Growing Up in Wild Horse Canyon: Book launch (Kelowna, BC)

Join

Karen Autio and Loraine Kemp

for the launch of their picture book

Growing Up in Wild Horse Canyon

Written by Karen Autio

Illustrated by Loraine Kemp 

Crwth Press

978-1-7753319-0-2

48 pp.

Ages 7-10

October 2018

 on 

Saturday, October 20, 2018

from

2-4 p.m.

at

Okanagan Regional Library

Kelowna Branch

1380 Ellis Street

Kelowna, BC 

From Crwth Press's website:

In a hidden canyon in British Columbia’s Southern Interior, a ponderosa pine tree sprouts. Seasons pass as the tree grows, witness to generations of human history in the Okanagan Valley, from First Nations quests to fur brigades, horse wrangling, secret wartime commando training, to the firestorm of 2003. Richly illuminated by maps, illustrations, and historical images and informed by a timeline and historical notes, this fascinating book weaves First Nations history with European settlement and natural history. By following the thread of one tree growing in one sheltered and sacred space, award-winning author Karen Autio gently explores patterns of colonization that will resonate with readers all over North America. 

Enid Strange

Written by Meghan Rose Allen

DCB

978-1-770865259

240 pp.

Ages 10-13

May 2018 CAN / September 2018 US

Enid Strange is eleven years old and she is writing a book, How to See the Faeries. Of course, you can't just "see" faeries as they "work through non-anticipation" (pg. 8) but you can see their shadows in patches of sunlight viewed in your right periphery.  Spotting faeries and writing her book engross Enid whose life is far from normal.

She and her mother live in a semi-detached rental home next to Mrs. Delavecchio whom Enid treats as a grandmother and her mother treats as an unpaid babysitter. In fact, Enid's mother, Margery, who'd always believed in faeries and knew enough to create banishing powders and plant trees to protect their house, now seems almost angry to Enid's interests. In fact, Margery is downright nasty to her daughter.

"I just wonder why," her mother said, returning to whisking, "you didn't turn out differently." (pg. 35)

Ouch.

Enid begins to think that the faeries are up to mischief, knocking over trees in the garden, bewitching her mother whose behaviour is definitely becoming odder and manipulating Margery's relationship with Dr. Holden, a geriatric psychiatrist at the William O. Wistop Memorial Long Term Care Facility (which Enid calls the Will O'Wisp) where Margery works. This is worse still as Dr. Holden's seventeen-year-old daughter Amber is always getting up into Enid's business. It's up to Enid to make things right and she intends to do so by catching the faeries.

Enid Strange, the book, is as odd a little thing as Enid Strange the girl. After all, faeries aren't real, are they? Readers will start by wondering whether Enid is just imagining the little mischievous creatures or whether they truly exist. Weird things are definitely happening at home and at school and it's not surprising that a girl who is told to behave herself since "We don't want you to be someone who spoils other people's happiness" (pg. 82) would be looking to find a way to take some control over her own life in a world going wacko. And Enid is an astute little thing. She sees more than she lets on and comprehends beyond her eleven years of age. For example, she knows how important it would be for the lonely Mrs. Delavecchio to reconnect with her son in prison: "She told me you are broken. Well, fix yourself up and send her a letter." (pg. 73) She devises a hypothesis that "faeries are able to manipulate light's dual nature: using waves to propel themselves forward and using particles to hide behind when they wish to remain unseen" (pg. 136) and proposes an experiment to test it.

Author Meghan Rose Allen gives voice to middle graders who have lots of ideas about their parents, school, and home life but never seem to be heard. Enid has a lot going on in her life. Loads. And yet she seems to have no support system. She's out there on her own, trying to deal with nastiness from Amber Holden and being ignored by her mother who disregards her parenting responsibilities and chastizes Enid for her dramatics when learning who her father is. Meghan Rose Allen embeds Enid's story in a rich world of faeries, and not your sweet pink variety, and allows the child to take some control over her life, with a little help from some unexpected supports, and learning that there is magic around and even in her.

