The Best Mistake Mystery: Book launches (Burlington, ON)

Attention young readers who are lovers of dogs and mysteries: 

Join

Sylvia McNicoll

author of over 30 books for children and young adults

for the launch of her new middle grade series

The Great Mistake Mysteries

with Book 1

The Best Mistake Mystery

by Sylvia McNicoll

Dundurn

978-1-45973-625-2

120 pp.

Ages 9-13

January 2017

on

Family Literacy Day

Friday, January 27, 2017

1:30 p.m.

Brant Hills Branch, Burlington Public Library

2255 Brant St.

Burlington, ON

and

Sunday, January 29, 2017

2 p.m.

along with author Deb Loughead
launching her recent young adult book
The Secrets We Keep

 Reviewed here

A Different Drummer Books

513 Locust St.

Burlington, ON

Look for my review of The Best Mistake Mystery next week here on CanLit for LittleCanadians, along with my interview with author Sylvia McNicoll.  But, just to see how much you'll want to read this book and attend one or both of these launches, here is the blurb from publisher Dundurn's website:

Some people count their blessings, but dogwalker Stephen Nobel counts mistakes. 

Dogwalker extraordinaire Stephen Nobel can get a little anxious, but his habit of counting the mistakes he and everyone else makes calms him. His need to analyze gets kicked into hyperdrive after two crazy events happen in one day at school: the bomb squad blows up a backpack and someone smashes a car into the building. 

To make things worse, that someone thinks Stephen can identify them. Stephen receives a threatening text. If he goes to the police, his favourite dogs, Ping and Pong, will get hurt. The pressure mounts when his new best friend, Renée, begs for Stephen’s help. Her brother has been charged with the crimes and she wants to clear his name. 

Is it a mistake to give in to dognappers? How can he possibly save everybody? To find out, Stephen will have to count on all of his new friends.

Fishing with Grandma

by Susan Avingaq and Maren Vsetula

Illustrated by Charlene Chua

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-084-6

32 pp.

Ages 5-7

2016

The beginning of the year is a wonderful time to catch up on hidden gems that I missed last year, especially ones that were released at extraordinarily busy times or at incongruous times, like a winter book in the spring.  To that end, I am so pleased to review Fishing with Grandma, a marvelous picture book that provides a glimpse into Inuit traditions of fishing and food and the important role of female elders in the family and community.

A young boy and his sister go to visit their grandmother, Anaanatsiaq, in search of an adventure.  With the house smelling of bannock, the children playing string games, and their grandmother sewing a sealskin, with her ulu on the ground beside her, the setting will be familiar to many Inuit but eye-opening for many others.  The children ask their anaanatsiaq to take them jigging for fish, a type of fishing the uses a jig or a lure. Their grandmother instructs them how to dress appropriately for the outdoor activity and then loads up the ATV with the appropriate equipment and they're off. While teaching her grandchildren how to test the ice for walking, how to make holes in it, and the movements of the wrist necessary to entice the fish, Anaanatsiaq introduces them to tools such as a tuuq, an ice skimmer, a jigging stick and an ice probe.  But it's the excitement of the sounds of the ravens and other fisher people jigging from their mats and of the sights of fish swimming by, as well as the thrill of the catch that elevates the outing to an adventure.

From Fishing with Grandma 

by Susan Avingaq and Maren Vsetula 

illus. by Charlene Chua

The story of Fishing with Grandma balances the blending of old and contemporary cultures with a special intergenerational relationship, making it a wonderful story for teaching acceptance and cultural competence. I love the children's grandmother, wise in tradition and facility, knowing the right thing to do and with the right tool.  I suspect that Nunavut author Susan Avingaq learned from her own grandmother just as she now would take her own grandchildren fishing and camping to teach them important land skills.  Susan Avingaq and Maren Vsetula's text of Fishing with Grandma is like Grandma herself, forthcoming without preaching, modelling acceptance and wonder and a joie de vivre.  Illustrator Charlene Chua, whose artwork in Akilak's Adventure (Inhabit Media, 2016) drew much attention, keeps the children's admiration and fascination for their grandmother and the adventure elevated as she does for young readers of the story.  Most importantly, the essence of being Inuit, from going jigging and sharing their catch with the community, is always uppermost in the story's text and illustrations, both teaching and entertaining readers of all cultures.

