Any Questions?

by Marie-Louise Gay

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-382-7

60 pp.

Ages 6-9

September 2014

Of course you have questions.  Children are insatiable when it comes to asking about...everything! But when it comes to how someone does something, like write and illustrate a book, they seem to have even more questions, only knowing the quality of the finished product, never the steps involved.  And, how are they to attempt the same without some direction?  Fortunately, Marie-Louise Gay, creator of Stella and Sam, Caramba, and so many much-loved characters and books, shares everything!

"Marie-Louise Gay has scribbled, scrawled, sketched, doodled, penciled, collaged and painted the words and pictures of a story-within-a-story that might answer your questions about how brilliant ideas creep up on you when you least expect it and how words sometimes float out of nowhere asking to be written."                                                    (blurb on back cover)

See?  She tells everything! And I ♥ everything about Any Questions?

From the dedication to those who ask the questions and those who try to answer them, to her self-portrait and inclusivity of every child anywhere, to the whimsy of her words and ideas floating from the heavens, to the story within, The Shy Young Giant, Any Questions? is splendid and resplendent in its colour, forms, text, fonts, joy, inquiry and artistry.  I love the overwhelming details in Marie-Louise Gay's illustrations: the birds flying from the giant's hair; the expressive children using mega-tools like brushes, pencils, paint and scissors; the forest animals and cat who accompany their efforts and comment seamlessly on all facets of the process; and the colours!–brilliant purples, oranges and greens and soft blues and mauves–that cannot be replicated anywhere but in Marie-Louise Gay's artwork.

Will I read this story to my students and little ones to share the joy of creative writing and illustration?  Will I watch their wonderstruck eyes and smile at their gaping mouths at the marvel that is Any Questions? Will I share every nuance of every illustration and let them find the distinctions that I missed?  Just as Marie-Louise Gay does, throughout the book and in an appendix of questions and answers, I certainly will!

To This Day: For the Bullied and the Beautiful

Written by Shane Koyczan

Annick Press

9781554516391

72 pp.

Ages 9+

For release September 2014

When Canadian spoken word artist Shane Koyczan wrote and performed his poem To This Day, about his experiences and those of others being bullied when younger, he probably could not have foreseen the truly amazing global impact that it would have. But global it did become when his performance of the poem was animated in a video posted to his YouTube channel as part of the To This Day Project in February 2013.  Over 14 million views later, To This Day continues to send an important message of anti-bullying.

This month, Annick Press releases a static version of Shane Koyczan's poem with double-page spread illustrations by thirty international artists, over half Canadian. In a variety of media and styles, artists interpreted the words from the poem To This Day, providing graphic substance to a poem as real and tangible as it could get.

For anyone who has experienced bullying, as a victim, an instigator, or an observer (and sadly, that probably means everyone), To This Day will resonate loudly with the tales of Shane Koyczan's experiences with bullying, as well as those of other children. From French artist Barroux's powerful image of hands flinging blackened speech bubbles at a boy attempting to protect his face, ears, and eyes from them, to Canadian Kim Stewart's waves of sleeping forms over which the bullying victim cautiously treads upon a tightrope, all the illustrations pound out the viciousness of bullying and juxtapose it against the frosting that could be love and kindness.  A full listing of the artists' bios is available at www.annickpress.com/To-This-Day for more details.

In addition to the graphic representation of the poem, To This Day includes the story behind the development of the video, resources for help against bullying, links to sites related to the poem and personal anecdotes of bullying experiences of the artists.

If you are left with only one message, take this one from Shane Koyczan from his introduction, i.e., Greetings, in which he encourages everyone to find the perfect medium to express yourself.

"Remember that the world will never hear you if you choose to say nothing." (pg. 1)

Finding Ruby Starling

by Karen Rivers

Alfred A. Levine Books/Scholastic

978-0-545-53479-6

304 pp.

Ages 10-14

August, 2014

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Karen River’s latest book for young readers is a successful take on a Parent Trap-type plot, albeit with the benefits of modern technology and perhaps a friendly spirit. 

While goofing around online with a face-matching app called FaceTrace, 12-year-old Ruth Quayle, adopted daughter of a heart surgeon and a scientist, discovers a British look-alike in trendier clothes named Ruby Starling. Through a series of Tumblr posts, emails with her best, talking to her parents, and contacting Ruby, Ruth determines that she and the other girl are identical twins who somehow became separated.