Africville: Book launch (Toronto, ON)

I am sorry I missed posting about the book launch earlier this month (September 13) at the Africville Museum in Halifax but here's hoping that this launch will be successful in making more people aware of this heritage site and take the trouble to learn more about its history.

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Join author 

Shauntay Grant

for a celebration of her new picture book

Africville

Written by Shauntay Grant

Illustrated by Eva Campbell

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-043-9

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

September 2018

on

Saturday, September 29, 2018

from

2 - 4:30 p.m.

at

A Different Booklist

777-779 Bathurst Street

Toronto, ON

Learn more about the book with my review posted here today.

Africville

Written by Shauntay Grant

Illustrated by Eva Campbell

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-043-9

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

September 2018

Though Africville, a Nova Scotia community founded by former slaves and Black Loyalists in the 1800s, is sadly a legacy of racial discrimination and abandonment, Shauntay Grant chooses to tell the story of community and all the goodness one child sees in Africville.

Africville's story begins with a young girl looking at the community as an observer, seeing its location

at the end of the ocean
 where waves come to rest
 and hug the harbor stones

to its structures

and the houses lay out like a rainbow

From Africville by Shauntay Grant, illus. by Eva Campbell

and the activity of children at play and at home, relaxing and busy. There is fishing and football, rafting, skipping and fishing, food, family and church. This is the Africville of home.

From Africville by Shauntay Grant, illus. by Eva Campbell

Take me to where the pavement ends
and family begins

Though Shauntay Grant shares the girl's observations of Africville as if the child is of that place and time, it only becomes evident at the very end that the girl is visiting the current historic site, looking at the community from a contemporary setting, envisioning the children and families as their lives may have been lived and Africville may have been.

From Africville by Shauntay Grant, illus. by Eva Campbell

But, while Africville is a piece of history of which countless books have been written, including several of youngCanLit, Shauntay Grant's book is not a journalist piece about the community's evolution and tragedies. She has written a joyful account of a neighbourhood of people. The colour in their lives comes from where they are, what they do, and how they feel. There is a respect for the past and for the present, and anticipation for the future.

where memories turn to dreams,
and dreams turn to hope,
and hope never ends.

Shauntay Grant is a poet who brings that sweetness of time and place to her free verse, transporting all readers to the humanity of Africville. Likewise, BC painter Eva Campbell uses vivid colours of acrylic on canvas to bring out Africville's joys and its sense of kinship even with those who would be unrelated. In Africville, everyone belongs.

The legacy that is Africville will spark deep discussions of history and racism but Shauntay Grant and Eva Campbell's Africville will take those discussion sideways to celebrate the Africville that was home and life to so many for over a century.

Canadian KidLit Masquerade Gala (Toronto, ON)

Writers! Illustrators! 
Lovers of youngCanLit!

On October 29, 2018, the TD Children's Literature Awards will be presented in an exclusive event in Toronto. Because of limited venue capacity, many authors and illustrators and members of the Canadian Children's Book Centre will not be able to share in honouring their peers on this special night.  As such, a special event, the Canadian KidLit Masquerade Ball, the brain child of authors Kari Maaren, Ishta Mercurio, Claudia Osmond and Star Spider, will be held as the official *unofficial* after party.  It will be a great opportunity to celebrate, schmooze, imbibe, and share with writers and illustrators of youngCanLit.

Come celebrate the nominees and winners of this year's TD Children's Literature Awards and all those who create great books for children and teens in Canada.

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Here's the scoop on the event and how you can attend:

Date:  

Monday, October 29, 2018

Time:

 7 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Location:  

Lula Lounge

1585 Dundas West, Toronto, Ontario M6K1T9

Tickets: 

$45 

(includes free coat check, canapés, one drink ticket and performance by Tia Brazda and more)  
are available at

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/canadian-kidlit-masquerade-gala-tickets-50607201502

Musical guest Tia Brazda will perform

Dress:

Fancy dress with mask

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Please join us at the

 Canadian KidLit Masquerade Gala 

and

help celebrate the writing and art achievements of creators of youngCanLit.

Inkling

Written by Kenneth Oppel

Illustrated by Sydney Smith

HarperCollins

978-1-44345-028-1

256 pp.

