Too Young to Escape: Book launch (Brantford, ON)

Join

author of children's picture books, middle-grade and YA novels and non-fiction

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

and 

Van Ho

her co-author and subject of this 

new middle-grade non-fiction book

for the launch of

Too Young to Escape: A Vietnamese Girl Waits to be Reunited with Her Family

Written by Van Ho with Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Pajama Press
978-1-77278-066-6
152 pp.
Ages 8-12
November 2018

on 

Saturday, December 1, 2018

2:30 - 4:00 p.m.

at

Brantford Public Library

173 Colborne Street

Brantford, ON

 

Read my review posted October 3, 2018 

here on CanLit for LittleCanadians

Seasons Before the War

Written by Bernice Morgan

Illustrated by Brita Granström

Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides, Inc.

978-1-927917183

44 pp.

Ages 7+

October 2018

Though the war mentioned in the title refers to World War II, it seems only appropriate to review Seasons Before the War in the same month as the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, when peace was declared and life would no longer revolve around war. Newfoundlander Bernice Morgan's first children's book, Seasons Before the War, speaks of that different time, a time between wars, when children of St. John's, Newfoundland lived lives full of play, family and community. It was a distant time and disparate from today but also distinct because of its Newfoundland setting. This is Bernice Morgan's story from that time.

From Seasons Before the War by Bernice Morgan, illus. by Brita Granström

Seasons Before the War reads like a bundle of warm but forthright reminiscences. Starting with Spring, Bernice Morgan speaks of the freedom to play in the many open spaces shared with children from various neighbourhoods. There were games, pretend tea parties, skipping and the freedom to venture out, though family made sure that children overheard stories about those who'd gone farther than permitted and "were never seen again." (pg. 9) Mealtimes were times to reinforce those cautionary tales but also to teach manners and the need for frugality.

From Seasons Before the War by Bernice Morgan, illus. by Brita Granström

In Summer, little Bernice–clearly identifiable from her glasses–and her big brother Charlie and other playmates would venture out on the streets filled with water pumps, horses, and farmers selling their produce and local merchants like the grocer, drug store, meat market and bulls-eye shop (candy shop). There was a blacksmith and  dressmaker or two and workshops, including her own father's carpentry shop, where the children could watch men at work. But it was the dump, source of the occasional great find, that entertained them most.

It was not as scavengers we went to the dump but as spectators, as people might go to a movie or concert. The place was not fenced, but surrounded by a kind of berm where we could sit for hours watching horse and box carts being backed up to the edge, appraising how each ashman would slowly manoeuver his animal into place, drop the back gate, and tip his load into the inferno of glowing ash. (pg. 23)

And when there was a fire at the dump, a weekly occurrence, and the firemen came with their firetruck, the entertainment surged.

In Fall, it was time for school and, for Bernice beginning kindergarten, the excitement of new shoes and a school uniform, her first book bag, exercise book and pencils. But school becomes a disappointment for Bernice who is shocked to find "that I was not the smartest or the prettiest child in the world" (pg. 26) and that her glasses and inability to tell left from right set her apart from her classmates. Fortunately, a gift of an extraordinary pencil box from her Aunt Sophie helped ease some of that discomfort.

And then Winter came, and venturing outside of the home was no longer the norm.

Inside the house we children did a lot of watching: watching our father mend footwear, fix furniture, or melt molten lead to solder a pot; watching the women bake, make jam, paper walls, knit, or pin patterns onto beautiful cloth to make dresses, pajamas, and even coats. Unlike scrubbing floors or washing clothes, there were interesting jobs that a youngster could help with. Holding skeins of wool, stirring batter, licking spoons clean, passing tacks, holding down flimsy patterns, carefully cutting the edge off wallpaper, even picking up scraps of leather or cloth, made a child feel important. (pg. 31)

But Christmas brought new excitement and fears, as Toylands in the local stores were opened (toys were not regularly displayed) and children worried whether they'd been good enough through the year. But it was a glorious evening when the whole family traipsed down to view the displays in the windows and point and smile and enjoy a treat of chips.

From Seasons Before the War by Bernice Morgan, illus. by Brita Granström

Oh, it was a different time. It was a time when it was unusual for a woman like Aunt Sophie to have her own money. When those who moved from Cape Breton to Newfoundland were considered immigrants. When play could be arranging glass marbles in the holes of the sewing machine's foot pedal. When words like bulls eye (for candy) and sooking (being a crybaby) were part of the vernacular.

