Gabby, Wonder Girl

Written by Joyce Grant

Illustrated by Jan Dolby

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

978-1-55455-384-6

32 pp.

Ages 5-7

September 2016

Joyce Grant and Jan Dolby’s little Gabby, of earlier books Gabby (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2013) and Gabby, Drama Queen (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2013), is taking on the world again, this time to solve a mystery of a photograph through questioning.

When Gabby’s friend Roy becomes engulfed in a pile of question marks that he’s released from her magic book–the one that usually just releases a multitude of letters–the two characters become super sleuths, Wonder Girl and Super Roy, on the trail of the person in the black-and-white photograph Gabby discovers in her backyard.  Using letters from the book and the question marks, Gabby creates the wonder-ful “Who?” that helps them realize the girl in the photo is Mrs. Oldham, her neighbour.  But the two can’t find her and have to amalgamate a “w” (wafting in the wind), “h” (half-hidden in a hammock), “e” (in the electric car), “r” (resting on a race track), and another “e” (on Roy’s elbow) with one of the ubiquitous question marks to locate the older woman in the apple tree!  With some reorganization of letters and a slithery snake, the question of “how?” they can get her out of the tree and free her to make a proffered apple pie is solved!

From Gabby, Wonder Girl 

by Joyce Grant, illus. by Jan Dolby

Joyce Grant’s cutie pie shows off her inquisitiveness and invention with gusto and creativity.  Who knew learning to use questions could be so much fun?  With a simple story, Joyce Grant offers very young readers an introduction to letters of the alphabet while manipulating them into words that provide the basis for questions and simple words.  Those of us more proficient in reading know of the versatility of letters to create new words and worlds but, for the very young, Gabby, Wonder Girl will be a revelation in learning housed in an unassuming but entertaining format.  No need to learn about letters from a standard A-B-C book when you have Gabby.  And Jan Dolby makes sure that Gabby, Wonder Girl (as she did in the earlier Gabby books) is a fun read of bright colours and squiggly lines and quirky details like a garden gnome, hedgehogs, butterflies and yards of letters.  Gabby really is a red-haired wonder girl in both language and action, and Roy plays superbly as her masked sidekick.  

From Gabby, Wonder Girl 

by Joyce Grant, illus. by Jan Dolby

Chidlren will love Gabby Wonder Girl, as they have Gabby and Gabby, Drama Queen, but parents and teachers will enjoy helping them experience Gabby’s learning opportunities in the fun word activites and games as well as drawing lesson that Joyce Grant and Jan Dolby provide at the end of the book.  There’s even a Gabby teachers’ guide that can be accessed online at http://joycegrantauthor.com/free-teachers-guide-gabby.  Gabby, Wonder Girl is a big package of learning in a small but bright little marvel of a book.

Once, In a Town Called Moth: Book launch (Toronto)

Please join award-winning author of

Stones for my Father

(Tundra, 2011)

and

Medina Hill  

(Tundra, 2009)

Trilby Kent

in celebrating the launch of 

Once, in a Town Called Moth

by Trilby Kent

Tundra Books

978-1-10191-811-1

224 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2016 

on

Friday, September 16, 2016

7:00 pm

Type Books

883 Queen Street West, 

Toronto, ON

About the book:

Ana is not your typical teenager. She grew up in a tiny Mennonite colony in Bolivia, and her mother fled the colony when Ana was a young girl. Now Ana and her father have also fled, and Ana doesn't know why. She only knows that something was amiss in their tight-knit community. Arriving in Toronto, Ana has to fend for herself in this alien environment, completely isolated in a big city with no help and no idea where to even begin. But begin she does: she makes a friend, then two. She goes to school and tries to understand the myriad unspoken codes and rules. She is befriended by a teacher. She goes to the library, the mall, parties. And all the while, she searches for the mother who left so long ago, and tries to understand her father -- also a stranger in a strange land, with secrets of his own. 

This is a beautifully told story that will resonate with readers who have struggled with being new and unsure in a strange place, even if that place is in a classroom full of people they know. Ana's story is unique but universal; strange but familiar; extraordinary but ordinary: a fish out of water tale that speaks to us all.

(Retrieved from http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/532570/once-town-called-moth#9781101918111 on September 4, 2016.)

Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles

by Shari Green

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-007-9

240 pp.

Ages 8-12

September 2016

I’m trying to have faith
trying to believe everything
will be okay.
But what if things don’t work out?
What if Jasper leaves,
Daniel can’t breathe,
my parents aren’t in love?
What if my family falls apart,
and I have to choose a parent
and not
the other?
Then what good
 is faith? (pg. 145)

It must feel like the weight of the world is upon Bailey’s small eleven-year-old shoulders.  Being sent with her 8-year-old brother to stay with their hitherto-unknown grandmother, Nana Marie, at Felicity Bay on Arbutus Island on the west coast seems trepidatious enough but this strangeness is compounded by her concerns for her parents who are attending Marriage Repair camp.

My parents should be here.
We should be together
the four of us–
diamonds, clubs, spades, hearts,
Crazy Eights on a Sunday afternoon,
four quarters making a whole
like we always used to be
but might never be
again. (pg. 13)

Still Bailey has the joie de vivre to find adventures in everything from the pancakes in which she searches for the face of God–Aunt Debbie saw Tom Hanks’ face in her pancakes once– to a piece of driftwood that becomes a mermaid she christens “Our Lady of the Bay.”  And when the prophecy-delivering ice-cream man Jasper, a former preacher, foresees a stranger coming who will change everything, Bailey is hopeful that it’s Our Lady of the Bay who will bring about some good fortune.  With her parents’ marriage in need of repair, her friend and neighbour Daniel suffering with cystic fibrosis, a community divided and occasionally hostile, the compassionate Jasper being disgraced and driven out of town, and the church’s chalice missing, Bailey and Felicity Bay need a miracle or two.

But, even with these uncertainties and burdens, don’t ever think of Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles as anything but a story, told magnificently in verse form, of hope and courage and trust in the universe.  Good and bad may ebb and flow like the tides but that’s just the nature of  things.  In the end, it is what it is, and Bailey accepts it to be so.  Nonetheless it doesn’t stop her from making an all-out effort to help, whether it be her parents, Jasper, or a beached dolphin, and try to turn the tides of adversity.

Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles is Shari Green’s debut novel but it is an accomplished story in form and content worthy of a seasoned writer.  If you’ve enjoyed reviews on CanLit for LittleCanadians, you know that I am fond of novels in verse, but I fully comprehend the titanic challenge of writing one well.  Balancing structure with plot is complicated.  Yet Shari Green dives right in, creating characters and circumstances that effortlessly carry the reader from beginning to end on waves of sentiments, some fearful, most benevolent, all heartfelt.  Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles is in itself a miracle of a free verse of

“…moments
of significance,
ordinary things
that turned out to be
extraordinary.” (pg. 232)

Rhino Rumpus

Written by Victoria Allenby

Illustrated by Tara Anderson

Pajama Press

978-1-927-485-96-5

24 pp.

Ages 2-4

August 2016

Victoria Allenby and Tara Anderson, the author-illustrator duo who brought us Nat the Cat Can Sleep Like That (Pajama Press, 2013), have returned with another picture book for our littlest ones, this time focusing on the sibling antics of three rhinos as their mother attempts to bring them to some degree of harmony.

From Rhino Rumpus 

by Victoria Allenby, illus. by Tara Anderson

From page one, the three little rhinos are forever being unruly: rude, in a mood, tussling.  And Mama rhino has to interject and bring them in line.  Dinner time is not much different, and Mama sends them to get ready for bed.   Even bathtime (whose illustration is the “magic page” i.e., the cover art) involves a lot of pushing and boisterous escapades that Mama rhino rumbles to a stop with an emphatic “Quiet!”  Teeth brushing, a story and song, and a plea to “And when you wake, please get along!” signals the ultimate family hug and the blissful stillness that is sleep.

