Illustrator Janet Wilson: Art Show and Sale (Eden Mills, ON)

Artist Janet Wilson

author and illustrator of numerous award-winning youngCanLit

will be holding an

  Art Show and Sale 

on
  Saturday, December 3, 2016 
and
  Sunday, December 4, 2016

 from 12 noon to 5 p.m.

at

Rivermead
home of the Eden Mills Writers' Festival

19 Cedar Street

Eden Mills, ON
N0B 1P0

This is a perfect opportunity to purchase Janet Wilson's breathtaking art (early Christmas gift?)

Preview of works available are posted at
janetreidwilsonfineart.com

The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito

by Tomson Highway

Illustrated by Sue Todd

Fifth House Publishers

978-1-92708-338-3

70 pp.

Ages 14-18

October 2016

Think of The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito as an illustrated script, a script of “a one-woman musical in one act” and it’s the story of Mary Jane Mosquito, the only female mosquito born without wings.  Dedicated to “disabled children everywhere. Because they make our world a special place to live in”, the story is both light-hearted and heartbreaking–quite a workout for the heart–with a powerful lesson about acceptance of self and others.

The book opens, as any script will, with information about place, time and characters (here, dramatis personae) and the scene heading.  There is a vamp playing just before a voice from offstage announces “the one and only, the very talented, and the very beautiful, Miss Mary Jane Mosquito” (pg. 9). Though the child who eventually comes out on stage, bedecked in a top hat and oversized coat of tails, is a little surprised by the audience, she goes on to tell them her story, starting with the secret that she doesn’t have any friends or know how to make them.

From The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito 

by Tomson Highway, 

illus. by Sue Todd

Peppering her monologue with songs, as “singing is the only thing I know how to do” (pg. 12), and teaching the audience some mosquito (or is it Cree or Ojibway?) words like friend (“weecheewaagan”) and song (“nagamoon”), Mary Jane tells of growing up in Petit Petit Le Paw, northern Manitoba, and trying to find a connection between her lack of friends and her lack of wings.  At Miss Kathleen B. Curdew’s Centre for Education of Very Young Mosquitoes, her teacher Miss Maggie May Ditchburn would cruelly make an example of Mary Jane and, in insisting they repeatedly sing while marching, almost drives out Mary Jane’s love for singing.

From The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito 

by Tomson Highway, 

illus. by Sue Todd

Eventually Mary Jane convinces her parents to send her to Winnipeg to stay with her Aunt Flo, hopeful of a better school life.  Sadly, there she finds herself the only mosquito in a school of flies, moths, hornets and more.  A brave attempt at making a friend is thwarted and Mary Jane, surprisingly, sees red and attacks Minnie Matouche.  Her Aunt Flo wisely tells Mary Jane that “You don’t trust yourself.  You don’t love yourself. And therefore you don’t let others trust you or love you” and recommends, along with a change in venue (to wherever the cabaret is being performed), that “when you show ten times the kindness, to others, sooner or later, it will come back to you, ten times ten times ten.” (pg 51) Even knowing that the corollary is also true, i.e., that doing something bad will also come back at you, ten times ten times ten, Mary Jane at 16, sets off by train for Ontario.  And now here she is, singing and making friends with members of the audience, and telling them

I don’t need wings to fly.  I can fly on my own just fine, thank you, in my heart.  It’s not what you look like that matters, Aunt Flo’s words ring in my ears like chimes in the wind, it’s what you give to others that counts. (pg. 64)

The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito is a full read.  There is dialogue and details of the character’s actions on stage, and verses of song and choruses, and audience participation, and production notes (it was originally performed at Stratford in 2001) and it’s a brilliant vehicle for teaching, reading, and performing.   The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito is a book sated with lessons and wisdom in a unique format, a little girl performing on stage to an audience with whom she is to become friends.

Because The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito has the feel of a folktale, a oral story told to teach, Sue Todd’s lino cut illustrations work perfectly in carrying the story from opening music to curtain drop.  The art is bold in line and shape and colour, popping off the page in emphatic presentation, not unlike Mary Jane herself.  There’s emotion and a self-assuredness to Sue Todd’s art that invites the reader to partake in the drama within.  With Tomson Highway’s evocative text and Sue Todd’s powerful art,  The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito could be a condemnation of the residential school system or of communities that still have not embraced diversity, but at its heart it just conveys the message that we don’t all have to be the same and that love and friendship can surmount just about anything.

