Pumpkin Orange, Pumpkin Round

Written by Rosanna Battigelli

Illustrated by Tara Anderson

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-092-5

24 pp.

Ages 3-6

September 2019

Get ready for some Halloween festivities with Pumpkin Orange, Pumpkin Round and engage young children in the Halloween holiday with only the fun and delight, and none of the fear or creepiness so pervasive in the celebrations of older trick-or-treaters.

Whether you're a parent or teacher, you'll know of the annual October visit to the pumpkin patch to pick out a perfect pumpkin or two for Halloween night.  In lively rhyming verse of two word phrases that always begin with the word "pumpkin", Rosanna Battigelli welcomes the reader to participate in the sensory experience of that pumpkin path visit  and the subsequent carving of the jack-o'-lantern (instructions for "You Can Carve a Jack-o-Lantern Too!" are included on the endpapers), without the travel or the mess.

From Pumpkin Orange, Pumpkin Round by Rosanna Battigelli, illus. by Tara Anderson

From Pumpkin Orange, Pumpkin Round by Rosanna Battigelli, illus. by Tara Anderson

Then, just as so many children will be doing on October 31st, the felines of Pumpkin Orange, Pumpkin Round prepare for their costumed foray into the neighbourhood for a bit of trick-or-treating.

Pumpkin mask,
pumpkin dare,
pumpkin candy,
pumpkin scare!

From Pumpkin Orange, Pumpkin Round by Rosanna Battigelli, illus. by Tara Anderson

Finally they return home to a snack, a story and bed.

So many children love Halloween for the dress-up and the candy but little ones rarely get into the scary aspects of the day and, for those many children, Pumpkin Orange, Pumpkin Round is a perfect holiday read. Its light rhyme will get children repeating the text, first predicting and ultimately reading, with its metrical melody of syllabic fun. Rosanna Battigelli has pitched her first picture book perfectly for the very young, ensuring a fun read that invites them to take on their own reading.

Illustrator Tara Anderson's bio shares that she has cats at home and perhaps that explains why she knows these feline wonders so well, anthropomorphizing them into playful children of diversity. They vary in colour and size, expression and activity and present the enjoyment of a special day spent with family and friends. Her artwork, coloured pencil and acrylic glaze on watercolour paper, emphasizes the bright oranges and complementary purple of the pumpkins and the night, exuding playfulness and caring. Her characters are adorable, the days and night comforting, and the action enthralling.

Young children may not know that costumes and jack-o'-lanterns were originally used to ward off spirits on All Hallows' Eve but they do know the joy of pumpkin picking and carving and dressing up and procuring oodles of candy and, with Rosanna Battigelli and Tara Anderson's picture book, they can do so on many nights before and after October 31st.

From Pumpkin Orange, Pumpkin Round by Rosanna Battigelli, illus. by Tara Anderson

Small in the City

Written and illustrated by Sydney Smith

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-198-6

40 pp.

Ages 4-7

September 2019

On October 2, the Canada Council for the Arts announced its finalists for the 2019 Governor General's Literary Awards, and Small in the City was one of the nominated titles for the English-language children's book illustration. This is Sydney Smith's fourth nomination–he and JonArno Lawson won in 2015 for Sidewalk Flowers (Groundwood, 2015)–and this one is all the more distinct as Small in the City is his first picture book as author and illustrator.

From Small in the City by Sydney Smith

Though the cover makes a young child who looks out of a streetcar window larger than life, minimizing the buildings reflected in the glass, Sydney Smith's illustrations show a child peripheral to the city. They look out over the streets of people doing and buildings standing. When they leave the streetcar, they are dwarfed by everything in the busy city. People march past looking at their feet or their phones. Sounds of taxis and car horns and construction and sirens are loud and scary. It's almost too much.

From Small in the City by Sydney Smith

But as the child ventures through the cold streets and snowflakes begin to fall, they know how to be a part of that city. They know which alleys to avoid and wonderful places to hide or climb or enjoy the steam from a dryer vent. As they walk from the busyness into a neighbourhood of trees and yards, local stores and houses, and a park, this child gives advice about where safety can be found. Soon enough the reader will observe that the child has posted salmon-pink notices to posts and fences and doors. The child may be small in the city but a lost cat is even smaller. Still, with the flurries becoming snow squalls with near whiteout conditions, the child reaches home, convinced that "You will be all right."