The text is perfect for toddlers who will delight in its simplicity and sounds, while those children who are just learning to read will be pleased to test themselves on the easy-to-read rhyming lines and repetition of numbers (e.g., One little rhino…, Two little rhinos…, Three little rhinos…).  I suspect that Victoria Allenby who dedicates the book to her nieces “who ALWAYS get along” has witnessed similar naughtiness but, by experiencing it with love and affection, she has given it a boisterous comic feel to it, something that will lighten the mood for any parent (or aunt!) who has to brave it and strive for calm.  Similarly, Tara Anderson, who dedicates the book to her own little one, animates the text with her coloured pencil illustrations that convey exuberance, joy, mischief and affection with each stroke.  Never is there anger or hostility between the siblings or directed at the little rhinos, and the message of patience in parenting is conveyed with fun and warmth and caring.

From Rhino Rumpus 

by Victoria Allenby, illus. by Tara Anderson

Rhino Rumpus will undoubtedly become the go-to book for families with young ones who get into squabbles, both for parents who need to recognize that children learn through play, even boisterous play, and for children who need to see that parental love is a gift that should not be overlooked, even if it does need a rest occasionally.

From Rhino Rumpus 

by Victoria Allenby, illus. by Tara Anderson

Under the Dusty Moon

by Suzanne Sutherland

Dundurn 

978-1-459732025

268 pp.

Ages 12+

January 2016

When it’s just you and your mom, and your mom is the formerly-famous Micky Wayne, currently a solo singer but once lead of the band Dusty Moon, it’s not surprising that your lives are outrageously intertwined, even entangled, in a very public world.  Micky Wayne has a intense personality, both showering sixteen-year-old Victoria with love and embarrassment while putting it all into her music career.

That’s just who she is: transparent.  Her heart’s not so much on her sleeve as it is set out on a plate that she’s passing around the crowd for everyone to take a bite of. (pg. 10)

But Victoria, or the famous Vic of her mother’s songs, is coming to an age when she is torn between not wanting or needing her mother to always be there but still wanting her mother’s attention.  And with her mother learning at the onset of summer that she’d be going on tour to Japan, then returning to do the big annual end-of-summer concert on Toronto Island, before going to Europe for several months in the fall, Victoria feels shafted and disgruntled, and is almost cruel to her mother, telling her “Maybe if you were a real mother” (pg. 98) after Victoria is doored while cycling and ends up in a cast.

As Victoria navigates her evolving relationship with her mother, she is also extending herself into new and changing relationships with her peers.  Though her friendship with BFF Lucy is solid, the two girls are going beyond their gaming obsession of Lore of Ages, LoA, and delving into an gaming group for women called She Shoots that supports girls in creating games.  But their collaboration becomes precarious when Victoria decides to ask a boy, Shaun, from last year’s drama class to hang out.  Lucy thinks he’s an idiot, but Victoria asks him out anyway.  After a disastrous first date at a nude beach on the Island and a lengthy period of avoidance due to embarrassment, Victoria becomes more and more involved with the young man, though she lies to him about her mother when she learns he’s a big Dusty Moon fan and doesn’t know Micky Wayne is her mother.  Sadly, this new romance puts a strain on her relationship with Lucy, who too feels neglected.

Change is inevitable especially when you’re a young adult and yearning for independence ("I mean I love her, but I can't share her life forever"; pg. 259) and new experiences while still wanting to hold onto that which is familiar and seemingly safe.  Suzanne Sutherland, whose earlier book Something Wiki (Dundurn, 2015) is also a coming-of-age story with overtones of digital experiences, delves deeper in Under the Dusty Moon with older protagonists, extreme mother-daughter relationships, and a more intense boy-girl romance.  But at its heart it’s still a story of a girl growing up, though Victoria's evolution is not an easy one–Is growing up ever easy?–and happens in fits and starts.  Just like the game that she and Lucy are creating, growing up is like walking into a big house of unopened rooms that need to be explored.  Some doors are scary to open, others welcoming. Some open into expansive rooms, and others are just portals to other doors.  And, like their game, the choices one makes decide where you end up.  But, if you’re choosing to read Under the Dusty Moon, you’ve made a great choice and will enjoy the experience of accompanying Victoria on her newest game of life. Beta, anyone?

A Mortal Song: Book launch (Toronto)

Join 

Megan Crewe 

author of

and

for the release of her newest YA fantasy

A Mortal Song

by Megan Crewe
Another World Press

978-0995216907

316 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2016

on 

Saturday, September 17, 2016

2-4 p.m.

at Bakka-Phoenix Books

84 Harbord Street

Toronto, ON

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The book is described by the author herself as follows:

Sora's life was full of magic—until she discovered it was all a lie. 

