of the Twillingate Cemetery Brigade of Mr. Creelman, Mr. Peeble and Mr. Wooster.  While I felt that there were too many dangling subplots at one point, and I could not keep track of how they were related, I just needed to be patient.  Jessica Scott Kerrin entwines the subplots almost effortlessly.  For me, it's the crisp dialogue, usually between characters but just as effectively in Derek's head, that says much more than a few words normally can that enriches the story beyond a mystery to a personal journey of understanding and growth.

Kenta and The Big Wave

Written and illustrated by Ruth Ohi

Annick Press

978-1-55451-576-9

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

July, 2013 

Most Canadian young readers will recognize Ruth Ohi's distinct style of illustration which blends softness with gravity and whimsy. (I know, how is that possible?) Check out Hazel Hutchins' Nicholas at the Library (Annick Press, 1990) and The Sidewalk Rescue (Annick Press, 2004) and Joy Kogawa's Naomi's Tree (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2010) and Naomi's Road (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2005) to see how Ruth Ohi has taken others' text and magnified it into astounding stories.  With her own books, including Chicken, Pig, Cow (Annick Press, 2008) series, Clara and the Bossy (Annick Press, 2006) and Me and My Sister (Annick Press, 2005), Ruth Ohi has found the means to share compassionate stories that teach about getting along with others. While focusing on a historical event, Ruth Ohi brings these same virtues to her newest Kenta and The Big Wave.

Based on the tsunami that hit the coast of Japan in 2011, Kenta and his family are part of the population that responds to the sirens and evacuates to higher ground and the shelter of the school gym.  With each step of Kenta's family's journey to safety and in dealing with the aftermath of the devastation, Kenta's beloved soccer ball travels across the turbulent ocean.

While Kenta and The Big Wave may seem a simple story with a happy ending with regards to a boy's lost soccer ball, it has far greater depth in its story-telling and illustrations.  Ruth Ohi ensures that the reader understands the breadth of the tsunami's destruction and the effects on Kenta's community first and foremost. The overwhelming waves on double-page spreads fully engulfing the soccer ball are reminder enough.  But, although she never trivializes the context of Kenta's soccer ball story, she tenderly demonstrates how important that ball is to him.

I know that Kenta and The Big Wave will touch many readers, though I suspect there will be many a teacher who will recognize the multitude of teachable moments in the book: perspective, compassion, loss, grief, generosity and tsunamis.  Here is a story that explains, with kindness, that which seems almost inexplicable.

Big Top Otto: Book Launch (Toronto)

Author and illustrator Bill Slavin

well-known for illustrating 

Linda Bailey's Stanley picture books 

and Good Times Travel Agency non-fiction series, 

among many other books,

launched

his Elephants Never Forget graphic novel series with

Big City Otto

(Kids Can Press, 2011)

and is ready to launch

the second book in the series

 

BIG TOP OTTO

written and illustrated by Bill Slavin

Kids Can Press
978-1554538065

88 pp.

Ages 7-11

August 2013

on

Saturday, September 28, 2013

1-3 p.m.

at

Little Island Comics

742 Bathurst St.

Toronto, ON

In Big Top Otto, Otto, the elephant, and his parrot friend, Crackers, search for Otto's childhood friend, Georgie, the chimpanzee.

In addition to launching the book, Bill Slavin will provide a special opportunity to view and purchase original artwork from both Elephants Never Forget volumes.

The Night Has Claws (The Magdeburg Trilogy, Book Two)

by Kat Kruger
Fierce Ink Press
978-0-9917937-5-4 (pb)
978-1-927746-02-8 (ebook)
269 pp.
Ages 14+
Release September 24, 2013
Reviewed from advance release ebook

When Kat Kruger ended her award-winning first book in The Madgeburg Trilogy, The Night Has Teeth (reviewed here on January 13, 2013), it was bloody mayhem.  Really.  Seventeen-year-old Connor Lewis had learned that he is a pure werewolf whose "nature" was only revealed after born-werewolf Amara had accidentally bitten him.  His special nature had drawn the attention of Henri Boguet, one of the bitten "monsters", whose biotech company has developed an antivenin for werewolf bites as well as a cure he calls Wolf Bane.  And Connor's school friends, Madison and Josh, had revealed that Josh had bitten Madison, condemning her to a life as a monster too. Even though Josh is still in love with Madison and desperate to make things up to her, Madison and Connor have an affinity for each other. With the nature of one's werewolfness determining the allegiances one has, Connor is confused understandably about whom to trust.

The Night Has Claws begins with three different story lines which will ultimately converge.  First, with Boguet being captured, he is remanded to custody to stand trial before the High Court of Madgeburg, the werewolf court.  Secondly, Madison who has shot Boadicea, Boguet's associate, believing she was going to harm Connor, focuses on what she has done, what is on the USB stick Boadicea tried to give Connor, and how she feels about Connor and Josh.  Lastly, born-werewolf Arden, Amara's mate, who'd appeared to die by Boguet's hand (teeth, actually), had been buried along with Boadicea by the Hounds of God (a society of the bitten).  But Arden had not died, though he desperately wished he had, becoming human instead, getting Boguet's cure through his venom. 