Bernice Morgan's story unfolds like the seasons: inevitable, expected and full of promise. It's refreshing and invigorating to see the rosy-cheeked children playing and living without reliance on electronic devices. Bernice Morgan's words breathe life into these memories, true or modified as memories may be, with affection and with a lyricism found only in great storytellers. With Swedish-born artist Brita Granström's paintings, detailed in people and landscape, award-winning novelist Bernice Morgan's nostalgic anecdotes are given second breath and transport readers, young and old alike, to a time and place that has disappeared and remains forgotten until shared as in Seasons Before the War.

For good and for ill much of that long ago world was about to vanish: the children's chants, the horses, the small workshops and unpaved streets, the seamen with their songs, the open fields, our guileless assumption of safety–all of that would soon disappear from our world. (pg. 40)

It's Time for Bed

Written by Ceporah Mearns and Jeremy Debicki

Illustrated by Tim Mack

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-227-7

28 pp.

Ages 3-5

September 2018

You know the mayhem of getting little ones to sleep? Try managing it when your little one wants to play with all the animals of her Arctic landscape.

Little Siasi is told and asked repeatedly,

It's time for bed. The sun has set.
Siasi, have you ... ?

And she is asked about brushing her teeth, putting on her PJs, putting away her toys, picking a good night story, climbing into bed and closing her eyes. But Siasi's responses are always the same. She doesn't want to. Instead she wants to dance with the polar bear, or run with the caribou, fly with the geese, howl with the wolves, hop with the rabbits, and swim with the fish. But when she says she's done it all, she's definitely ready for bed.

From It's Time for Bed by Ceporah Mearns and Jeremy Debicki, illus. by Tim Mack

It's Time for Bed is based on parents Ceporah Mearns and Jeremy Debicki's own Siasi who would make excuse after excuse to put off her bedtime. Her refusal will be familiar to all caregivers of very young children but it's her unique reasons that will make It's Time for Bed a favourite new bedtime story to read. Children will love her reasons and delight in making up new ones of their own to continue her story for themselves. Even better, It's Time for Bed opens the world of the Arctic to those who have never lived there and reinforces the experiences of those children who have and do.

From It's Time for Bed by Ceporah Mearns and Jeremy Debicki, illus. by Tim Mack

Astutely, Tim Mack, who also illustrated Aviaq Johnson's What's My Superpower? (Inhabit Media, 2017), never makes Siasi's requests seem ridiculous or farfetched. All the animals with whom she wishes to play, even the fish beneath her bed, seem adapted to her bedroom. Moreover, Tim Mack has made Siasi determined, perhaps not to go to bed quite yet, but also boisterous and brash, wide-eyed and imaginative, and no one would want a child to be otherwise. And when she finally closes her eyes, angelic in her quiet, Tim Mack makes sure to include her Arctic animal friends in the shadows to watch over her.

From It's Time for Bed by Ceporah Mearns and Jeremy Debicki, illus. by Tim Mack

Fortunately, for Siasi's guardians and all parents who might read the story, Siasi does eventually follow through on all her bedtime routines, as little children must learn to do, when they know It's Time for Bed.

The Garden

Written by Meghan Ferrari

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-568-4

109 pp.

Ages 12+

October 2018

Often, he imagines his heart as a stereo, and his pain a volume knob that his memories control. The volume varies, depending on the day, the time, and the trigger. When the trigger is swift and unexpected, it feels as though the bass has been cranked, and a pain that almost blinds him reverberates throughout his entire body. (pg. 26)

While we might assume, incorrectly, that the path from war-torn Syria through refugee camp and immigration to Canada would be in a positive direction, that journey is rife with trauma, loss and changes that may shadow any positives and create stresses in the new experiences. Such is fifteen-year-old Elias's story, told in alternating chapters of pre- and post-immigration to Canada.

Elias lives with his little brother Moussa and his parents, one a doctor and the other a translator, in Syria. He goes to school, plays football and enjoys spending time with his little brother who loves to draw with his crayons. Then the civil war begins and schools are closed because of missile attacks, food is in short supply and humanitarian donations are being targeted. But Elias is most vigilant about keeping little Moussa and himself safe from rebels seeking to capture children for training and arming for war. In a hole dug in their mother's garden, beneath a piece of plywood, the two boys hide, with Elias making up games, like hide and seek or a role play of a jasmine seed planted in hope of growing, to avoid sharing the circumstances of their situation with his very young brother. The garden becomes a refuge for the boys as it has always been for their mother.

Alternating with Elias's reminiscences of life in Syria are his experiences as a new immigrant, wishful of returning to his homeland to help rebuild it while he is being bullied by boys who know nothing of his struggles. Though he is reluctant to make friends, soon two classmates, Sullivan, a small boy often victimized by bullies, and Liling, a girl whose own family sought asylum in Canada, come to support him without needing to know his back story.