Illustration from The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito 

by Tomson Highway, 

illus. by Sue Todd

Image retrieved from http://www.suetodd.com

2016 TD Canadian Children's Literature Awards: Winners announced

Last night, a spectacular youngCanLit celebration was held at The Carlu in Toronto.  It was the 2016 TD Canadian Children's Literature Awards, hosted by the Canadian Children's Book Centre and the TD Bank Group and emceed by Shelagh Rogers from CBC Radio's The Next Chapter.  These awards honour a plethora of youngCanLit authors and illustrators who share those honours with their peers and a multitude of publishers, publicists, literacy experts, librarians, teachers and bloggers who sing their praises.

Personally, it was a great chance for people-watching for the who's who in Canadian children's literature.  Although I was only able to speak with a handful of the amazing authors and illustrators in attendance (especially nice to finally meet Willow Dawson, Susan Juby, Sarah Henstra, Mireille Messier and François Thisdale), I did glimpse the following, in no particular order:  Maureen McGowan, Helaine Becker, Rebecca Bender, John Spray, Karen Bass, Nancy Hartry, Adrienne Kress, Wallace Edwards, Jocelyn Shipley, Sylvia McNicoll, Vikki VanSickle, Deborah Kerbel, Alma Fullerton, Gillian O'Reilly, Marina Cohen, Marthe Jocelyn, Jess Keating, Rona Arato, Kathy Stinson, Peter Carver, Frieda Wishinsky, Natalie Hyde, Kari-Lynn Winters, Lena Coakley, Sarah Henstra, Mahtab Narsimhan, Heather O'Connor, Lisa Dalrymple, Kevin Sands, Willow Dawson, Lorna Schultz Nicholson, Ange Zhang, Cory Silverberg, Fiona Smyth, Anne Laurel Carter, Teresa Toten, Karen Krossing, Barbara Reid, Catherine Rondina, Suri Rosen, Renné Benoit, Michelle Barker, Erin Bow, R. J. Anderson, Ruth Ohi, Kelley Armstrong, Joyce Grant, Susan Juby, Ashley Spires, François Thisdale, L. M. Falcone, Joel Sutherland, Maria Birmingham, Sydney Smith, Danielle Daniel, Carolyn Beck, Melanie Florence, Jennifer Maruno, Sharon Jennings, Suzanne Del Rizzo, Gisela Sherman, Jennifer Mook-Sang and ...but there were 600 people there so I've undoubtedly missed a few hundred! And I haven't even mentioned the many jurors, publishers, publicists, literacy specialists, and bankers (!) without whom the evening would not have been complete.

Before I go into the presentations, let me remind you that if you're interested in youngCanLit, it's important to become a member of the Canadian Children's Book Centre and you too will get an invite to this event and be able to participate in its workshops and such, as well as receive copies of its publications Canadian Children's Book News and Best Books for Kids & Teens.  Then you can people watch and celebrate youngCanLit with the rest of us.

Before the awards were presented, the selection for this year's TD Grade 1 Book Giveaway was announced. In the next month or so, over half a million Grade 1 students (very fortunate ones, I might add) across Canada will be receiving a copy of this incredible picture book about acceptance and tolerance, Small Saul.

Small Saul

by Ashley Spires

Kids Can Press

Reviewed here

Finally, the first award was presented, the Fan Choice award, a young readers' selection from the finalists for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award.  The winner, selected by over 2000 young readers, was

The Nest 

Written by Kenneth Oppel
Illustrated by Jon Klassen

HarperCollins

Then the winners of other eight major children's book awards were announced (though the winner of the Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse had been awarded last week in Montreal).

Congratulations to the following winners

(as well as the finalists from which the winners were chosen!)

TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award ($30,000) Sponsored by TD Bank Group

Missing Nimâmâ 

by Melanie Florence

Illustrated by François Thisdale

Clockwise Press

Reviewed here

Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse ($30,000) Sponsored by TD Bank Group

L’arbragan 

par Jacques Goldstyn

Éditions de la Pastèque

Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award ($20,000) Sponsored by A. Charles Baillie

Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox
by Danielle Daniel
Groundwood Books
Reviewed here

Norma Fleck Award For Canadian Children's Non-Fiction ($10,000) Sponsored by the Fleck Family Foundation

Sex Is a Funny Word: A Book About Bodies, Feelings, and You 
by Cory Silverberg
Illustrated by Fiona Smyth
Seven Stories Press

Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People ($5,000) Sponsored by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Bilson Endowment Fund

Uncertain Soldier 

by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

Reviewed here

John Spray Mystery Award ($5,000) Sponsored by John Spray of Mantis Investigation Agency

The Blackthorn Key 

by Kevin Sands

Aladdin

Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy ($5,000)  Sponsored by HarperCollins Canada

The Scorpion Rules 
by Erin Bow
Margaret K. McElderry Books

Amy Mathers Teen Book Award ($5,000) Sponsored by Amy Mathers' Marathon of Books

The Truth Commission 

by Susan Juby

Razorbill Canada

Reviewed here

Congratulations to all authors, illustrators, 

publishers and readers.  

We're all winners when we celebrate youngCanLit!

So Much Snow!

by Robert Munsch

Illustrated by Michael Martchenko

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-4617-3

32 pp.

Ages 3-8

August 2016

The collaborative team that brought us Canadian classics The Paper Bag Princess (Annick , 1980) and Thomas’ Snowsuit (Annick, 1985) and so, so many more, have returned to celebrate the onset of the winter season with their newest release, So Much Snow!

From So Much Snow! 

by Robert Munsch, 

illus. by Michael Martchenko

Regardless of her mother’s concern of a coming blizzard, little Jasmine is determined to go to school.  After all, it’s Pizza Day and no one wants to miss Pizza Day.  So bundled up in her multi-hued coat and brightly-coloured hat, scarf, mitts, and boots, Jasmine sets out with enthusiasm amidst the early flurries, singing


“Neat! Neat! Snowy feet!
Snowy feet can’t be beat.
Neat! Neat! Snowy feet!
Snowy feet can’t be beat. 
Wintertime is fun!” (pg. 4)

Even when the snow starts accumulating, up to her knees and then up to her bum, she’s still singing a version of her “Wintertime is fun” song, though perhaps with a little less enthusiasm.  By the time she is in sight of the school, that final line of her song has become a question. And, when it is only the top of her hat that peeks out from the drifts of snow, Jasmine has revised that line to “Wintertime is no fun.” (pg. 13)

A frozen Jasmine is rescued by the snowshoed custodian and his St. Bernard, only to become the focus of the school staff’s efforts to defrost her.  The reader will soon realize that Pizza Day has become a snow day and the school is attended by a skeleton staff.  Still Jasmine came for Pizza Day and pizza is what she will have, though not as she expected.

From So Much Snow! 

by Robert Munsch, 

illus. by Michael Martchenko

In So Much Snow!, Robert Munsch brings his characteristic absurdity to a typical situation, bundling up his story of a child’s earnestness with a sing-song refrain that reveals much.  Playing on a child’s desperation to go to school for an anticipated treat, regardless of the weather, Robert Munsch makes what could have been a dangerous situation into one of silliness, even developing Jasmine into a character who begins to recognize the nonsense of her situation.  But it’s Michael Marchenko, whose artwork children always associate with Robert Munsch, who brings that folly to life, with his bold colours and textured details of clothing, blankets, and interior and exterior features. (Check out the principal’s checkered pants, the school nurse's flowered boots and the lost mitten pinned to the bulletin board.) Michael Martchenko, who has illustrated many children’s books beyond those of Robert Munsch (one of my favourites for teaching is Enough by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2000), will always be seen as the visionary behind Robert Munsch’s words; without his artwork, So Much Snow! would just be a cute story.  Together, though, Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko have created a snow day story to amuse children and gratify their teachers and parents who will understand completely the mind of a child determined not to missed out on something grand, regardless of a few metres of snow.