From Small in the City by Sydney Smith

Sydney Smith's artwork, created with ink, watercolour and gouache, journeys with the child from a dark-toned city centre through neighbourhoods infused with colour to a home blanketed in the lightness of peace and contentment. It's a Toronto of commerce and community, movement and stability, and this child lives in it and of it. They may be small but they are not insignificant and as they walk closer and closer to home, their presence becomes more meaningful.

Being small in the city is a perspective most adults have forgotten. It's seeing the heart of the city as it is, free of interpretation and expectation but infused with perception. As such, Small in the City is a story of a child for children and most certainly for those who have ever lost a pet. This could have been a sad story of loss and fear but Sydney Smith makes it one of resilience and hope, expectation and common sense. It's seeing shelter and warmth, food and comfort where adults might only see trees and shrubs, a dryer vent, the fishmonger and a church ledge. It's perspective as perception that makes Small in the City effusive in community and family and takes the reader from the obscurity to the light of home with its happy ending.

The Stone Rainbow

Written by Liane Shaw

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-108-4

272 pp.

Ages 13-18

September 2019

Liane Shaw introduced her characters Ryan and Jack to YA audiences in her novel Caterpillars Can't Swim (Second Story Press, 2017), telling the origin story of their accidental friendship and Jack's acceptance of his sexuality. Though only a handful of others in his life, including his mom, Ryan's mom. Ryan's friend Cody and Jack's counselor Matthew, know that Jack is gay, he has capitulated that expressing that sexuality in the small town of Thompson Mills is unlikely.

This town is so small that being different usually means you're flying solo. (pg. 61)

In The Stone Rainbow, Jack meets the new guy at school, Benjamin Lee, and Jack is smitten. The new vice-principal's son is beautiful and kind and Jack doesn't know what to do. He's used to hiding in his "caterpillar camouflage" (pg. 8) and now the idea of putting himself out there, expressing his interest in anyone, especially a young man who may or may not reciprocate that interest, is terrifying.  Staying a caterpillar, on the other hand, is familiar, even if stifling.

Benjamin, on the other hand, is not willing to stay in the closet. When they are assigned an art project that reflects something of social and personal significance, he creates a massive rainbow of coloured stones on plywood. He honours and celebrates the LGBTQ+ community with the myriad of messages on the stones that reflect the rainbow's symbolism. Though Benjamin is pretty much out, his art project rouses all the nastiness that Jack had already witnessed in his town. But when Benjamin is attacked, Jack decides to focus on something positive that might help Benjamin as well: a Pride parade. Fortunately, Jack discovers that there's a whole lot more support for him and Benjamin and a Pride event than he could ever have imagined.

Though The Stone Rainbow is a story of acceptance of self and others, it is also a tragic story that depicts the reality for those who may be perceived as different. There is violence and hate and masks. Jack knows what it is to come out–as he did to his mother in Caterpillars Can't Swim–so he still feels compelled to hide his sexuality from his peers and others, fearing their reactions, and shielding his true self and expression of that self. Even with supports from Ryan and others, it's not until Jack meets Benjamin that he is able to shed that chrysalis to reveal the butterfly he was meant to be. It is both "terrifying and wonderful" (pg. 239) and Jack recognizes he "could be as beautiful as I want to be because no one cares if a butterfly is a boy or a girl. It's just a pretty part of nature that everyone accepts." (pg. 242)

With her diverse cast of characters, Liane Shaw demonstrates that differences make a community richer, though there are the unenlightened who still need to learn this lesson in compassion and tolerance. If The Stone Rainbow teaches us anything it's that it's the blending of all into a spectacular prism of life that makes our world complete and beautiful.

If everyone just decides to treat everyone else with kindness, it all goes away. Intolerance, disrespect, racism, homophobia, misogyny, bullying, and all the other horrible words we've had to invent to find a way to label the endless crap people seem to feel the need to throw at each other...all wiped out by one simple command. Be kind. (pg. 214)

2019 Governor General's Literary Awards: Finalists announced

Today, the Canada Council for the Arts announced the finalists for the highly prestigious Governor General's Literary Awards.