But Elias is struggling with guilt, for choices he made and makes, and for circumstances he deems unfair after he and his family seek shelter in a refugee camp in Lebanon. Coupled with the trauma of things no young person should experience, Elias agonizes over how to look forward when it might mean forgetting those he left behind.

The Garden may be Meghan Ferrari's first book but she draws on her expertise in Social Justice Education to tell a convincing tale about one teen's experiences in the Syrian War, in a Lebanese refugee camp and as a new immigrant to Canada. Elias's disquieting realities, living in fear, with memories of the past and with his prospects for the future, are palpable, drenched in grief and trauma.

The people here might have fled the war, but they weren't free. They were imprisoned in this camp while they anxiously awaited verdicts on asylum claims, news of private sponsorships, or the end of the war. As with most prisons, there was solitary confinement. In this one, it existed in the mind–each inmate trapped in memories of loved ones: either dead, or left behind, or gone ahead on the harrowing journey across the Mediterranean Sea. (pg. 90)

Fortunately for Elias, a garden was and is his salvation, taking his story from one of war and loss, and culture shock and bullying, to the beginnings of healing, and Meghan Ferrari makes sure to let us observe Elias on his odyssey.

Meet the Latkes

Written and illustrated by Alan Silberberg

Viking Books for Young Readers

978-0-451479129

36 pp.

Ages 3-6

October 2018

If it's American Thanksgiving, then you know that the holiday season, creeping upon us ever earlier, is here.  So, just in time for this year's Hanukkah, which starts on December 2, is Alan Silberberg's picture book Meet the Latkes about a family of fried potato pancakes who are ready to celebrate, dreidel and menorah in hand.

There's Mama and Papa, daughter Lucy and her dog, Applesauce, older son Lex, and Grandpa. 

They're just like you and me. Except they're potato pancakes!

As Lucy and Applesauce start to get excited for the first night of Hanukkah, grumpy Grandpa corrects Lucy's pronunciation of the celebration. She says Hanukkah. He says Chanukah. The ever wise Applesauce informs them both that since the holiday's name is Hebrew, it is said and spelled different ways in English. Lesson #1.

As the family, minus the sullen teen Lex, cooks and sings and decorates the house, their celebrations begin and Grandpa takes Lucy, his little latke, onto his lap to tell her about the miracle of Chanukah. His story may be a little different from those typically told. Grandpa's story starts with Mega-Bees "who buzzed and stung and fought to keep our people safe" and the bravest bee was Judah Mega-Bee who helped fight the alien potatoes from Planet Chhhhh. Applesauce, drawing from his font of knowledge, attempts to correct Grandpa Latke with every outlandish detail of his Chanukah story. He tries to set Grandpa, and avid listener Lucy, straight but his endeavours to mention the Maccabees and Judah Maccabee and king Antiochus are totally disregarded.

"Feh!" says Grandpa. "Whose story is this?"

In Grandpa's story, Judah and the Mega-Bees are trapped by "those evil tater tyrants" from Planet Chhhhh with only enough honey for one day. They construct a gigantic wooden dreidel, hiding inside, until they burst forth and "sliced and whipped and mashed those tater tyrants into tatters." And with some egg, onion and flour, Judah creates potato latkes.

From Meet the Latkes by Alan Silberberg

But with Applesauce telling the true story of Hanukkah, which Grandpa eventually acknowledges as a far better miracle, yet another miracle happens. (Parents of teens will understand.)

From Meet the Latkes by Alan Silberberg

Meet the Latkes may be a silly story of a potato latke family sharing the story of Hanukkah but it's actually very informative. By having Grandpa tell his story, as an alternative to Applesauce's correct version, as well as including an appendix with glossary about the true story of Chanukah, Alan Silberberg gives us many a laugh while teaching about this holiday. But forget for a moment the educational value of Meet the Latkes and instead think about the achievement Alan Silberberg has made by writing and illustrating a story in which potato pancakes are the stars. His characters have clear voices of senior drollness, youthful naïveté, canine frustration, teen moodiness and more. And they're potato latkes! It all comes through their words, eyes and smiles (or lack thereof) and Alan Silberberg's cartoons, filled with action and exclamations, bubble comments and commentaries, and colour and wacky shapes.

Take your children or students to Meet the Latkes for a Hanukkah, or Chanukah, like no other.

Team Steve

Written and illustrated by Kelly Collier

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-932-7

40 pp.

Ages 4-8

September 2018

Let's face it: Steve the Horse, introduced in Kelly Collier's A Horse Named Steve (Kids Can Press, 2017), is a bit of a narcissist. It's all about him. In his first book, he wanted to be seen as exceptional among the animals, oblivious to the strengths of others, seeing them as ordinary. Now, in Team Steve, Steve is looking forward to winning yet another race-a-thon, knowing how extraordinary he is as a runner.

