Anne's Kindred Spirits

Adapted by Kallie George

Illustrated by Abigail Halpin

Tundra Books

978-1-77049-932-4

64 pp.

Ages 6-8

May 2019

I think many people take the making of friends for granted, knowing that they will meet many at school, at work or at organized activities and, with social media, having many "friends" would appear to be the norm. But I think we forget that historically and especially in rural areas, making friends would have been a very big deal. How would you communicate with them? How would you visit? For many families, your siblings became your friends, but if you were an only child, that wouldn't have been an option. So, for L. M. Montgomery's Anne, who inspired this story, making a friend would have been momentous and something for which she'd yearn.

From Anne's Kindred Spirits, adapted by Kallie George, illus. by Abigail Halpin

Anne is excited to meet Diana Barry, a reader like herself, but with hair "black as a raven's wing, not red." (pg. 15) When she asks her to be her "bosom friend, a kindred spirit who would be her best friend" (pg. 6), Diana accepts and the two make plans to attend the upcoming Sunday School Picnic. The picnic is all Anne can think about, though she is distracted by Marilla's amethyst brooch. But when the brooch goes missing and Anne admits to touching it, she is sent to her room until she confesses to losing it. 

From Anne's Kindred Spirits, adapted by Kallie George, illus. by Abigail Halpin

When the day of the picnic arrives and Marilla is determined that Anne will not attend, the imaginative and impassioned young girl admits, in a gloriously elaborate tale, to taking and losing the brooch.

From Anne's Kindred Spirits, adapted by Kallie George, illus. by Abigail Halpin

Of course, Marilla punishes Anne by not allowing her to attend the picnic and Anne is heartbroken. But when Marilla finds her brooch snagged on her shawl, she relents and allows Anne to attend the picnic and spend time with her new bosom friend, eating ice cream and boating on the Lake of Shining Waters.

"One thing's certain," she said at last. "No house will be dull as long as Anne Shirley lives in it." (pg. 63)

Kallie George's adaptation of several important stories from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables are blended so well and effortlessly and yet so completely that those young readers who are still too new to reading to dive into the original book will get to know the beloved character well. Anne's spirit for storytelling and uncontrolled commentary, as well as lavish vocabulary, comes through time and time again. She is a wordsmith and a creator of emotional story because everything she does is heartfelt. From admiring a brooch or dresses with puffed sleeves to being heartsick at missing out on a picnic, Anne feels everything deeply and profoundly and expresses her thoughts and emotions with ardour, and Kallie George makes sure the reader knows this about Anne.

Abigail Halpin, who illustrated the first book, Anne Arrives (2018), in this new Anne of Green Gables-based early reader series as well as a number of picture books, gives young readers authentic visuals of a red-haired whirlwind and her new family and friends. But beyond Anne and Diana whose characters are reflective of their similarities and differences, Abigail Halpin gives us time and place that are real and heartwarming. There are the lupines of PEI and picnics, plain dresses and ones with puffed sleeves, and homes plain and decorated. There is the contrast of households and children and a melding of both in friendship.

I love that Anne of Green Gables will reach a new set of readers in a collection that early readers can gather into a special library. With colourful and endearing illustrations and accessible text authentic to the original, Kallie George and Abigail Halpin have honoured and poised Anne's story to reach not just a new generation but a younger one at that.  Irresistible.

I Didn't Stand Up

Written by Lucy Falcone

Illustrated by Jacqueline Hudon

Clockwise Press

978-1-98834-706-6

32 pp.

Ages 5+ (really all ages)

December 2018

In the aftermath of World War II, a Protestant pastor in Germany, Martin Niemöller, popularized a poem called "First They Came" about the abuses enacted by the Nazis upon different groups of people like socialists, trade unionists and Jewish people and how many would not stand up to protect the innocent. Using that text as a model, Lucy Falcone wrote I Didn't Stand Up about not standing up to school bullies who target those they see as different. It's a lesson in compassion and courage to defy oppression and persecution.

From I Didn't Stand Up by Lucy Falcone, illus. by Jacqueline Hudon

The book begins with

First they went after Jamal.
But I'm not black –
so I didn't stand up for him.

It continues with similar verses about Duncan who is targeted as a geek, Shyanne who is poor, Mariana who is an immigrant, Jason who is gay, Aisha who is Muslim and wears a headscarf, Liam who uses arm crutches, transgendered Alexis and overweight Marvin, And then they come after the narrator. Finally the child wants to be part of that larger group that might support them. Fortunately they do.