The seven categories of books, both in French and English, for which awards are given are:

• Fiction
• Non-Fiction
• Poetry
• Young People's Literature (Text)
• Young People's Literature (Illustration)
• Drama
• Translation

Congratulations to the finalists 

of all the awards
and I present here those nominees of

works for young people.

English-language: Young People's Literature (Text)

Break in Case of Emergency
Written by Brian Francis
HarperCollins

Cold White Sun
Written by Sue Farrell Holler
Groundwood Books

Girl of the Southern Sea
Written by Michelle Kadarusman
Pajama Press
Reviewed here

Stand on the Sky
Written by Erin Bow
Scholastic

The Grey Sisters
Written by Jo Treggiari
Penguin Teen

English-language:  Young People's Literature (Illustration)

Albert's Quiet Quest
Written and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
Tundra Books

Birdsong
Written and illustrated by Julie Flett
Greystone Books

How To Give Your Cat a Bath in Five Easy Steps
Written by Nicola Winstanley
Illustrated by John Martz
Tundra Books

King Mouse
Written by Cary Fagan
Illustrated by Dena Seiferling
Tundra Books

Small in the City
Written and illustrated by Sydney Smith
Groundwood Books

 French-language: Young People's Literature (Text)

Au carrefour

par Jean-François Sénéchal

Leméac Éditeur

Dans le coeur de Florence
par Lucie Bergeron
Soulières éditeur

L'albatros et la mésange
par Dominique Demers
Éditions Québec Amérique

Mon coeur après la pluie
par Pierre Labrie
Soulières éditeur

Où est ma maison?
par Édith Bourger
Les éditions du soleil de minuit

French-language: Young People's Literature (Illustration)

Contacts
par Mélanie Leclerc
Mécanique générale

Jack et le temps perdu
par Stéphanie Lapointe
Illustrée par Delphie Côté-Lacroix
Quai no 5, Les Éditions XYZ

L'escapade de Paolo

par Lucie Papineau

Illustrée par Lucie Crovatto

Les Éditions de la Bagnole

Laurent, c'est moi!

par Stéphanie Deslauriers

Illustrée par Geneviève Després

Fonfon

Le pelleteur de nuages

par Simon Boulerice

Illustrée par Josée Bisaillon

la courte échelle

Winning titles will be announced 

on October 29, 2019

and 

presented on a later date at Rideau Hall.

Canadian KidLit Gala: 2019 (Toronto, ON)

Writers! Illustrators!

Lovers of youngCanLit!

On October 15, 2019, the second Canadian KidLit Gala will be held as the *unofficial* after-party of the Canadian Children's Literature Awards. The brain child of authors Ishta Mercurio, Kari Maaren, Star Spider and Claudia Osmond, the Canadian KidLit Gala will celebrate the winners and nominees of the 2019 Canadian Children's Book Awards and all creators of Canadian children's books. It will be a great opportunity to celebrate, schmooze, imbibe, and share with writers and illustrators of youngCanLit.

This volunteer-run event will be fundraising for the Canadian Children's Book Centre to support the Children's Book Week, an annual event that allows dozens of Canadian children's authors and illustrators to visit and present to thousands of Canadian kids across the country.

The event will include the music of The Intentions, canapés, a live auction and raffle (with everything from book bundles to critiques to original art), drinks and dancing.
​

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

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

Date: Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Time: 7 p.m. to midnight

7 p.m.: Doors open

8 p.m.: Performance by The Intentions

9:30 p.m.: Recognition of winners and nominees

9:45 p.m.: Live Auction and Raffle winners announced

Location:  Lula Lounge

1585 Dundas West

Toronto, Ontario

M6K 1T9

Tickets:  $45 ($55 at the door) 
(includes free coat check, canapés, one drink ticket) 

Full details are available at the website at https://www.cankidlitgala.ca/ 
Tickets here

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Come and join creators and readers of youngCanLit

 at the

Canadian KidLit Gala

and

help celebrate the writing and art achievements of creators of Canadian children's books.

A Box of Bones: Guest blog post

Today's review has been submitted by Grade 6 student Bronte L.