From Team Steve by Kelly Collier

But the rules of the race have changed and Steve is put on a relay team with Duck, Turtle and Snail. Steve is perplexed as to how they are to win when "A duck waddles, a turtle walks and a snail ... is a snail!"  Even as each of his teammates suggests that he could coach them, sharing his expertise, he ignores their suggestions until he comes up with the same idea they've been proposing. Problem is that Steve is all about Steve, so his coaching is not about his teammates but about himself. Among his pearls of coaching wisdom, he advises Turtle to lift his hooves (?), Snail to eat three bowls of oats a day and Duck to stretch its neck.

From Team Steve by Kelly Collier

On the day of the race-a-thon, it's Turtle, Snail and Duck who surpass all expectations and pass their race competitors, while it is Steve who loses the race for them. Too busy congratulating himself on coaching his team to a victory, he delays in running his stretch of the race and the other teams tie to win.  Still it's his teammates that help him overcome his embarrassment before Steve is back applauding himself for helping the other teams win.

From Team Steve by Kelly Collier

Oh, Steve. He is such a self-centred horse, always focusing on his own needs and wants and how he is perceived by others. He is totally unconcerned with others except as they relate to him.  Kids will laugh themselves silly at the foolishness of Steve's need for attention and glory knowing that he is the centre of his own distress.  If Team Steve teaches anything it's that teamwork requires cooperation and listening to others, but it's a lesson Steve still needs to learn. Fortunately, Kelly Collier has created some great characters, including Bob the raccoon who organizes the race and the teams, to help Steve see beyond himself. Her characters, so suggestive in their expressions and body language, demonstrate their own frustration with the equine, as well as their curiosity and pleasure. Moreover, Kelly Collier does this with a very limited palette of beiges with black and white.

Steve may not be the most collaborative but his intent, like his emotional support for his teammates, is honest. Perhaps that's why, even when he messes up, like we all do, they forgive him and help him find acceptance of the situation. And with friends to help, everyone, even Steve, is a winner.

The Origin of Day and Night

Written by Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt

Illustrated by Lenny Lishchenko

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-180-5

36 pp.

Ages 4-8

September 2018

In these days of daylight savings, the story of The Origin of Day and Night feels all the more relevant. For those of us in southern Ontario, complaining about how early it gets dark seems like an annual event–though, of course, this would be accentuated in the north–but what of animals who prefer only daylight or only nighttime for their activities?

At the very beginning of time, there was no light on earth. Darkness surrounded everything. Only nocturnal animals, those who could see in the dark, could easily hunt for food. (pg. 2)

From The Origin of Day and Night by Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt, illus. by Lenny Lishchenko

Tiri, the Arctic fox, was one of those nocturnal creatures, hunting those and from those that slept. When Tiri celebrated the darkness by calling out, "Taaq, taaq, taaq! Darkness, darkness, darkness!" the darkness remained because things that were spoken aloud could become real.

From The Origin of Day and Night by Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt, illus. by Lenny Lishchenko

But Ukaliq, the Arctic hare, who could not see in the dark, wondered what would happen if she called out, "Ubluq, ubluq, ubluq! Day, day, day!" And there was light in the world.  Tiri was not pleased. In a dance of light and day, the two animals call forth their preferred illumination so they might hunt or nap, finally agreeing on giving each other sufficient time to find food before the other changed the light in the sky.

And so, Tiri and Ukaliq used the power of their words to bring the sun up into the sky and then to make it set. Taaq brought darkness and ubluq brought day. (pg. 28)

Nunavut author Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt continues to share her Inuit history and culture through her storytelling just as she did in The Legend of Lightning and Thunder (Inhabit Media, 2013) which was shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association's Book of the Year for Children. Likewise, she wraps the origin story in The Origin of Day and Night in a mesmerizing story of conflict and resolution between Arctic animals.  But, by bringing to light the natural history of the Arctic, specifically the feeding and behaviour of the Arctic fox and Arctic hare, as well as the activities of the humans who hunt and store their meat to keep it safe from those such as the fox, Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt encourages learning of different cultures and environments, honouring the traditional Inuit belief embedded in The Origin of Day and Night beyond the tale itself.

Because of the nature of the story, Lenny Lishchenko's illustrations are far different from those in Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt's first picture book. Ukrainian-born Toronto artist Lenny Lishchenko plays up the dark vs. light conflict and balance with powerful images, always focusing on the animals and their need for light or dark. By juxtaposing the two, at play as the animals call forth the sky light they require, her illustrations are playful yet resolute and always revealing of their Arctic home.

From The Origin of Day and Night by Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt, illus. by Lenny Lishchenko

A simple story told with mighty text and illustrations, The Origin of Day and Night enlightens about beginnings, people and place.