From Fishing with Grandma 

by Susan Avingaq and Maren Vsetula 

illus. by Charlene Chua

Crushing It: Book launch (Hamilton, ON)

The very funny author

 Joanne Levy

who delighted readers with her 

Forest of Reading-nominated 

Small Medium at Large

by Joanne Levy

Bloomsbury Children's Books

978-1-59990-836-6

193 pp.

Ages 9-13

2012

Reviewed here

is back with another funny middle grade read

Crushing It

by Joanne Levy

Aladdin

978-1-4814-6473-4

240 pp.

Ages 9-13

January 2017

which she will launch 

on

Saturday, January 28, 2017

2-4 p.m.

at

Hamilton Public Library, Westdale Branch

955 King St. W.

Hamilton, ON

Joanne Levy promises a reading, a Q & A, swag, light refreshments and, of course, books for purchase and signing.

Although I can't share my review of Crushing It yet–read it, loved it, giggled repeatedly–I can reveal that it's a middle grade story of first crushes gone sideways, when twelve-year-old Kat ends up helping her cousin Olivia snare the boy next door, Tyler, who is so not into popularity-craving Olivia and more into Zombie-slashing gamer Kat.  If things can go wrong, they do, but with much hilarity, courtesy of Joanne Levy's funny (ha!ha!, not strange) writing.

The book is out today, though, so you can always purchase it now, read it and then bring it to the launch for an author's signature and some swag. Whatever way you do it, get the book, enjoy the story.

9th Annual TOTSAPALOOZA: Toronto

Time to get ready for 

Small Print Toronto's

9th Annual Totsapalooza

a festival of indie music, picture book authors and DIY crafts

with singer-songwriter Fred Penner

and 

picture book authors

Tyler Clark Burke

launching her debut picture book Bill Bowerbird & The Unbearable Beak Ache! (OwlKids Books)

Elise Gravel

sharing her new books I Want A Monster! and The Cranky Ballerina (HarperCollins Canada)

and

Andrew Larsen

inspiring storytellers with his latest picture book, A Squiggly Story (Kids Can Press).

on

  Saturday, February 4, 2017

1 - 4 p.m.

at

Revival

783 College Street

Toronto, ON

The Movement Lab children’s dance studio will be back to keep the crowd on their toes and Kensington Market bakery Wanda’s Pie-in-the-Sky will have healthy, handmade snacks on hand.

Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.

Tickets are available for purchase at 

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/small-print-tos-totsapalooza-9-with-fred-penner-tickets-29581577294

(n.b. early bird ticket sales ends today!)

Waiting for Snow

by Marsha Diane Arnold

Illustrated by Renata Liwska

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

978-0-544-41687-1

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

November 2016

Polish-born Calgary artist Renata Liwska may be the author-illustrator of her own picture books including the Governor General Award-nominated Red Wagon (Philomel Books, 2013) and Little Panda (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), but she is best known for providing artwork for award-winning American writers such as Deborah Underwood (The Quiet Book, The Loud Book), Doreen Cronin (Boom Snot Twitty and Boom Snot Twitty This Way That Way), and Nina Laden (Once Upon a Memory).  In Waiting for Snow, Renata Liwska again provides the distinct landscape of art that takes Marsha Diane Arnold's words from story to showpiece.

From Waiting for Snow

by Marsha Diane Arnold 

illus. by Renata Liwska

Badger is desperate for snow to come.  He studies the sky, bangs pots and pans to wake it up, and follows his friends’ advice.  Rabbit recommends punching holes in the clouds with pebbles to allow the flakes to fall.  Vole suggests a snow dance. Possum proposes Badger wear his pajamas backwards.  His friends even use sugar to simulate snow when the winter flakes don’t appear.  But, just as Hedgehog in his cryptic way advises, the snow does come when it is time.

