Mine!: Rescheduled Book Launch (Waterloo, ON)

Yeah!  This event has now been rescheduled.  
See details below.

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Join 

 fiction and non-fiction author

Natalie Hyde

for the launch of her new middle-grade novel

MINE!

Written by Natalie Hyde

Scholastic Canada

978-1-44314-660-9

240 pp.

Ages 9-12

September 2017

on

Saturday, November 25, 2017

at

1-3 p.m.

at

Earth Sciences Museum

University of Waterloo

(Map at https://uwaterloo.ca/map/pdf/map_bw.pdf 

shows the Earth Sciences Building 

and parking lots, 

including free parking in X Lot or $5 parking in Q)

Three will be:

• a book reading

• Q & A

• book signing

• light refreshments

• gold panning (!)

• Mine Tunnel tour

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

Like her previous middle grade fiction Saving Armpit (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2011) and I Owe You One (Orca, 2011), Natalie Hyde is putting her humour to work!  And this time it's about a gold claim in the Yukon and saving a family's reputation.


If it weren't for bad luck, Chris Dearing would have no luck at all. 

Chris Dearing comes from a long line of losers. Bad luck has plagued the Dearing family for generations. Now his dad's about to lose everything, and Chris's only hope lies in the wild rivers of the Yukon. What is up there other than moose snot and mosquitos the size of bats? Gold! Specifically, a gold claim Chris’s grandfather was swindled out of years ago. 

With the help of a tough-talking biker and an ex-con muffin baker, Chris is in a race against time to claim the long-forgotten family fortune. Will he strike out like the rest of his family, or will he strike gold and finally get a chance to rewrite Dearing history?

The stakes are high and the hi-jinx even higher in this laugh-out-loud novel from acclaimed author Natalie Hyde!

 (Retrieved from Scholastic Canada website at http://www.scholastic.ca/books/view/mine)

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Details about this event
(including a lovely picture of Natalie Hyde panning for gold!)
 are available at

 https://uwaterloo.ca/earth-sciences-museum/events/mine

(though the date has yet to be updated
so just know that the launch is really on November 25, 2017)

The Man Who Knew Everything: The Strange Life of Athanasius Kircher

Written by Marilee Peters

Illustrated by Roxanna Bikadoroff

Annick Press

978-1-55451-974-3

60 pp.

Ages 9-12

October 2017

Athanasius Kircher, born in 1602 Germany, dreamed of being someone extraordinary, perhaps a scientist or an author or a scholar.  The insatiably curious child who was prone to reckless behaviour to indulge that inquisitiveness would be proud to know that people regarded him as "The Man Who Knew Everything."

Asking questions about all he encountered, Athanasius Kircher chose to become a Jesuit at age 16 so that he might travel away from his village and experience everything the world might hold.  But with the onset of the religious war known as the Thirty Years' War, Kircher found himself evading the conflict by heading to the safety of the Roman Catholicism-based Rome where he became a professor of mathematics.  However, Kircher never limited his drive for knowledge to that field and pursued interests in everything.  From machines that transmitted sound to the secrets harboured within the earth, Kircher's pursuit of knowledge placed him in countless precarious positions.  It may have been the time of the Scientific Revolution when questions about the age of the earth and foundations of life were being asked but it was also the time of the Inquisition when the Church went after those whom they felt threatened their belief system.  Kircher persisted, embarking on dangerous explorations into the heart of a volcano, collaborating with scientists and priests around the world to formulate his ideas about the earth's development and publishing The Underground World, a compendium of his theories.  To share his ideas and display the many exotic oddities he discovered and was gifted, Kircher established a showcase for them, the Kircherian Museum in Rome.

From The Man Who Knew Everything

by Marilee Peters 

illus. by Roxanna Bikadoroff

Marilee Peters ensures that young readers understand that this strange man, with his innovative and bizarre ideas, was imaginative, brilliant and ahead of his times in many ways.  He didn't always get things right, like the use of rocks to extract snake venom or a mammoth bone identified as that of ancient supersized humans, but his original thinking, definitely outside the box, allowed for new ideas to come to the forefront and be considered for future study.  He was a pioneer of the scientific method and probably originated the concept of promoting science by linking it with the wonder of its magic.  (The lobster statue "vomiting" water would be a prime example.) It's not surprising that the word "kircherize" was generated to mean the making of connections between unrelated things.

