Sleep, Sheep!

Written by Kerry Lyn Sparrow

Illustrated by Guillaume Perreault

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-796-5

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

October 2018

Duncan may be the little guy who can defer sleep with an endless stream of demands and excuses but he meets his match in Sheep #68, one of the counting sheep Duncan needs to help him fall asleep. Getting a sheep to jump in its predetermined sequence seems to be as hard as getting a little one to sleep. Go figure.

From Sleep, Sheep! by Kerry Lyn Sparrow, illus. by Guillaume Perreault

Duncan didn't mind going to bed but he'd do anything to avoid sleep. He would need to change his jammies, to change his socks, to get a night light or two, to get a drink of water, to read another story, to find his favourite toy, to change his pillow, etc., etc., etc. But one night, his clever mother makes sure every thing he might ever need and more is in his room (except for the washroom). When he declares he is not sleepy, she recommends that he count sheep.

From Sleep, Sheep! by Kerry Lyn Sparrow, illus. by Guillaume Perreault

Soon a barrage of sheep, labelled with different coloured race numbers, are jumping over Duncan's bed and he counts. He starts to get sleepy but he has to sit up when Sheep #68 refuses to jump. Seems there's always something to prevent Sheep #68 from leaping and keeping up Duncan's count. With every request, Duncan gives in. Water, bathroom, the need to stretch, consider his green socks, and on and on. Eventually Duncan recommends that Sheep #68 join, without leaping over the bed, the first sixty-seven sheep already sleeping on one side of the bedroom. And with that, Duncan and Sheep #1 through #68 are asleep. 

Who knew that bedtime could be so exhausting?

What a turnaround of a story, from little boy who frustrates his mother with his relentless bedtime demands to a sheep frustrating the same boy with its exhaustive appeals. It's probably maddening for all concerned: mother, child, sheep. But, told with the seriousness of children who are trying to reason their way through difficult situations, it's actually maddeningly absurd. But, Kerry Lyn Sparrow, parent and teacher, seems to know how to handle the wearisome bedtime antics of children and makes sure that Duncan gets as good as he gives without any nastiness or offence. In Sleep, Sheep!, Kerry Lyn Sparrow's first book, she gives Duncan and Sheep #68 true voices that reflect their anxieties and resoluteness but still makes them empathetic characters.

From Sleep, Sheep! by Kerry Lyn Sparrow, illus. by Guillaume Perreault

Even Quebec's Guillaume Perreault makes his cartoon characters relatable, giving them expressions of confusion, embarrassment, fear and even pleasure. I couldn't help but feel pity for Sheep #68.  Just as Duncan feels the pressure to fall asleep, it feels the pressure to perform. Appropriately, Guillaume Perreault, who shared the win for the 2017 Le Prix TD with Larry Tremblay for their book Même pas vrai (Éditions de la Bagnole, 2016), works with Kerry Lyn Sparrow's story to make it evident that compassion is required to help make an awkward situation right. After all, who is going to stay up all night waiting for one sheep to jump? Here's hoping Duncan wakes up in the morning still recognizing the similarity in the sheep's actions with his own and the consequent happy endings that come with sleep.

Out of the Ice: How Climate Change is Revealing the Past

Written by Claire Eamer

Illustrated by Drew Shannon

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-731-6

32 pp.

Ages 8-12

September 2018

In another life, I did research on the historical record trapped in peatlands in Alberta. Most people would be fascinated to learn that deep within the plant material there are records of volcanic eruptions from thousands of years ago, deforestation and agriculture in the surrounding areas, and more.  Claire Eamer, prolific writer of non-fiction including Inside Your Insides: A Guide to the Microbes That Call You Home (Kids Can Press, 2016) and What a Waste! Where Does Garbage Go? (Annick Press, 2017), brings similar information from the past as it is trapped in frozen water from glaciers, permafrost, and more, now being revealed with the global warming of the Earth's air, ground and water.

Starting with explanations about global warming and how the Earth acts as a greenhouse, Claire Eamer then focuses on specific circumstances under which clues from the past become revealed. There is the 4300 year old stick with a bit of feather and sinew found in ice patches in the Yukon alongside 2400 year old caribou dung, revealing the first organic evidence of the hunting atlatl, a stick used to throw darts. There are more archaeological clues from Norway, spurred on by the Yukon finds, of large groups of people using scaring sticks to funnel herds of reindeer for easy hunting. In 1999, the mummified body of Kwädąy Dän Ts'ìnchį, meaning "long-ago person found", was discovered at the edge of a melting glacier in BC, providing evidence of his age, food eaten, and clothing worn, as well as his ancestry through DNA. The famous Iceman, Ötzi, found in the Ötztal Alps in 1991, is also discussed, as are the Scythians in the permafrost of the Altai Mountains of Asia, the Incan children of Llullaillaco, sacrificed to the gods and buried high in the Andes, and the cave-lion cubs and mammoths discovered in Siberia and Russia.

From Out of the Ice: How Climate Change is Revealing the Past by Claire Eamer, illus. by Drew Shannon

 All these discoveries further our understanding of the people and animals who inhabited these areas, hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of years ago. With contemporary testing and advances, like radiocarbon dating, and biochemical and DNA analyses, more and more can be learned about them and their world, which Claire Eamer recognizes is our world too.

 "The past is us." (pg. 29)

Drew Shannon, a Toronto illustrator, provides realistic depictions of how these people and animals might have lived, giving context to the circumstances of the artifacts and bodies recovered. A photograph for each story is usually provided but Drew Shannon's illustrations help the reader see beyond the science and into the lives of those left behind and now being exposed. Coupled with information boxes, a glossary, a timeline and references for further study, Out of the Ice: How Climate Change is Revealing the Past becomes a well-organized and informative read that still draws the reader in with its compelling stories of lives lived before, useful for teaching the science of climate change or history and archaeology.