So we've got Connor sticking close to Arden and helping him survive as a human while learning from Arden how to live as a werewolf.  But through it all, Connor must decide to whom he will ally himself:  Roul (Rodolfus de Aquila), leader of Arden's former pack, or the Hounds of God to which Josh and Madison belong. 

In Quedlinburg, Germany, where the High Court of Madgeburg officiates, all gather for the prosecution of Boguet by Heaven's Hand, the organization that governs werewolves.  In addition to Connor, Roul, Arden, Amara, Madison, and Josh and their related groups, the Luparii (marked by white armbands) who act as an intergovernmental European task force to limit and maintain control of the werewolf populations show a strong presence.  On the surface, the court and Heaven's Hand profess to protect all life with the singular law of condemning to death any who bites a human but, as with many organizations in which individuals carry their own emotional baggage and opinions, hypocrisy creates exceptions and thus friction.  While Boguet may be the official defendant, Connor and Arden become targets for the judge, Breber. While Madison may come to their aid with surprisingly revelations about Boguet, instead of quelling both judicial and physical attacks, her news launches a new barrage hitherto unknown.

Hold onto your book or device because The Night Has Claws may start with the emotional and physical clean-up of story-lines from The Night Has Teeth but it ends on an even messier closing. I don't mean messier as in confused but rather in terms of catastrophic ruin.  It breaks apart with secrets revealed, relationships and alliances exposed and shattered, and upcoming hostilities and combat forecast. The reader may still be hopeful for reconciliation between Connor and Madison and Arden and Amara but surprisingly Kat Kruger has you cheering for the motley band of protagonists and even laughing along at times. (Honestly, how often can a writer use the admonishment "Bite me" as a double entendre?) And there's even more action, surprises and affairs of the heart coming because we know that where The Night Has Claws leaves off, Book Three will launch and continue to thrill.

The Pocket Mommy: Book Launch (Ottawa)

Join singer, actor, music director and 

author Rachel Eugster

for the launch of

her new picture book

The Pocket Mommy

Written by Rachel Eugster

Illustrated by Tom Goldsmith

Tundra Books

978-1-77049-300-1  

32 pp.

Ages 4-6

August, 2013

at

Kaleidoscope Kids’ Books 

1018 Bank Street

Ottawa, ON 

K1S 3W8
 

 on

Sunday, September, 22, 2013

4:00 pm - 7:00 pm

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.

Launch of the inaugural TD Canadian Children's Literature Fan Choice Award

TD and CBC Books 

present 

the TD Canadian Children's Literature Fan Choice Award

Starting today, young readers will have a chance to go online and pick their favourite book

from the 5 finalists for the 2013 TD Canadian Children's Literature Award

The book with the most votes will win and be awarded the 

TD Canadian Children's Literature Fan Choice Award

and

one lucky entrant will win a trip to Toronto 

to present the award at the gala ceremony on October 22.

See details at CBC Books (www.cbc.ca/books/kids).

Here are this year's 5 finalists:

Kids of Kabul: Living Bravely Through a Never-Ending War
Written by Deborah Ellis
Groundwood Books
Ages 11+

One Year in Coal Harbour
Written by Polly Horvath

Groundwood Books
Ages 9-13

The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen
Written by Susin Nielsen
Tundra Books
Ages 11+

The Stamp Collector
Written by Jennifer Lanthier

Illustrated by François Thisdale

Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Ages 8+

Virginia Wolf
Written by Kyo Maclear
Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
Kids Can Press
Ages 5-10

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As an aside, I hope this experiment in a fan choice award works somehow.  Having been part of both juried award selections and readers' choice award selections, I suspect that different titles may be selected from the same short-list of finalists.  Although both award winners will be honest and worthy selections, I have to wonder how not being the fan choice might diminish the thrill of winning the juried award. 

Moreover, although juries can look at a wide variety of books, here ranging for readers from ages 5 to 13+, young readers will be limited as to the books they can and will read.  An eight-year-old is unlikely to select The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen because he or she would not have read it.  And a 12-year-old may too easily dismiss Virginia Wolf and The Stamp Collector as picture books, the realm of the youngest readers.  And how will Deborah Ellis' complex and heart-stopping Kids of Kabul: Living Bravely Through a Never-Ending War fare amongst die-hard fiction readers?

Mixing picture books, middle-grade fiction and non-fiction in a single list for adult jurors is not an issue but for young readers it is.  This is why popular readers' choice book awards like Ontario's Silver Birch,  BC's Red Cedar Book Award and the Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award compile lists of nominees according to age of readership and genre.  I suspect that, for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Fan Choice Award, readers and titles are at a disadvantage, making the ultimate selection less accurate and more subjective.

That said, young readers are still privileged to choose one of these fine titles for this new award and any title chosen from this complex list will be a worthy recipient of the award.  Good luck to all nominees.