From The Man Who Knew Everything 

by Marilee Peters 

illus. by Roxanna Bikadoroff

As biography, The Man Who Knew Everything is somewhat a departure for Marilee Peters whose non-fiction for young people includes 10 Rivers That Shaped the World (Annick, 2015) and Making It Right: Building Peace, Settling Conflict (Annick, 2015) but her fastidious research and ability to bring imagination to her topics of study are definitely there.  The text, never extensive but always illuminating, is like a museum of information, short snippets of knowledge bites.  With Roxanna Bikadoroff's quirky illustrations (recently seen in The Alphabet Thief; Groundwood, 2017), The Man Who Knew Everything has a Monty Pythonesque vibe (recall their TV show of the 1970s): a little irreverent, a lot of details and a general impression of something innovative.  By encompassing lots of biographical info and scientific thought in an unconventional style, The Man Who Knew Everything works for a visionary whose unusual drive for knowledge opened many doors and left many open for further exploration. He might not have actually known everything, but he sure tried.

From The Man Who Knew Everything 

by Marilee Peters 

illus. by Roxanna Bikadoroff

Goodnight, Hockey Fans

Written by Andrew Larsen

Illustrated by Jacqui Lee

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-105-5

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

October 2017

Older readers will recognize the title as the sign-off of radio and TV broadcaster Foster Hewitt after calling a hockey game for Hockey Night in Canada.  They may even recognize the setting, time and place, from their mid-1950s to early-1960s home, with its antennaed television and transistor radio.  But every child, then and now, who dreams of hockey glory will feel this story.

Though the family–mom, dad, son, dog and cat–are enjoying watching television, it's time for the child to go to bed.  He's a little apprehensive, not knowing if he'll be able to fall asleep, especially amidst the silence that seems to roar.

From Goodnight, Hockey Fans 

by Andrew Larsen 

illus. by Jacqui Lee

He shines his flashlight on his hockey poster, pennant and puck trophy and finally settles on calming himself with his dad's old transistor radio.  When he hears the familiar "Welcome back, hockey fans from coast to coast" he knows he has found his ticket to dreamland.

From Goodnight, Hockey Fans 

by Andrew Larsen 

illus. by Jacqui Lee

And dream he does. First it's just the hockey game that might be being watched on TV, but soon the announcement of a boy skating onto the ice and going after the puck is trumpeted.  There is that culminating goal and cheers that fade into the nighttime quiet, but it's not really over until mom and dad head to bed and hear the iconic sign-off from their son's concealed radio:  "Goodnight, hockey fans from coast to coast."

From Goodnight, Hockey Fans 

by Andrew Larsen 

illus. by Jacqui Lee

What a delightful way to celebrate hockey in Canada and to honour Foster Hewitt, the voice of Canadian hockey! By melding the broadcast of a hockey game, complete with the broadcaster's trademark sayings, with a boy's imaginative dreams, everyone is transported to a dreamland of historic play on the ice.  Andrew Larsen who can't possibly be old enough to remember when Foster Hewitt's broadcasts took place on radio and TV captures the wonder of the game and the dream of children nation-wide to play with their hockey heroes and score a winning goal.   The playfulness that Andrew Larsen embeds in his books (see Dingus, Kids Can Press, 2017; Charlie's Dirt Day, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2015; and See You Next Year, Owlkids Books, 2015) comes through loud and clear, even in the quiet of a dreaming child's bedroom.

That same playfulness is evoked in Jacqui Lee's retro-style illustrations. From the colours she selects, very reminiscent of a 1950s paint palette, to the uniforms of the hockey players, Jacqui Lee's artwork blends well with Andrew Larsen's story's setting.  The art, like the text, is of a time when Foster Hewitt was everything to hockey in Canada, including the soothing voice of dreams and comfortable slumber.

