Kissing Frogs: Blog Tour

by Alisha Sevigny
Fierce Ink Press
978-1-927746-66-0
231 pp.
Ages 12+
For release November 18, 2014

According to a myriad of fairy tales, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince, though Kissing Frogs protagonist Jessica seems to be convinced she's already met him in gorgeous Miles. Sadly it explains why she's failing Grade 12 biology, having missed a lot of those classes to spend time with him. Guess it was worth it to claw her "way up out of Geeksville and into the realm of the Socially Acceptable" (pg. 20) Except now she has to give up on a trip to South Beach with Miles and her other uber-popular friends, and instead join her biology teacher, Mr. A., and the conservation group on a trip to Panama to help some endangered frogs and complete a make-up research project.

It's evident to her trip mates that Jess would rather be elsewhere and, as they had needed to fundraise to take part in this amazing learning opportunity, there's some animosity towards her as a last-minute addition, especially from two snarky girls, Chrissy and Kiki. Moreover, she's surprised (shocked?) to learn that a former middle-school friend, Travis Henley, who'd teased her relentlessly, calling her Messy Jessie or Princess, is also on the trip, though he'd known her as the brainiac she was before she'd reinvented herself.  Other kids rounding out the group are a quiet girl Harp; Juan, a short funny guy who is friends with Travis; and Steven a.k.a. Shaggy.

While Jess vacillates between her new popular self (and desperately tries to connect with Miles and her friends) and the smart girl who'd dreamed of going to Berkley (and desperately wants the others to know she's neither mean nor an idiot), she draws the attention of Enrique, the very handsome son of the villas' owners, while Travis insists on taking her on non-dates to prove he's not the same annoying guy she'd known.

Photo by Brian Gratwicke. Retrieved from
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atelopus_zeteki1.jpg

The emphasis for the school group may be the conservation of those species whose very existence is endangered, if not already extirpated, but Jess herself recognizes that the potential loss of her true self is not dissimilar to the plight of the golden frog.  She is willing to give up on university in favour of her new friends and popularity, not unlike the choices Panama has made in favour of growth and westernization: on the surface, very attractive, but the repercussions may be unpredictable, disastrous, and permanent.  Should she maintain her status as the popular girl, who has a gorgeous boyfriend and friends and doesn't care about university, or rejuvenate her smart self, who works hard and shows compassion and understanding for others, frogs and humans alike? Strangely, her mother prefers the former while her academician father would prefer her to be true to herself.

"You should just make sure that the people you give up your dreams for are worth it," he said finally, looking back at the computer screen. "We shouldn't have to compromise who we are for others." (pg. 71)

Alisha Sevigny has written a light and breezy YA novel whose only angst is that which the teens experience as they try to navigate through the treacherous dating roads of not knowing how to act around those they may be interested in.  Getting a first boyfriend or girlfriend, or perhaps the first one that really matters, is scary, especially if you're not sure who you are yourself.  Jess may have reinvented herself but it's clear that, without her supporting cast, the role doesn't quite fit her.  Alisha Sevigny certainly gets that right, demonstrating that it's easier to just be yourself.  So you trip a little bit and skin your knees here and there.  In the end, you're able to pick yourself up and know which way the role is taking you without becoming a farce or a tragedy. At the trip's onset, Jess' attitude indicated that she thought she was going to be stuck with a bunch of unattractive frogs in Panama, leaving her true prince, Miles, behind.  Thankfully, with sufficient time and a fresh perspective, it's amazing how cute those frogs can turn out to be.  Spoiler alert: happy ending!

  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  

Check back tomorrow for my interview with Kissing Frogs author Alisha Sevigny.

Wallace Edwards: Book Launch, and Art Exhibition and Sale (Toronto)

Join author and artist

Wallace Edwards 

for the book launch and signings 

of his newest picture book

Unnatural Selections

Written and illustrated by Wallace Edwards

Orca Book Publishers

9781459805552 

32 pp.

Ages 4+

October 2014

on

December 6, 2014

from 2 - 4 p.m.

at

Ingram Gallery

49 Avenue Road

Toronto, ON

Unnatural Selections is described on Orca's website as follows:

A fantastical collection of unnatural selections!
Beloved illustrator Wallace Edwards invites us into the world of Professor I.B. Doodling, a traveling artist who takes suggestions from schoolchildren in order to create fantastical hybrid animals. The result of these visits is Unnatural Selections, a collection of magnificent beasts, from the stately Whalephant to the talented Lizabouboon. Sure to inspire the imagination, Wallace Edwards’s intricate illustrations invite you to pore over them again and again. A supplementary index lists additional creatures to spot throughout the book’s pages, encouraging readers to go back for a second, and a third, look.