From So Much Snow! 

by Robert Munsch, 

illus. by Michael Martchenko

The Snow Knows

by Jennifer McGrath

Illustrated by Josée Bisaillon

Nimbus Publishing

978-1-77108-441-3

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

September 2016

I know Jennifer McGrath as the award-winning author Jennifer Kent McGrath of novels Chocolate River Rescue (Nimbus, 2007) and White Cave Escape (Nimbus, 2009) which transported middle-grade readers to perilous situations on the Petitcodiac River and gypsum mines of New Brunswick.  But she’s also delved into children’s picture books, first with Gadzooks the Christmas Goose (Nimbus, 2011) and now with The Snow Knows.  The plotting may be very different between her children’s novels and illustrated books, but the quality of voice and literary momentum are always there.

The text of The Snow Knows is fairly simple, almost repetitive, prose based on what the snow knows about the various animals, both wild and domestic, as they live with, seek food in and move throughout the winter wonderland of a snowy landscape.  There’s a rabbit, an owl, a pheasant, deer, porcupine, weasel, mice, squirrel, fox, partridge, otter, lynx and coyotes who pepper the whiteness outside.  Jennifer McGrath’s words propel the reader through this winter wilderness, as if witness to a quiet and secretive world outside, one in which all is not said, but much is known.

The snow knows..
Where the rabbit goes.
It knows the hush-shush of the owl’s wing.

Josée Bisaillon’s artwork, which I’ve so admired in Eat, Leo! Eat! (Caroline Adderson, Kids Can Press, 2015) and Winter’s Coming (Jane Thornhill, Owlkids, 2014), is a combination of drawings and digital art, collages of richly treed landscapes and snow-covered fields peppered with stylized but easily recognizable animals and the ever present falling snow.  Moreover, Josée Bisaillon cleverly links the animals’ stories by providing an early peek of the each upcoming animal.  For example, on the double-spread of the deer, a porcupine hides in the tree and a small weasel glances out from behind a log, while the lynx slinks away from the hiding partridge and the sliding otter pages. The story comes full circle from the winter outside a red-tiled house, to the forest and fields, and back to the home from which two creatures exit to share in the snow too.

From The Snow Knows 

by Jennifer McGrath,

 illus. by Josée Bisaillon

We may not have snow now but we will soon enough, and all these creatures will be finding a way to survive and perhaps enjoy its abundance.  Take a slow, lyrical walk through it with The Snow Knows’ Canadian menagerie to appreciate its complex interrelationships and to enjoy Jennifer McGrath and Josée Bisaillon’s delightful frolic through the snow.

From The Snow Know

 by Jennifer McGrath,

 illus. by Josée Bisaillon

The Owl and the Lemming

by Roselynn Akulukjuk

Illustrated by Amanda Sandland

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-120-1

32 pp.

Ages 5-7

November 2016

Like Aesop’s Fables, The Owl and the Lemming is a tale with a moral but it is more than just a morality story. Through the words of Nunavut-born filmmaker Roselynn Akulukjuk and illustrator Amanda Sandland, this fable is an Inuit legend with a lesson based on a local predator-prey relationship amidst that Arctic ambience of mossy and rocky tundra.  The Owl and the Lemming is as elegant in its story-telling and art as it is wise in its teaching.

A young lemming makes her way out of the den in the spring to partake in some much-needed feeding on tasty moss.  So engrossed in her eating, she fails to notice a snowy owl land directly in front of the entrance to the lemming’s den.   The young lemming tries to trick the snowy owl with some juvenile ploys based on distraction but, though young, the owl is wise to her intentions. Finally the lemming invites the owl to play a jumping game with the lemming’s fate as a meal the prize.  The owl is only too happy to show his prowess at jumping, sadly for him allowing the lemming to scurry back into her den.  Though his father cautions him, “Next time, don’t play with your food” (pg. 25), the little owl knows it was his pride that cost him his meal.