The Christmas Wind

Written by Stephanie Simpson McLellan

Illustrated by Brooke Kerrigan

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-534-9

32 pp.

All ages

November 2017

The Christmas Wind is special.  It is very, very special.  And I suspect that it will be the Christmas book for this year and many to follow because of its secular telling of the Christmas story without getting bogged down in the religion.

The wind shoved Jo sideways, stealing feeling from her fingers and toes.  It chased her with ghostly moans and creepy shrieks.  The day before Christmas and still no snow.  She should have been glad, but the skinny road seemed colder without it.

Jo and her mother Merry and baby brother Christopher have had to leave a bad situation.  There may not be snow but it is cold and windy and the bus station, their destination, is still a long way away.  The young girl has taken charge, carrying her baby brother and helping her mother who is obviously unwell and weak.  When she realizes they must find shelter immediately but she cannot shoulder the weight of both her mother and the baby, she takes Christopher and heads to the barn of Franklin Murdock, "an old man as unfriendly as the wind."  Cautiously, she approaches, wary of the man who'd turned crusty after the loss of his wife and child, but Jo is determined to be brave and help her family.

From The Christmas Wind 

by Stephanie Simpson McLellan 

illus. by Brooke Kerrigan

Laying Christopher in a manger amidst the cows and sheep, Jo goes to retrieve her mother.  But when the two return to the barn, the manger is empty.  With a fury and a shovel, Jo heads to the house to confront Mr. Murdock.  But as she berates him and he questions her about why they are in his barn, he offers shelter in his home, first carrying her mother from the cold of his outbuilding.

From The Christmas Wind

by Stephanie Simpson McLellan

 illus. by Brooke Kerrigan

As they stepped into the rising storm, the wind blew both ways at once and a path of light from a single star opened before them.  Jo and Murdock found themselves momentarily suspended between where they came from and where they were going, until an eager blast of air hurried them to the house.

Though he provides them shelter in his house, Murdock seems immobilized by grief, their presence a reminder of his own losses on a past Christmas Eve.  Jo will have none of it.  "You can't give up like that." She swept her arm around the room.  "Things won't get better on their own."

From The Christmas Wind

by Stephanie Simpson McLellan 

illus. by Brooke Kerrigan

How the story ends is secreted away in the glorious final pages of The Christmas Wind.  Suffice it to say that the Christmas wind brings snow and so much more.

Though Stephanie Simpson McLellan touches on the Christmas story with the homeless Josephine, Merry and Christopher, a barn and a manger and a man's name that encompasses the gifts of the magi, The Christmas Wind is not the story of the birth of Christ.  It is a story of compassion and grief and determination and acceptance. Though Brooke Kerrigan's outstanding illustrations suggest another time, perhaps the 1940s, The Christmas Wind is a story for our time.  There is too much misunderstanding and jumping to conclusions and fears about others when we feel vulnerable but it is compassion for others that bridges all that separates us.  Like the wind that carries the family to Mr. Murdock's farm and heralds a new world blanketed in snow, The Christmas Wind portends the need for a deeper meaning to the holidays that should supersede all else.  

From The Christmas Wind 

by Stephanie Simpson McLellan 

illus. by Brooke Kerrigan

The excerpts I've included above speak to the gift of Stephanie Simpson McLellan's words. They are rich and atmospheric, and deep in spirit.   Partnering her text with Brooke Kerrigan's impressive artwork is inspired.  The softness of the watercolour and pencil of Brooke Kerrigan's images conveys much about the characters' strengths and pains, the briskness of that wind, and the inner shelter of barn and house.  The Christmas Wind is a complete package of words and art about that which is right or should be for the holiday season and always.

I'd like to leave the last words to author Stephanie Simpson McLellan who writes about her book and the meaning of The Christmas Wind to her.