The text is minimal but says so much about how little it takes for a bully to select a victim and for bystanders to do nothing. Lucy Falcone wallops the reader with the intensity of each situation, seemingly innocuous but always devastating to the victim. The weighting is in Jacqueline Hudon's illustrations, depicting large-eyed victims of bullies who harm with words and actions.

From I Didn't Stand Up by Lucy Falcone, illus. by Jacqueline Hudon

The prevalence of yellow throughout the book can't help but be noted. Yellow, like most colours, has dual symbolism. It can represent enlightenment, as from the sun's light, as well as warmth. But, as with traffic lights, it is the colour of caution, and negatively it has also been used to signify cowardice and betrayal. I like to think that like the children in I Didn't Stand Up, the colour yellow evolves, becoming activated to do something positive.

From I Didn't Stand Up by Lucy Falcone, illus. by Jacqueline Hudon

Lucy Falcone is already known to middle-graders as L. M. Falcone with her award-winning fun and spooky reads like Walking with the Dead (Kids Can Press, 2005) and The Midnight Curse (Kids Can Press, 2010). So it's highly appropriate that Lucy Falcone has chosen a different moniker for her first picture book and one so impactful with its message of social justice and community. With I Didn't Stand Up, illustrated by Jacqueline Hudon who created the artwork for Bye, Bye, Butterflies (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2012) and Charlie's Dirt Day (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2015), Lucy Falcone has opened up a new window of writing for herself while shedding light on the damage of being a bystander to bullying and the need to step up and forward for all.

Sophie Trophy: Book launch (Coquitlam, BC)

Join author

Eileen Holland

for the launch 

of her novel for early readers

Sophie Trophy

Written by Eileen Holland

 Crwth Press

978-1-7753319-3-3

120 pp.

Ages 7-9

March 2019 

on 

Saturday, April 6, 2019

2-4 p.m.

at

Coquitlam Public Library 

(City Centre Branch)

 1169 Pinetree Way

Room 136

Coquitlam, BC

From Crwth Press's website:

Sophie is thoughtful and funny and full of ideas. When her friend Brayden brings a spider to school in a jar, Sophie’s excited to study it. But then a classmate frees the spider in the Grade 3 classroom.

Their teacher, Miss Ruby, is terrified of spiders. Sophie wants to save her teacher from the eight-legged intruder without getting Brayden into trouble for bringing it to school. That means getting the spider out of the classroom without letting Miss Ruby know what’s going on.

This is no easy task, and soon Sophie's wacky plans and wild imagination land her in the principal’s office—and hanging upside down outside his window.

Young readers will love Sophie’s antics, her loyalty to her friends and her determination to do the right thing at any cost.

Retrieved from https://www.crwth.ca/sophie-trophy/ 

on March 22, 2019.

This Place: 150 Years Retold

Written by Katherena Vermette, Sonny Assu, Jen Storm, David A. Robertson, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Richard Van Camp, Brandon Mitchell, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, Chelsea Vowel

Illustrated by Scott B. Henderson, Kyle Charles, Natasha Donovan, GMB Chomichuk, Ryan Howe, Jen Storm, Tara Audibert, Andrew Lodwick

Colour by Donovan Yaciuk, Scott A. Ford, Natasha Donovan, GMB Chomichuk, Andrew Lodwick

HighWater Press

978-1-555379-758-6

274 pp.

Ages 13+

May 2019

Reviewed from advance reading copy

...what this anthology does. It takes stories our people have been forced to pass on quietly, to whisper behind hands like secrets, and retells them loudly and unapologetically for our people today. 

 Foreword by Alicia Elliott

This Place: 150 Years Retold is an anthology of graphic novels that covers stories by Indigenous writers about historical figures, events and more, providing a new perspective for all to read. They should have been allowed to be told sooner and more frequently but This Place: 150 Years Retold starts that here.

From Annie of Red River by Katherena Vermette, illustrations by Scott B. Henderson, colour by Donovan Yaciuk in This Place: 150 Years Retold

In ten stories, told in chronological order from the 1850 story of Annie Bannatyne to the world of 2350, This Place chronicles in graphic format Indigenous lives lived, struggles endured and work pursued. These are the stories of the Inuit, Cree, Métis, Wiwéqaýl, Mi'gmaq, Mohawk, Anishinaabe and others from the north to the Pacific, the prairies to Quebec and New Brunswick.