From Out of the Ice: How Climate Change is Revealing the Past by Claire Eamer, illus. by Drew Shannon

The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane

Written by Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor

Illustrated by Kim Smith

HarperCollins Canada

978-1-44345-231-1

167 pp.

Ages 7-10

September 2018

Many readers grew up reading Roy MacGregor's extraordinarily successful Screech Owls series of middle grade novels about the peewee hockey team. For adventure and mystery and, of course, hockey, these were the go-to books for kids. Now, for a slightly younger set–let's say early middle-grader–Roy MacGregor has teamed up with his daughter Kerry MacGregor to take their minor hockey team, the Ice Chips, on the road but through time and history too. And, in The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane, the kids meet a hockey hero and a few ghosts as well.

Lucas Finnigan a.k.a. Top Shelf and his friends and teammates Swift, Edge and Crunch decide to recreate their initial magical experience of time slip that had them meeting Gordie Howe. They know that after Scratch, the magical Zamboni, resurfaces the rink with its magical flood and they skate across the centre line, they will be transported ... somewhere, sometime. But, as the Ice Chips are again matched up against their ice nemeses, the well-equipped and moneyed Stars, they know they are at a significant disadvantage, especially having lost valuable time waiting for the Riverton Community Arena to reopen. So Lucas, Swift and Edge, this time prepared with walkie-talkies, a camera, boots–they can't walk around in their skates everywhere–and other tools, and Crunch staying behind as tether with a walkie-talkie, jump back in time and into their newest adventure.

Strangely, the kids find themselves on a boat in the middle of a storm and it's two other Ice Chips, Bond and Mouth Guard, who unknowingly followed the trio of time-travellers to Nova Scotia, who meet a young hockey player and introduce him to the others when they're finally reunited. Though the kids don't connect the dots about this young star from Cole Harbour until near the end of the book, they're still impressed by his determination and drive, especially after taking them through some intense and very worthwhile hockey drills at the Citadel in Halifax. There's also a few encounters with ghosts including a sea captain from the Halifax Explosion, making The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane a bona fide story of the Maritimes.

But, as in the first book in the series, The Ice Chips and the Magical Rink, Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor's new book promotes lessons about getting the kids to work together, seeing beyond their weaknesses and looking towards empowerment with strategies to make their playing and their lives better while still immersing young readers in the hockey culture of today and then. Moreover, with the diversity of kids on the team–boys and girls of different ethnicities and physical and intellectual abilities including Swift who has a prosthetic leg–all children will see themselves in the Ice Chips. (I love that most of the teammates call each other by their nicknames and the gender of the player is rarely discussed.)

Hockey fans will definitely love the scrimmages on the ice, well told by Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Roy MacGregor and journalist Kerry MacGregor, but they'll be grabbed by the story of kids finding themselves in new circumstances, getting guidance from hockey greats and working together to find their way home. With Calgarian Kim Smith's illustrations to give the story some graphic spice, The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane will be taking home a win. Though it will still be a few more months until The Ice Chips and the Invisible Puck comes out in April of 2019, I'm pretty sure that authors Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor, who plan to make Swift's idol, one of Canada's most decorated Olympians, the focus of that story, will be able to keep up their stickhandling magic.

From The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane by Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor, illus. by Kim Smith

Mary Poppins

Based on the novel by P. L. Travers

Adapted by Amy Novesky

Illustrated by Geneviève Godbout

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

978-1-328-91677-8

32 pp.

Ages 5-8

October 2018

With the upcoming release of the movie Mary Poppins Returns, there will be much renewed interest in P. L. Travers's character who was introduced in her 1934 novel, Mary Poppins. Fortunately, a new picture book adaptation with a Canadian illustrator, Geneviève Godbout, will be a perfect introduction for young children to this magical nanny and her story.

From Mary Poppins illustrated by Geneviève Godbout

American Amy Novesky's adaptation of the original story is lovely yet condensed, as is necessary when taking a detailed work such as a novel and filtering it down to the text of a picture book. Still Amy Novesky ensures that the important details of the house at Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, the East Wind bringing a hat-clad woman with parrot-headed umbrella and magically voluminous carpetbag, and the household of the Banks children–Jane, Michael and the twins–and their parents remain, as do key events and dialogue. There's Mary Poppins sliding up the banister; the floating Uncle Albert; Mrs. Corry and daughters Annie and Fannie adorning the night sky with stars; and a nighttime visit to the zoo, as well as Mary's familiar declarations of "Spit-spot to bed" and "I'll stay till the wind changes."

From Mary Poppins illustrated by Geneviève Godbout

But it's Geneviève Godbout's artwork that breathes life into Mary Poppins. The lovely young woman exudes grace and control, though always tempered with affection, charm and fairness. Geneviève Godbout makes Mary both attracting and disciplined, the perfect combination for caregiver, whether parent or nanny. From her easy topknot to her billowing black skirt and plain hose and shoes, she is the picture of efficiency. But her face, with rosy cheeks and bright eyes and delicate nose, Mary Poppins is beautiful and proper. Geneviève Godbout even gets her posture correct: strong but not overpowering, competent, and determined. It's such a shame that we all had to save "Au revoir!"

"Strike me pink," as Mary Poppins might say when pleased, because this new illustrated adaptation of her story flies above the rest and will charm all children, adults and animals and adorn the world with starry wonder.

From Mary Poppins illustrated by Geneviève Godbout

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.