“I feel like half of me has just been peeled away, like a decal being pulled off its back sticky bit, making me just the waxy papery rubbish left behind.” (pg. 11)

Unconvinced about Ruth’s theory, Ruby reaches out to her friends for advice, though she knows that only her mother – a busy artist distracted by her work – and her deceased grandmother could tell her the truth.  Finding the need to talk to grandmother, Ruby writes letters (obviously never sent) to air her thoughts.  When a painting by Ruby’s mother of her as a baby with a shadow baby in the background falls off the wall, Ruby becomes convinced that her Nan has sent her a message from beyond the grave indicating that Ruby and Ruth are indeed twins.

By using only emails, letters, and Tumblr posts for Ruth and Ruby to communicate their secrets, concerns and questions, Karen Rivers’ ensures that the girls’ youthful voices are always maintained.  And, though the twins have bigger issues with which to deal, including fear, abandonment and grief, Karen Rivers embeds those issues seamlessly within natural interactions with family and friends, adding quirky teachings from a Buddhist calendar, occasional ghostly messages and some boyfriend-girlfriend drama to help keep the heavy issues from detracting from the story’s feelgood nature.

Karen Rivers’ story of long-lost twins could have easily followed a typical, comedic path. But by showing how the lives of Ruth and Ruby are enriched by the discovery of each other, the author has created a more complex narrative that explores themes of family and friendship.

(A version of this review was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)

Kubiw, H. (2014, October). [Review of the book Finding Ruby Starling, by Karen Rivers]. Quill & Quire, 80 (8): 38.

Becoming Fierce: Teen Stories IRL: Authors share

Stories by Chris Benjamin, Ben Boudreau, Gerard Collins, Alison DeLory, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Patti Larsen, Cale Liom, Chad Pelley, Lee D. Thompson and Jo Treggiari 

Forward by Susin Nielsen

Edited by Allister Thompson

Fierce Ink Press

978-1-927746-61-5

205 pp.

Ages 13+

For release September 23, 2014

Yesterday's review of Becoming Fierce is a great introduction to the ten Canadian writers who gave life to their stories about becoming and being fierce.  Like greatness, some people have fierceness (is that ferocity?) thrust upon, while others grow into that fierceness with age and experience.  I wonder if some of us never become fierce.

These ten authors have agreed to answer this very simple request:  If you could tell your pre-fierce self something in three little words, what would it be?

I expected something similar to "It gets better".  Now we know why they are the writers and I simply give them space for their words.  Sometimes the answer can't be restricted to a mere three words, the idea of becoming fierce being such an overwhelming concept.  But here are the gracious and personal responses of the authors: 

Jamie Fitzpatrick 

(Newfoundland)

These Memories Can’t Wait 

You are lucky

......................................................................................................

Ben Boudreau

(Nova Scotia)

Say It’s Okay

Keep aiming higher

......................................................................................................

Jo Treggiari 

(Nova Scotia)
Love You Like Suicide

Create and Live

......................................................................................................

Chris Benjamin 

(Nova Scotia)

Cuisvé 

Hunger for Justice

......................................................................................................

Gerard Collins

(Newfoundland)

The Long Last Year 

Don't be afraid

......................................................................................................

Alison DeLory 

(Nova Scotia)

Some of My Parts

Embrace your uniqueness

......................................................................................................

Chad Pelley 

(Newfoundland)

Before I Was Me

For better or for worse, the real world could not be more different than the bizarre and temporary world of high school.

......................................................................................................

Lee D. Thompson 

(New Brunswick)

Diary of a Fluky Kid

Always be yourself

......................................................................................................

Patti Larsen 

(Prince Edward Island)

Prince Nameless

Trust the Universe

Just keep writing

You got this

......................................................................................................

Cale Liom

(Prince Edward Island)

I Used to Think I’d Make a Good Boy

Learn martial arts

......................................................................................................


Each author's words will resonate with the reader after you've read each of their stories and perhaps even before you do.  And for anyone who is in need of becoming fierce, the stories will tell you in so many different ways that it does get better.  Learn from those who have been through it.  Read Becoming Fierce: Teen Stories IRL.