The first story, Annie of Red River by Katherena Vermette and illustrated by Scott B. Henderson, highlights Métis Annie Bannatyne's 1800s feminism and refusal to allow a newspaperman's disparaging remarks about Métis women to go unpunished. David A. Robertson's story Peggy, illustrated by Natasha Donovan, also focuses on an important Indigenous person whose name should not be forgotten. Francis "Peggy" Pegahmagabow was the most decorated Indigenous soldier in Canadian history though he returned from World War I, including battles at Ypres and Passchendaele, to combat discrimination on the homefront.

From Peggy by David Robertson, illustrations and colour by Natasha Donovan in This Place: 150 Years Retold

Sonny Assu's story, Tilted Ground, illustrated by Kyle Charles, focuses on the banning of the potlaches and honours his ancestor Chief Billy Assu's efforts to learn the white man's ways while protecting his community. Other stories of protest and civil disobedience include Richard Van Camp's Like a Razor Slash, illustrated by Scott B. Henderson, about Chief Frank T'Seleie's 1970s fight against the Mackenzie Valley pipeline project which was significant in returning unceded lands; the 1980s salmon wars in Migwite'tmeg: We Remember It by Brandon Mitchell and illustrated by Tara Audibert; and Warrior Nation by Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair and illustrated by Andrew Lodwick which chronicles discussions on the Meech Lake Accord and the Mohawk resistance at Oka in 1990.

A horrific story of starvation and killing, Red Clouds by Jen Storm, illustrated by Natasha Donovan, recounts the true story of the shaman Zhauwuno-Geezhigo-Gaubo a.k.a. Jack Fiddler who was imprisoned for the murder of those who subsumed the wendigo.

From Rosie by Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, illustrated by GMB Chomichuk in This Place: 150 Years Retold

Other stories tell of those who would attempt to usurp the identities and cultures of Indigenous People. Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley's Rosie, illustrated by GMB Chomichuk whose graphics are both surreal and subtly evocative, demonstrates the complexity of the Inuit traditions for naming and the importance of protecting those names. Nimkii by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm and illustrated by Ryan Howe and Jen Storm speaks to those taken into foster care, losing family but finding it among themselves.

From Warrior Nation by Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, illustrations and colour by Andrew Lodwick in This Place: 150 Years Retold

Finally, This Place: 150 Years Retold ends with a futuristic story in which fifteen-year-old Wâpanacâhkos is sent back in time to learn about those who'd left the kisiskaciwani-sipiy (a.k.a. Saskatchewan River) valley three centuries earlier.  Her mission is to learn what happened and how best to welcome the 1.5 million Returners. Even for Wâpanacâhkos who witnesses the racism, the struggles and standoffs, and the injustices, it is too much. In kitaskînaw 2350, writer Chelsea Vowel and artist Tara Audibert show the darkness of our current world from the Indigenous perspective and sadly it is overwhelming.

This is the power of storytelling. It's going deeper and truer than the history books and the newspaper accounts. It's bringing the stories to the people for the people and doing it for the right reasons: to teach and to illuminate. This Place: 150 Years Retold is the dawn to a new storytelling tradition that doesn't need to be held back. It should be shouted forward from now on.

Ojiichan's Gift

Written by Chieri Uegaki

Illustrated by Genevieve Simms

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-963-1

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

April 2019

When Mayumi was born, her grandfather built a special rock garden to celebrate.  Then each year, she would visit him in Japan for the summer months, spending time with her Ojiichan while learning to tend to the garden, including how to weed, water, prune and the all-important raking of the gravel. Over this task, grandfather and granddaughter would bond.

From Ojiichan's Gift by Chieri Uegaki, illus. by Genevieve Simms

Amidst the bustle of her own city, Mayumi would recall those special times and that Zen garden by studying her tin box of treasures: dried leaves, tiny pine cones and smooth rocks.

From Ojiichan's Gift by Chieri Uegaki, illus. by Genevieve Simms

But with time, things change. Little girls grow up and grandfathers grow older.  The summer comes when Mayumi's parents must visit Japan to pack up Ojiichan's house which, like his garden, cannot be cared for by the now wheelchair-bound man. Frustrated by her Ojiichan's new circumstances, Mayumi's tries to take on the garden. But it's only when she concedes, creating a Zen garden for Ojiichan in a lacquered bento box, that Mayumi can find calm again.

Chieri Uegaki has honoured her Japanese heritage once again, having already helped showcase it in Suki's Kimono (Kids Can Press, 2003) and Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin (Kids Can Press, 2014). In these previous stories, a young girl looks up to her Obachan who gifted her with a kimono or to a grandfather who plays Second Violin in a symphony orchestra. In Ojiichan's Gift, a girl is again looking up to a grandparent, here a grandfather who has gifted her with a garden that celebrates her birth. But when he can no longer care for that garden, that little girl, not so little anymore, gifts him with a portable garden that would enshrine his original forever.