From Waiting for Snow 

by Marsha Diane Arnold 

illus. by Renata Liwska

Renata Liwska's pencil drawings coloured digitally effuse the story of childlike desperation with a tenderness and softness that materialize the animals from two-dimensional to stuffie.  Though you know that the fur of badgers and opossums may be more coarse in reality, Renata Liwska makes all her characters appear downy.  And her landscapes from outdoors to bedrooms and classrooms, both in daytime and night, are similarly relaxed and serene.  Waiting for Snow is for anyone who has ever waited for something or someone to come and been told that it will only happen in its own time.  It’s the old saying of a “watched pot never boils” acknowledging time as the truest measure of when something will happen.  No matter how much you crave it or are determined to make it happen, with snow dances or rituals or superstitions, time will be the determinant.

Piggy

by Trevor Lai

Bloomsbury 

978-1-68119-065-5

32 pp.

Ages 0-5

December 2016

Trevor Lai, founder of Up Studios, the very trendy Asian studio that created the BOOMi Camera mobile app, may be all over the internet, photographed with celebrities and promoting his studio's animations and media products, but Piggy, the title character of his first picture book, must be his alter ego, because he's just a demure little guy who loves to read and wants to make a friend.

From Piggy by Trevor Lai

Piggy, the red-spectacled boy-pig, was always too busy reading to make friends until he reaches his last book and decides to save it and try something new.  After a valiant effort at flying a kite–as instructed by a book, of course–Piggy decides to step outside of his comfort zone and make friends with a similarly book-loving girl-cat. But no matter what impressive endeavours he undertakes like blowing giant bubbles, or flying a plane, or sending flowers her way, she does not notice and never takes her nose out of her book.  It's only when he makes a small but sincere gesture at sharing his last book with her that Piggy learns it's Kate's eyesight that has stopped her from noticing his gestures.  With another large pair of red eyeglasses, Piggy helps Kate read the written words better and see the glorious friendship to be had with him.

From Piggy by Trevor Lai

Piggy has all the right messages about reading, sharing, compassion, friendship and perseverance, and Trevor Lai embeds them in a sweet, sweet story with a pig and a cat that very young children will adore.  The illustrations are bright in colour and whimsical in line, shape and size (the eyeglasses are especially outrageous).  It has a Porky Pig meets Hello Kitty vibe to the story but without the silliness or excess that might have handicapped the story.  The lightness of the tone and artwork enriches the story to become one of wholesomeness not saccharinity, sure to please both adults reading Piggy and little ones listening to it.  Piggy may make friends with Kate but he’ll become a character of affection for many more. (And there's an upcoming book, Piggy in Love, that we can look forward to reading too.)

A Harbour Seal in Halifax

by Doretta Groenendyk

Nimbus Publishing

978-1-77108-414-7

32 pp.

Ages 4-9

2016

On March 5, 2015, a young harbour seal found itself lost on land in the city of Halifax, confused by the textures of the city and looking for the water of home.  This is his story.

Told in bold lines and colours of a cold, winter’s night, Doretta Groenendyk shares the harbour seal’s trek through Halifax, confused by the lights and buildings and the lake of water, taking refuge under a car.  The owner of the car, startled by the seal, enlists the help of two police, Officer and Constable, who locate the roaming seal and return it to its watery home.  This simple story gains depth with Doretta Groenendyk’s approach of seeing the situation from both the perspective of the seal, unfamiliar with his surroundings and people, and the police, unfamiliar with the seal’s natural behaviour and viewpoint.  Together the three unlikely compatriots find a way to make things safe for all concerned.

From A Harbour Seal in Halifax 

by Doretta Groenendyk

A Harbour Seal in Halifax is a delightful story based on a true event that will charm readers with its happy ending and message of doing good for others.  It may not have a complicated plot but A Harbour Seal in Halifax tells the story well and with illustrations that will delight and transport readers to a cold wintery night when something unfortunate could have ended in tragedy but instead resolves with a feel-good finish.

From A Harbour Seal in Halifax 

by Doretta Groenendyk