Written by Marina Cohen
Roaring Brook Press
978-1-250-17221-1
288 pp.
Ages 8-12
May 2019

In Marina Cohen’s book A Box of Bones, the main character, Kallie, is very logical and intelligent for her age, yet she lacks imagination. When her beloved grandfather takes her to the Festival of Fools, she doesn’t enjoy it as much as the other visitors do. During the Festival, a faceless man in a fedora gives Kallie a wooden box. Later, she figures out that the box is a puzzle. Against her father's advice, she starts solving the puzzle, and uncovering secrets. Finally she finds the right combination and unleashes something that seems like magic.

While Kallie tries to figure out what’s happening to her world, Liah, a young bone carver, goes on a long journey with her master to sell bone carvings to the empress.  On the journey, she ends up accidentally wrecking a valuable cup that her master made.  She tries to hide this fact from her master along the way.  Although Kallie and Liah's worlds are far apart in time and place, their stories connect in many ways. 

A Box of Bones by Marina Cohen is great for readers in Grades 4-8 seeking a book full of adventure and suspense. It's a book on developing friendships and uncovering family secrets. The large font, short chapters and 281 pages makes it great for a light read. The cliff hangers will make you stay up past your bedtime. The emotional description is fantastic.

Out of ten, I would give A Box of Bones an 8. I loved how the two worlds intertwined. Trying to put together all of the clues and secrets made me feel like a sleuth. All of the characters are original and interesting, their back stories are emotional and deep. Both worlds had their share of drama and suspense. This book gives the reader many chances to draw connections and imagine a new and exciting world.  Once you read this book, you will be drawn into the magic of it all.

~ Bronte L.

Just Lucky

Written by Melanie Florence
Second Story Press
978-77260-104-6
248 pp.
Ages 13-18
September 2019

Though the beginning of her life was less than stable, born of a gambling-addicted mother (hence Lucky’s unusual first name) with a crack habit, much of Lucky Robinson’s fifteen years were spent in a loving home with her grandparents. But, when her grandmother’s dementia advances rapidly after Grandpa’s death, Lucky’s life takes a staggering turn that disconnects her from the support and security she's always known.

Though Lucky is aware that Grandma’s forgetfulness is becoming serious, she is unprepared for the fire Grandma accidentally starts. But at the hospital, the Children’s Aid Society is called to take responsibility for the underage Lucky as Grandma receives care. Sadly even a phone call to her ghost of a mother brings nothing except clarity that Lucky is well rid of a woman more concerned about her boyfriend and the proceeds from the potential sale of Lucky's grandparents' house. As such, Lucky begins the complex journey into the foster care system.

Her first foster placement is with the hyper-religious Mary and Robert Wilson and their teen son Bobby. Lucky tries to be accommodating, submitting to Mary’s requirements for chaste dress, the saying of grace before meals and homeschooling. But a threat within requires Lucky defend herself both with a knife and with the truth to those who refuse to acknowledge inappropriate behaviours by those entrusted with her care. The consequence is that child care worker Cynthia drags victimized Lucky to a second home.

With her new living accommodations with foster parents Sarah and Edward and teens Jake and Charlie, Lucky begins to feel a little luckier. Though home is more stable and welcoming, Lucky must contend with racism and bullying at school at the hands of Elyse who has her sights on Jake and sees his interest in Lucky as competition. Victimized again for being Indigenous, and for defending Charlie, a boy from the Dominican, Lucky is expelled, steering her to yet another foster family but also to the school she attended with best friend Ryan.

Though Lucky continues to hold onto the hope that she will be reunited with her grandmother who has both good and bad days, when Grandma is moved to a care facility, Lucky starts to wonder whether she has any luck at all and may ever again have a place of home where she will feel safe.

Melanie Florence who touched us with her award-winning picture books Stolen Words (Second Story Press, 2017) and Missing Nimâmâ (Clockwise Press, 2015) takes a simple germ of an idea–that of a child in foster care–and makes it in bigger story, as it should be. Entering foster care is a life-altering experience from which some children may or may not recover.  As in her earlier picture books about residential schools and missing and murdered Indigenous women, the story is simple but the message monumental. Not all lives are easy and picture perfect and Lucky's certainly is not. Not all foster homes are great or horrible.  Not all foster families are caring, though that is their mandate. Lucky's story evolves from a tragedy that snowballs into overwhelming disaster. Though I’m sure, as the saying goes, it could have been far worse, Lucky's story, which is one of trial and hardship, does end with some semblance of good fortune and contentedness, perhaps even hope for a happy ending.