“Some of the classic Christmas stories such as Chris Van Allsburg’s Polar Express, Susan Wojciechowski’s Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, Jean Little’s Room for a Little One and Peter Collington’s A Small Miracle were as integral to our holiday traditions as stockings hung by the fire. I wanted to contribute to that tradition. If you read closely, you’ll see that many elements of the original Christmas story are in The Christmas Wind, but jumbled and thinly disguised, suggesting that we all have the capacity for new beginnings. My young heroine, Jo, is my favourite kind of protagonist – someone who becomes fearless through necessity, squaring off against adversity to create something bigger than herself. She and Murdock are, unexpectedly, exactly what each other needed, enabling each to access the true spirit of the season.”

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The Christmas Wind Project
Teachers, Stephanie Simpson McLellan has been promoting the Christmas Wind project for several years though the book only launches this fall. You can read all about it on her website at http://stephaniemclellan.com/teachers-corner-3/christmas-wind-story-project/. Stephanie Simpson McLellan describes it as a "unique literacy experiment" with "students from JK-Grade 6 listening to a story in a format akin to an old, serialized radio show."

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Book launch
The Christmas Wind launches on Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 1 p.m. at Ella Minnow Children's Bookstore in Toronto.  I will post details soon.

Baby Cakes

Written by Theo Heras

Illustrated by Renné Benoit

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-030-7

24 pp.

Ages 1-4

October 2017

If Baby Cakes don't sound yummy enough, wait until you see Renné Benoit's illustrations of the children and kitten at play baking.  They are sweet and delightful and wholly scrummy.

From Baby Cakes 

by Theo Heras

 illus. by Renné Benoit

An older sister and little brother, with tuxedo kitten in tow, don their aprons, gather their ingredients and baking utensils and set to work.  Of course there are a few mishaps–there always are in the kitchen–of spilled ingredients but the two little ones seem to know what they are doing.  Measure, sprinkle, cream, wash, wash again, pour, blend, mix, fill and wait.  Except for brief appearances of a parent's hands to help out with a spill and to put the cupcakes in the oven, this story is that of the labours of the children and the kitten.  As should be, there is a tasty treat to imbibe in at tea time.

From Baby Cakes 

by Theo Heras 

illus. by Renné Benoit

Theo Heras, whose first book with Pajama Press Hat On, Hat Off (2016) was also illustrated by the wonderful Renné Benoit, reintroduces the sister and brother, slightly older now and able to take on a baking project with a little help from a parent. But Baby Cakes is still written for the very young, with Pajama Press' trademark padded cover and sturdy pages, and large bold font and simple sentences of only a few words.  I suspect that Baby Cakes could be the first book young children will be able to read themselves as the repeated readings by an older child or adult will enable them to remember the words and learn to match the visual with the sounds.  Learning to bake and read in one charming book.

But like so many picture books, it is the artwork that will captivate children and adults.  Renné Benoit's illustrations capture the innocence and earnestness of the very young and their efforts to undertake what must seem a monumental task.  The seriousness of their efforts does not take away from their delight in the work and the surprises that happen.  With a much-loved kitten, the children are bonded to their task and to each other, cooperating in their efforts and sharing in the fruits of their labours.  It's a warm scene of family that I wish could be experienced in every household.  Hopefully, Baby Cakes will compel that to happen in more.  With the recipes for chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, as well as vanilla frosting, on the endpapers, everyone and anyone can assist young children in baking some yummy delights, with or without a kitten to help.

From Baby Cakes 

by Theo Heras

 illus. by Renné Benoit

Nimoshom and His Bus

Written by Penny M. Thomas

Illustrated by Karen Hibbard

HighWater Press

978-1-55379-708-1

24 pp.

Ages 4-8

October 2017

I think that it's important that every child be able to see themselves and the components of their lives in literature.  Nimoshom and His Bus will speak volumes to many children, whether Cree or bused students, in its simple story of a Cree grandfather, Nimoshom, who drives a school bus.

From Nimoshom and His Bus 

by Penny M. Thomas 

illus. by Karen Hibbard

Nimoshom's day begins outside of his bus with his dog and the narrator explaining that Nimoshom means my grandfather in Cree.