Heir to Mt. Fuji's spirit kingdom, Sora yearns to finally take on the sacred kami duties. But just as she confronts her parents to make a plea, a ghostly army invades the mountain. Barely escaping with her life, Sora follows her mother's last instructions to a heart-wrenching discovery: she is a human changeling, raised as a decoy while her parents' true daughter remained safe but unaware in modern-day Tokyo. Her powers were only borrowed, never her own. Now, with the world's natural cycles falling into chaos and the ghosts plotting an even more deadly assault, it falls on her to train the unprepared kami princess. 

As Sora struggles with her emerging human weaknesses and the draw of an unanticipated ally with secrets of his own, she vows to keep fighting for her loved ones and the world they once protected. But for one mortal girl to make a difference in this desperate war between the spirits, she may have to give up the only home she's ever known.

Retrieved from http://megancrewe.com/song/index.html on August 26, 2016.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Here's what you can look forward to at this book launch:

• Japanese snacks

• book swag

• reading and Q & A with Megan Crewe
and, of course,

• book sales and signing

Congrats to Megan Crewe on her newest YA fantasy!

Sammy and the Headless Horseman

by Rona Arato

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

9781554552696

156 pp.

Ages 9-11

May/September 2016

Yes, I know summer is almost over but here's one last summer hurrah for readers to enjoy a 1920s Catskill Mountains resort and solve a mystery with 11-year-old Sammy Levin and his cohort of young sleuths.

Sammy has been invited by his Aunt Pearl to travel with her and his cousins, Joshua and Leah, to the Liebman’s summer resort to get him away from his gang in New York City and to give Sammy’s father some time with his new wife Martha.  But upon his arrival Sammy learns she has arranged for him to work at the resort while she and her family enjoy the benefits of being guests.  Although initially chagrined at this turn of events–as are his Uncle Milton and his father when they visit–Sammy realizes soon enough that he enjoys the work and palling around with other teens who work at the hotel, especially fourteen-year-olds Adam Van Dorn and the owner’s daughter Shayna Liebman, and even performing with the hotel’s entertainer, Moishe.

It was exhilirating and nerve-wracking, but Sammy never felt more like he belonged. (pg. 80)

But there seem to be ghostly forces at work creating havoc at the Liebman’s hotel and on the property of the nearby Hermit, a former slave, including broken dishware, a trampled vegetable garden, a ceiling light falling, and a fire at the Hermit’s chicken coop.  Mrs. Leibman is convinced it’s her dead grandmother expressing her annoyance at the hotel owner’s use of her recipes, but that doesn’t explain the headless horseman (“Some fool hidin’ his head in a black cape and ridin’ a horse”; pg. 44) whom the Hermit witnesses and who later makes appearances at the hotel.  Sammy, who recalls the terrorizing of his Polish village by soldiers, is determined to stop good people like the Hermit and the Liebmans from experiencing further distress and damage.  Together with Adam and Shayna and the annoying Joshua–who always makes sure to clarify to others that “I’m a guest” (pg. 43)–Sammy pursues the mystery of the headless horseman and does a little ghost-busting.

There’s a mystery to be solved and Rona Arato, award-winning writer of The Last Train (Owlkids, 2013), sets up all the clues for the kids to discover the solution and make things right.  Sammy and the Headless Horseman is a Jewish Hardy Boys for the middle-grade set.  But it’s the setting and atmosphere with which Rona Arato infuses her plot that makes the story all the better (and she provides historical notes and photographs to enhance her story).  Sammy and Headless Horseman takes you back to a time when a mountain resort and swimming in a pool and a lake and playing cards and hanging with your peers was summertime bliss.  But by saturating the story with the foods, vocabulary and culture of a Jewish community of the 1920s, many of whom recall their emigration from the old country to the States, Rona Arato has ensured that Sammy and the Headless Horseman is seasoned with a distinctive flavour and ambiance that leaves the reader and the characters feeling good.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

If you're in the Toronto area, don't miss the opportunity to get a signed copy from Rona Arato this Sunday, August 28, 2016 at Indigo Yorkdale.  Details here.