Becoming Fierce: Teen Stories IRL

Stories by Chris Benjamin, Ben Boudreau, Gerard Collins, Alison DeLory, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Patti Larsen, Cale Liom, Chad Pelley, Lee D. Thompson and Jo Treggiari
Forward by Susin Nielsen
Edited by Allister Thompson
Fierce Ink Press
978-1-927746-61-5
205 pp.
Ages 13+
For release September 23, 2014

I'd been wondering about the idea of being fierce, a word I always recall using to describe lions and tigers. In fact, fierce always seems to be synonymous with wild, savage, intense and violent.  None of these are actually traits to which someone might aspire, are they?  But more recently, fierceness has taken on the positive dimension of being bold and gutsy, without arrogance or insolence.  Everyone will experience a time when becoming fierce is the only option, other than concession or worse.  I celebrate the writers of the ten short stories in Becoming Fierce: Teen Stories IRL who share their own experiences in teenhood, about themselves and others, when becoming fierce releases them from the holds of fears, bullies, confusion, family, drugs, and even country.

These short stories all come from Atlantic writers whose experiences may or may not be defined by their regions.  Cuisvé by Chris Benjamin tells the story of an international exchange he shared with a young man, Ben, from St. Lucia.  Though Chris, 19, felt fierce breaking up with his girlfriend, sure that their relationship would never survive their three months separation, it's Ben's Uncle Dingo whose passion for his country is truly fierce in so many ways.  In The Long Last Year, Gerard Collins struggles with graduating from high school in Newfoundland, without any decisions made for his future, and dealing with his father who suffered a debilitating stroke which ultimately cost him his life.  Gerard Collins' fierceness needed to wait until the day he was ready to go beyond his home. The rather isolated community of Summerside, PEI, probably contributed to Cale Liom's necessity for fierceness, with the bullying and abuse she endured, as described in I Used to Think I'd Make a Good Boy.  Growing up with relentless homophobic comments because she was a girl who just wanted to have the same opportunities to do sports and such like the boys pushed Cale Liom into further confusion and suicidal thoughts, though her strength came from surviving it all.

As in Cuisvé and The Long Last Year, family can play a significant role in becoming fierce.  Lee D. Thompson's Diary of a Fluky Kid relives, in nine innings, his ever-changing relationships with the fathers in his life: his own father who was relentless about teaching his eldest daughter to play baseball, and the fathers of two friends, Gino and Murray, who taught him how to hit, to anticipate a curve ball, to sprint and finally to love the sport his father adored.

But, as with so many teens, self-esteem and self-acceptance are often tied to one's friends and peers, and that can be both valuable and disastrous.  Ben Boudreau's camp counsellor experiences, recounted in Say It's Okay, started with bullying by the "real" counsellors who were neither pimply nor awkward. Here he meets Pete, who has special needs, continuing to babysit the boy years later when Ben is in university and Pete is 13.  A power outage at Pete's house when Ben is babysitting reveals the fierceness both have developed in very different ways.  The boy in Jamie Fitzpatrick’s These Memories Can’t Wait relies on music to focus and give himself an identify, whether as a preteen asking a girl to dance or a teen wrapped in the powerful volume of new music.

Both Patti Larsen and Alison DeLory share their own self-doubts alongside fairy tale-like stories in which they finally recognize their own worth.  While Patti Larsen's Prince Nameless shares her struggle with popularity, or lack thereof, juxtaposed with a warrioress enamoured with a prince, Alison DeLory examines her teen body image (i.e., Some of My Parts) against the story of a red-hoodied girl lost in a forest with a wolf.

Two of the most intense stories for me included Love You Like Suicide by Jo Treggiari and Before I Was Me by Chad Pelley. The intensity of the losses both writers endure feels like a weight, a boulder that could drag them down or one upon which they could scramble up and look beyond.  Jo Treggiari's teen has the fierceness that comes from perceived invincibility, until she learns otherwise and reinvents herself. On the other hand, Chad Pelley speaks to Dani, a girl with whom he'd fallen in love in high school because of her "fearless passion to be alive in the most immediate, desperate way" (pg. 143). His message to her includes the wish that she'd stayed fierce enough to find out who she really was, something that he didn't do until he was much older.

Real fierceness comes from surviving those circumstances in which you didn't have fierceness.  And, then when you have it, it's not always evident because those circumstances just seem to slide right on by.  The trick is to get through those challenges and accept the new fierceness as an armament tucked away until needed again.  And Becoming Fierce: Teen Stories IRL provides others the opportunity to see that it does get better, if you can just hang in there. I'm glad all these writers did.