Retrieved from http://www.orcabook.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=2014 on November 8, 2014.

Plus

there will be an 

 Art Exhibition 

and Sale of Original Artwork

by Wallace Edwards

from

December 6 -16, 2014

Images retrieved from 

http://www.ingramgallery.com/artists/wallace_edwards/index.html on November 8, 2014.

The Great War: A World War I booklist

This year we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.  Though hardly an event worthy of celebration, World War I marked the true coming of age of the twentieth century, with strife experienced on a global scale.  Lest we forget, this selection of youngCanLit will cover many historical and fictionalized accounts of events during the Great War. If the title does not suggest the nature of the book's connection to the war, a brief description is provided.


Picture Books

A Bear in War
by Stephanie Innes and Harry Endrulat
Illustrated by Brian Deines
Key Porter Books
40 pp.
Ages 5-12
2009
(Reprint by Pajama Press, 2012)
True story of a stuffed bear that a young girl gives her father when he goes to fight overseas.

A Brave Soldier
by Nicolas Debon
Groundwood Books
32 pp.
Ages 8+
2002
A young man's enthusiastic enlistment turns to disillusionment with the horrors of war.

Bunny the Brave War Horse
by Elizabeth MacLeod
Illustrated by Marie Lafrance
Kids Can Press
32 pp.
Ages 7-9
October, 2014

Forget-Me-Not
by Maxine Trottier
Illustrated by Nancy Keating
Tuckamore Books
32 pp.
Ages 7-12
2002
A soldier returns from war and secludes himself on an island, only revealing himself slowly to a young girl who brings him food.

Proud as a Peacock, Brave as a Lion
by Jane Barclay
Illustrated by Renné Benoit
Tundra
24 pp.
Ages 4-8
2009
A grandfather recounts his experiences in war as he and his grandson prepare to attend a Remembrance Day service.



 

Fiction

And in the Morning
by John Wilson
Key Porter Books
200 pp.
Ages 12+
2010
When his father enlists in 1914, a teen envies him the glory. But consequences of that experience and his own enlistment change the young man's perspective of war.

Brothers Far From Home: The World War I Diary of Eliza Bates, Uxbridge, Ontario 1916 (Dear Canada)
by Jean Little
Scholastic Canada
224 pp.
Ages 9-12
2003

Charlie Wilcox
by Sharon E. McKay
Stoddart Kids
240 pp.
Ages 11-15
2000
Story of a 14-year-old boy who accidentally boards a ship taking Newfoundland soldiers to the front, and finds himself an under-age medic in France.

Charlie Wilcox's Great War
by Sharon E. McKay
Penguin Canada
268 pp.
Ages 11-15
2003
Sequel to Charlie Wilcox, in which Charlie returns home to Newfoundland and must deal with the secrets he keeps and the tragedies they have all endured.

Dance of the Banished
by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Pajama Press
288 pp.
Ages 12+
August, 2014
The story of two Alevi Kurdish teens torn apart by World War I.

Daughter of War
by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
210 pp.
Ages 12+
2008
Armenian genocide in Turkey during World War I.

Days of Terror
by Barbara Smucker
Puffin Canada
256 pp.
Ages 9-13
2008
A Mennonite family leaves the horrors of life in Russia in 1917 and heads for a new life in North America.

Fire in the Sky: World War I, Paul Townend, Over No Man's Land, 1916 (I Am Canada)
by David Ward
Scholastic Canada
224 pp.
Ages 8-12
2013
A young man's experiences as a fighter pilot.

Flying Geese
by Barbara Haworth-Attard
HarperTrophy Canada
256 pp.
Ages 8-12
2002
A family moves from the farm to the city of London, Ontario and deals with the difficulties of having a son and brother overseas.

Halifax Explodes! (Canadian Flyer Adventures #17)
by Frieda Wishinsky
Illustrated by Patricia Ann Lewis-MacDougall
Maple Tree Press
96 pp.
Ages 7-10
2011

Irish Chain
by Barbara Haworth-Attard
HarperCollins
213 pp.
Ages 10-13
2002
A girl and her family experience the devastating effects of the Halifax explosion.

A Kind of Courage
by Colleen Heffernan
Orca Book Publishers
160 pp.
Ages 12+
2005
Effects of a young man's enlistment in 1916 on his family back home on the farm.

Lord of the Nutcracker Men
by Iain Lawrence
Delacorte Press
240 pp.
Ages 11+
2001
When his father enlists to fight in France, a boy recognizes how different war is from his play with toy soldiers.

Murder on the Ridge
by Ted Stenhouse
Kids Can Press
240 pp.
Ages 10-14
2006
An anonymous letter in 1952 suggests to a widow that her Blackfoot husband was murdered, not a casualty at Vimy Ridge as reported.