That old adage of pride going before a fall is ever so true in this Inuit tale, told with humour by Roselynn Akulukjuk who directed a puppet-based film of the story for Taqqut Productions, just winning Best Animation at the 41st annual American Indian Film Institute Festival.  It’s an auspicious recognition of the talent of Roselynn Akulukjuk to tell such a legend with both clarity and richness, staying true to her Nunavut roots while extending herself into her new pathways for story-telling.  Similarly, Amanda Sandland uses her artwork to combine the whimsical with the realistic, creating composite images of drawings with photographic backgrounds.  With only a few touches of comic design, like the den’s doorway and fencing, added to the true tundra landscape, Amanda Sandland puts all her efforts in creating a lemming and an owl worthy of the legend’s title.

From The Owl and the Lemming 

by Roselynn Akulukjuk, 

illus. by Amanda Sandland

Readers should look for the release of Taqqut Productions’s film of this story, but indulge in this literary version from Inhabit Media for teaching and learning an important moral about pride and survival from a very northern perspective.

The Griffin of Darkwood

by Becky Citra

Coteau Books

9781550506914

173 pp.

Ages 8-13

July 2016

It’s not unusual for there to be hints of secrets untold in Becky Citra’s novels for young people.  Two past Forest of Reading nominated books, Never To Be Told (Orca, 2006) and Missing (Orca, 2011) are two perfect examples in which there are personal mysteries that need to be solved.  While The Griffin of Darkwood splendidly plays on this same theme, as well as that of loss, Becky Citra takes on a whole new dimension in her writing: fantasy.  And she draws you in that story effortlessly with the expertise of a seasoned writer.

Twelve-year-old Will Poppy and his mother Adrienna are writers.  They even have their own Muses: a knight and a woman from Ancient Greece respectively.  But just after Adrienna finishes her book, The Magical Night, and Will deposits it with her publisher, Mr. Barnaby, Adrienna dies and Will is spirited away unceremoniously by nasty Aunt Mauve to a castle called Sparrowhawk Hall with its two equally-scary servants, Mr. and Mrs. Cherry.  Except for his mother’s pencil box, which always seemed magical to him, and a package containing a photo of his mother’s parents and a piece of  cloth with the words "The Griffin of Darkwood" woven into it, Will brings little with him to Sparrowhawk, though, with his desire to write having disappeared, he needs little.

Sparrowhawk is a quaint, old-fashioned English village of cobbled streets and alleys, and Will soon discovers the bookstore of Favian Longstaff, Ex Libris, and meets the energetic Emma Storm and her dog Peaches and Emma’s friend, chef-in-training Thom Fairweather.  Through his new friends, Will learns of the centuries-old griffin’s curse–there are stories of a young girl dying and a murder–which explains the rather unwelcoming welcome Will and his aunt get from many of Sparrowhawk’s villagers.

But, the mystery only begins there.  Even though Will refuses to write, he is still a writer and he keeps his eyes open and has a lot of questions. Why does his aunt seem to be keeping important mail from Will?  How could she afford the castle when they were all as poor as church mice?  Why is Mr. Cherry sneaking around looking for a secret passageway? Should Will heed the predictions of poet Vespera Moonstone and Granny Storm?  And what of the magic he seems to witness: book characters come to life at the bookstore, the eye colour-changing Macavity the cat, falling into a crystal ball, and the light emanating from his mother’s pencil box?  With a host of new friends and a lot of magic, with a little writing mixed in, Will finds that he is the solution to this mystery in ways he could never have imagined.

Though a contemporary story, there’s an Old English feel to The Griffin of Darkwood that readers and lovers of medieval history will appreciate. From the castle with its tower, great hall and keep, as well as the story-telling tapestries and the village of Sparrowhawk, Becky Citra sets an atmospheric tale of mystery, deceit and redemption.  From a poor orphan who has lost his will to write and under the “protection” of a selfish aunt, to evil servants with malevolent intentions, and a mysterious creature, sight unseen,  that dominates the landscape, The Griffin of Darkwood is itself a tapestry.  The tale is rich in characters and setting and plot, all the essential components of a great story.  The Griffin of Darkwood will fill a reading void for early and middle-grade readers who are in want of a Harry Potteresque fantasy without the truly scary bits and a huge page count, and who appreciate the far-too-rare triumph over evil in our own world.