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Tomorrow, the ten short story writers of Becoming Fierce: Teen Stories IRL have kindly agreed to share some advice they might have given to their pre-fierce selves, advice which would be useful for most of us to heed.  Look for that post tomorrow.

Dojo Daycare

by Chris Tougas

Owlkids

978-1-77147-057-5

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

For release September 15, 2014

In fun rhyming verse, author and illustrator Chris Tougas, takes the high spirits of ninja boys and girls and releases them in their new dojo daycare where Master attempts to harness their energy into reflecting on honor, kindness and respect. But the dojo is more playground than learning venue and the little ninjas, bare-footed and dressed in their black suits, tend to end up in a series of Kaboom! Kapow! riots, frustrating the Master throughout the day.

I wish I could reproduce Chris Tougas' endearing little ninjas here, but I can't possibly

demonstrate how the little ones seemingly pop off the page with every kick and pounce.  His illustrations, and explosive exclamations by the ninjas and their master, are bold and colourful, and digitally enhanced for the full power of a ninja kick.  This power is visually supported with the illustrator's choice of white as background, with only occasional shadows or swirls to create greater depth.

Pick out the endearing touches with your children, like the ninja mask on the goldfish, the ninja belting out "Hi-ya!" at the beginning and "Bye-ya!" at the end, or the sushi, noodles and chopsticks at lunch.  Dojo Daycare has the playfulness of any children's program in which young boys and girls, whether your's or ninjas', have fun and learn, although sometimes with more colourful spunk than expected.  

Now and For Never

by Lesley Livingston

Razorbill

978-0143182108

280 pp.

Ages 12+

May, 2014

Lesley Livingston left off both Once Every Never (Puffin, 2011) and Every Never After (Razorbill, 2013) with someone left hundreds of years in the past and a pair of hearts tenuously separated.  Always a cliff-hanger but, rest assured, Lesley Livingston is charitable in her story-plotting.  Sweet endings, without the sugar, are her specialty.

When Clare Reid, BFF Allie McAllister and Milo McAllister, Allie’s cousin and Clare’s crush, shimmered back to present day Glastonbury Tor, the site of the archaeological dig, Marcus Donatus a.k.a. Mark O’Donnell–who’d been left as a teen in Ancient Rome–remains behind because of the manipulative Stuart Morholt.  Morholt had told Roman Governor Paulinus that Marcus knew the whereabouts of the Druid gold stolen from Boudicca and hidden by now-dead Posthumus.  Allie refuses to leave Marcus/Mark in the past and she and Clare make plans to return to 500 A.D., leaving Milo and Piper behind to ground them when they shimmer.

But Allie and Clare shimmer onto a Roman ship lead by Paulinus, chasing a second Roman ship which the Scathians stole with Boudicca’s gold and taking Marcus and Morholt with it.  Both ships have something the other wants: the Romans want the stolen gold back, and Mallora–Boudicca’s sister–wants Llassar, the Druid blacksmith who knows the black magic.

The saving grace is a digital camera memory card upon which Clare had recorded images that would be useful to them in the future (actually their present).  Milo gets a hacker friend to help them recover the images and he and Piper pursue the clues to get themselves in position to help Clare, Allie and, hopefully, Marcus/Mark shimmer back.

Add some weird ocean vector spirals, an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the reappearance of Boudicca’s daughter Comorra and her prince Connal, a kidnapping by Skraelings (skin-walkers), a power-hungry Roman, and a big oops moment, and Now and For Never takes the reader from one cardio crash to another.  Just when it looks like it’s all going to work out, Lesley Livingston throws in another twist that will prevent the future from turning out as it should.

Though readers will have their favourite characters, whether the geeky but romantic Milo, or the girl-inexperieced Marcus Donatus/Mark O’Donnell or the unlucky Clare, all the characters add to the story, showing growth and change, learning from their mistakes (some sooner than others), and revealing that sometimes they are misunderstood, rarely in a positive way.  But, I defy anyone to read the series and not enjoy Lesley Livingston’s fantastical storylines of Celtic and Roman history that intertwine the past as present, the present as the future, history, treachery, boy-girl crushes, and supernatural elements into a story bigger than the sum of all its parts.