Nettie's Journey
by Adele Dueck
Coteau Books
216 pp.
Ages 9-13
2005
A Mennonite grandmother shares her life in Ukraine through World War I, the Russian Revolution and escape to Canada.

No Man's Land
by Kevin Major
Anchor Canada
264 pp.
Ages 12+
2001
Describes the men of the Newfoundland Regiment at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

No Safe Harbour: The Halifax Explosion Diary of Charlotte Blackburn, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1917 (Dear Canada)
by Julie Lawson
Scholastic Canada
249 pp.
Ages 9-12
2006

Penelope: Terror in the Harbour (Our Canadian Girl Series)
by Sharon E.  McKay
Penguin Canada
88 pp.
Ages 8-11
2001
The Halifax explosion.

Prisoners in the Promised Land: The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk (Dear Canada)
by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Scholastic Canada
243 pp.
Ages 11-14
2007

Rilla of Ingleside
by L.M. Montgomery
Ages 8-13
1921
New editions of this Canadian classic (including Tundra's 2014 edition at 384 pp., pictured here) tell of life on the home front in PEI for Rilla, Anne Shirley's youngest daughter.

Sabotage
by Karen Autio
Sono Nis Press
293 pp.
Ages 10+
2013
Spies, sabotage, internment and life on the home front in Port Arthur, Ontario.

Shot at Dawn: World War I, Allan McBride, France, 1917 (I am Canada)
by John Wilson
Scholastic Canada
201 pp.
Ages 13-17
2011
Horrific life in the trenches turns a shell-shocked soldier to desert.

Soldier Doll
by Jennifer Gold
Second Story Press
978-1-927583-29-6
256 pp.
Ages 13-18
March 2014
Travels of a doll originally created for a soldier during WWI.






Non-Fiction

At Vimy Ridge: Canada’s Greatest World War I Victory
by Hugh Brewster
Scholastic Canada
48 pp.
Ages 9+
2006

Desperate Glory: The Story of WWI (Stories of Canada)
by John Wilson
Napoleon
96 pp.
Ages 11-13
2008

From Vimy to Victory: Canada’s Fight to the Finish in World War I
by Hugh Brewster
Scholastic Canada
48 pp.
Ages 9-12
September, 2014

The Great War (Discovering Canada)
by Robert Livesey
Illustrated by A.G. Smith
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
90 pp.
Ages 9+
2006

Hold the Oxo! A Teenage Soldier Writes Home
by Marion Fargey Brooker
Dundurn
141 pp.
Ages 12+
2011

In Flanders Fields: The Story of the Poem by John McCrae
by Linda Granfield
Illustrated by Janet Wilson
Lester Publishing
32 pp.
Ages 9+
1995

In Flanders Fields: The Story of the Poem by John McCrae
by Linda Granfield
Illustrated by Janet Wilson
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
32 pp.
Ages 9+
October, 2014
New edition with new cover and additional text.

Lone Hawk: The Story of Air Ace Billy Bishop
by John Lang
Puffin Canada
97 pp.
Ages 13+
2011
Graphic novel biography.

Passchendaele: Canada’s Triumph and Tragedy on the Fields of Flanders
by Norman Leach
Coteau Books
48 pp.
Ages 14+
2008

A Poppy is to Remember
by Heather Patterson
Illustrated by Ron Lightburn
North Winds Press/Scholastic
32 pp.
Ages 5-8
2004

Remembering John McCrae: Soldier, Doctor, Poet
by Linda Granfield
Scholastic Canada
38 pp.
Ages 8-12
2009

Silent in an Evil Time: The Brave War of Edith Cavell
by Jack Batten
Tundra
135 pp.
Ages 10+
2007
Edith Cavell was a nurse who helped smuggle British soldiers back to England from German-occupied Belgium.

The Unknown Soldier
by Linda Granfield
Scholastic Canada
38 pp.
Ages 8+
2008

The War to End All Wars: The Story of World War I
by Jack Batten
Tundra Books
154 pp.
Ages 13+
2009

Where Poppies Grow: A World War I Companion
by Linda Granfield
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
48 pp.
Ages 8+
2005





Film

The Danger Tree
Directed by John McGreevy
Produced by Janice Tufford and Marilyn A. Belec
National Film Board of Canada
50 min.
Ages 15+
1997
History of the Goodyear family of Newfoundland, including the trials of sending sons off to war.

Far From Home: Canada and the Great War
Three part series
Morningstar Entertainment
300 min.
Ages 16+
2004
A three-part series covering Minister of Militia Sam Hughes, the Battle of Vimy Ridge and Canada's role during the last 100 days of WWI.