From Nimoshom and His Bus 

by Penny M. Thomas

 illus. by Karen Hibbard

As children get on the bus and they travel to school, Nimoshom greets them and comments on the day, occasionally having to remind the students to sit down, Api, or to hurry up, Kinapi.  We also learn the Cree words for thank you–as he tells the children who share gifts with him– and yes, no, wait, and the all-purpose Ekosi that means okay, that's it or amen.  The book concludes with a brief Cree word list of the thirteen terms emphasized in this book.

From Nimoshom and His Bus 

by Penny M. Thomas 

illus. by Karen Hibbard

While Penny M. Thomas' story is not a plot-driven allegory or a message-based lesson, Nimoshom and His Bus is a sweet introduction to some simple Cree words in the context of a common-place activity for many children.  This could have been an illustrated dictionary of Cree words but Penny M. Thomas, who is of Cree-Ojibway heritage, was able to give a familiar frame of reference which will help all children connect with the story.  Karen Hibbard who uses watercolours and pastels to create a gentle background for Nimoshom's day on his bus gives the story a grassroots mood, highly appropriate for a routine day of activity and interaction for this bus driver and his charges.  It's very relatable.

There is much to learn from Nimoshom, whether as a bus student or a reader of the book, and it's all done gracefully, not unlike Nimoshom himself.

From Nimoshom and His Bus 

by Penny M. Thomas 

illus. by Karen Hibbard

🚌 🚌 🚌 🚌 🚌

For those learning or teaching the Cree language, the publisher has provided a Cree pronunciation guide in pdf format as well as a downloadable lesson plan at http://www.portageandmainpress.com/product/nimoshom-and-his-bus/ to further the educational value of this picture book.

Love You Forever: New Pop-Up Edition

Written by Robert Munsch

Illustrated by Sheila McGraw

Paper engineering by Bruce Foster

Firefly Books

978-1-770859654

14 pp.

All ages

September 2017

Though not Robert Munsch's first book, Love You Forever is perhaps his best known, with astronomical sales over the decades and inclusion on multiple lists of top books of all time.   Published in 1986, Love You Forever is an iconic picture book about a parent's love for her child and it is now available in a pop-up version.

From Love You Forever Pop-Up Edition

The story begins with a mother holding her new baby and singing a lullaby to him:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I've living
my baby you'll be.

Then the boy becomes a toddler and gets into much mischief but still his mother sneaks into his room and rocks him back and forth while she sings the lullaby to him. This continues as the boy becomes nine, and then a teenager and finally an adult who moves away.  Still his mother sneaks into his room, rocks him and sings her lullaby.  But when she is too old to come see him, he visits her and sings the lullaby she cannot, revising it appropriately:

I'll love you forever,
I'll love you for always,
As long as I'm living
My Mommy you'll be.  

From Love You Forever Pop-Up Edition

The story ends with the son returning home, supposedly after his mother has passed, and he sings the lullaby to his own daughter, just as his mother sang to him.

Because of the alternative format with fold-out flaps and pull- and push-tabs to create three-dimensional illustrations, this Love You Forever is only 14 pages long.  Still the whole story is there, Robert Munsch's original words and Sheila McGraw's illustrations, now brought to life with the paper engineering of Bruce Foster, an American paper magician. (You can see a demonstration of the rocking chair pop-up on his website Paperpops.) There's not much I can say about the book Love You Forever that has not already been said time and time again but I can address the novelty of Bruce Foster's paperwork in adding a third dimension to the art and hence the story.  Though some of the illustrations may appear dated–check out the clothing, the computer and the hairstyles–there is a freshness that comes with the pop-ups, bringing new life to the pages of Love You Forever.  Parents may still be reading the story and singing the lullaby to their children but now children can interact with the story, pushing and lifting and pulling tabs, to help tell that story and appreciate the love between parent and child.

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For anyone who will be reading Love You Forever and has never heard the melody to the lullaby the mother sings, Robert Munsch shares it on a YouTube video uploaded on January 13, 2011 by tvoparents at https://youtu.be/YFX6pdwJWpA.