... if she closed her eyes and listened, she was certain she could still hear the pebbles' soothing chatter.

From Ojiichan's Gift by Chieri Uegaki, illus. by Genevieve Simms

Genevieve Simms creates that same distinction of adoration and respect in her illustrations. While her artwork goes beyond the garden, including spreads of air travel and life in a Canadian city, it's Genevieve Simms's illustrations of the garden that favour Chieri Uegaki's message of serenity and connection. The rocks and the shrubs, the trees and gravel, bamboo and sparrow all create a living world in a dry landscape. It's a world perfect for meditation and companionship.

The garden may have been Ojiichan's gift to Mayumi and her bento box garden may be the gift she presents to him, but the greatest gift is the relationship between Ojiichan and granddaughter and that's something special to contemplate.

The Moon Watched It All: Book launch (Saskatoon, SK)

I may have missed an earlier launch for this book, one at which 

both author Shelley A. Leedahl and illustrator Aino Anto 

were in attendance,

but

here is a second opportunity 

and in a city that generally has fewer book launches than Toronto

so I'm pleased to post about it here.

🌑🌖🌑🌔🌑

Join

author 

Shelley A. Leedahl

for

the Saskatoon launch of

her new picture book

The Moon Watched It All

 Written by Shelley A. Leedahl
Illustrated by Aino Anto
Red Deer Press
978-0-88995-537-0
32 pp.
Ages 5-9
February 2019

Reviewed here

on

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

7 p.m.

at

McNally Robinson Booksellers

Travel Alcove 

3130 8 St. E.

Saskatoon, SK 

Details are posted at the McNally Robinson website here. 

🌑🌖🌑🌔🌑

The Moon Watched It All

Written by Shelley A. Leedahl

Illustrated by Aino Anto

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-537-0

32 pp.

Ages 5-9

February 2019

The moon may watch over all of us, sometimes only shining light or hiding in the dark, but, like a watchful deity, it is omnipresent, guiding with a subtle beacon for those seeking direction.

An orphaned boy with only vague memories of a woman's voice and a gentle hand survives alone seeking food and clothing wherever and living in the forest. Elsewhere a woman known as Miranda lives in her home near the woods, rocking and talking to the moon.

She praised it, like she once prized her children, in a time before a time that was then.

From The Moon Watched It All by Shelley A. Leedahl, illus. by Aino Anto

After a man brutally chases the boy away–"Get you, Boy"–he runs far away, finding shelter in a chicken coop and food in an adjacent garden. The moon whispers to Miranda of the boy in the garden but it is not until she is ready to invite him inside for better food and shelter that the two become true companions, finding a way to be themselves with each other.

The Moon Watched It All may be marketed for ages five to nine but I think it is an allegory of such depth that it can and should be read beyond those ages. At its foundation, it is a story of an orphan boy, scorned and rejected, who finds a home with a woman alone who talks to the moon. But, in each, they find the family that they have lost.

From The Moon Watched It All by Shelley A. Leedahl, illus. by Aino Anto

Shelley A. Leedahl's intense story may be in prose form but its intensity parallels that of poetry, steeped in the melancholy of Miranda ...

Her face in the moon's unwavering spotlight. She was a lake unruffled, the coal fire's glow. 

... and the isolation and trepidation of the boy.

Night came calling, and he thought of boots, of heels, and the finger-quick hands. He thought of the children with sticks, and villagers who possessed the power to look right through him. The boy held out his own hand, and could not keep it steady.

From The Moon Watched It All by Shelley A. Leedahl, illus. by Aino Anto

There is a stillness of person and place that seeps into the story which is far more extensive in text and lyricism than in books typically for the very young. As such it has a strength of message that is both serene and profound. It bears being read over and over to capture the importance of the text and its voice of solemnity and grace.  I don't know if that comes from Shelley A. Leedahl's skill as a poet but her words lull and inspire and tug and reassure.

The same goes for Aino Anto's illustrations that take the readers through the forest and beneath the moon, watching and waiting as the boy and the woman do. This is Aino Anto's first picture book and her paintings evoke such emotion without indignation at what are sad circumstances for both the boy, whose identity is only that of Boy, and for Miranda, who endures the passage of time rather than biding it for hope. Or that was the situation until they make a family of their own.

I wept for a mother alone and forgotten and a boy ignored and abused. Each alone in their own ways, one speaking to the moon and one living outside in its light. And the moon watched it all as the two come together, as a waxing moon, growing into something important.