Ages 8-12

September 2018

When  a splotch of ink pulls itself out of the sketchbook of graphic artist Mr. Rylance, only the cat Rickman sees it roaming and exploring until it hides itself within the drawing efforts of sixth grader Ethan. In fact, while the talented Mr. Rylance, known for his Kren graphic novels, struggles with writer's and artist's block undoubtedly stemming from the death of his spouse, his son is just struggling to contribute the artwork to a class project. (His peers are convinced he should be able to draw like his dad.) But after Ethan discovers the ink splotch which he calls Inkling is able to absorb the ink from books, newsprint and even photographs and complete incredible illustrations, he begins to use the inky entity to build on his own clumsy stick figure drawings and submit the artwork as his own.

From Inkling by Kenneth Oppel, illus. by Sydney Smith

While Inkling feeds on a variety of print which affects its voice and behaviour–violent comic books are the worst!–and draws Ethan's homework, the boy struggles to keep his secret advantage safe and undercover. But, like all good secrets, it is revealed, first to one friend and then to his father, before being discovered by Ethan's archenemy, the daughter of Dad's publisher.  Too soon, Ethan is scrambling to keep Inkling safe and stop those who wish to enslave it. 

From Inkling by Kenneth Oppel, illus. by Sydney Smith

What starts out as an imaginative creation story of a splotch of ink soon becomes a cautionary tale against finding an easy way out of work and taking advantage of those who might help you. And you'll be astonished when you feel like cheering for a blob of ink who expresses itself wildly in terms of whatever text it has most recently consumed, including L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Roald Dahl's The BFG and Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, and then feel angst for it when Inkling writes, in inky bold writing, that "I AM ALONESOME" (pg. 82). Kenneth Oppel has made us care for bats, a fostered chimp and now a blob of ink. Too soon the reader will see Inkling as a living thing, even before given a name, and I defy any science teacher to do a lesson on the characteristics of living things and not struggle with Inkling's classification. It's all in Kenneth Oppel's ability to give life through his words, invigorating Inkling with needs and wants and free will.

Though Inkling is not a picture book or a graphic novel, it is illustrated, here by Governor General award-winning artist Sydney Smith who takes Kenneth Oppel's story and sugars it with artwork that adds but doesn't explain. From chapter heading panels to ink splats small and large on every double-spread and the occasional expression of Inkling's work, Sydney Smith guides us to understanding the evolution of Inkling from static ink on a page to living being, absorbing, learning and feeling. Remember: Inkling is composed solely of ink.

I suspect teachers will be jumping on Inkling (please don't hurt him!) to use in class for everything from writing voice and setting to writing "What If?" stories as the basis for plot. But don't disregard Inkling's magic as a blob of ink restores life to a family disintegrating in grief and offers hope through the art of its dynamic efforts.

Body Swap: Book launch (Burlington, ON)

Sylvia McNicoll

middle grade and YA author extraordinaire

is 

launching her newest book

Body Swap

Written by Sylvia McNicoll

Dundurn

978-1-45974-090-7

248 pp.

Ages 12-15

September 2018 

on

Sunday, September 30, 2018

from

 2-4 p.m.

at

A Different Drummer Books

513 Locust Street

Burlington, ON

If that glorious cover doesn't get you interested, then this blurb about the book, from Dundurn's website, will be sure to entice:

A fatal collision — who’s to blame? Two bodies, two souls switch in search of justice.

When fifteen-year-old Hallie gets knocked flying by a Hurricane SUV, her life ends without her ever having kissed a boy. At an otherworldly carnival, she meets and argues with the eighty-two-year-old driver, Susan. Both return to life, only with one catch — they’ve swapped bodies.

Now Hallie has wrinkled skin and achy joints while Susan deals with a forehead zit and a crush on a guy who’s a player. Hallie faces a life in a long-term care residence. Susan gets picked up for shoplifting.

As they struggle with technology, medications, and each other’s fashion foibles, they start to understand and maybe even like each other. But can they work together to prove that a defect in the Hurricane caused the deadly crash? Or will their time run out?

Retrieved on September 21, 2018 from https://www.dundurn.com/books/Body-Swap