Everybody!

Written and illustrated by Elise Gravel

North Winds Press (Scholastic Canada)

978-1-4431-9167-8

44 pp.

Ages 3-8

October 2021

 

Want a cheeky way to share with kids how human they are and just like everybody else? Then let a plethora of very different–multi-coloured, multi-shaped, multi-sized–creatures help them see how everybody is the same in Elise Gravel's newest picture book Everybody!

From Everybody! by Elise Gravel

With her first double-spread, Elise Gravel makes sure that kids know that "Everybody is unique and different" as an opener to how we are still very similar in so many ways. From feeling joy and sadness and experiencing fears, to making mistakes and learning, we are all the same.

From Everybody! by Elise Gravel

It's important to reassure kids that everybody feels what they might feel, even if they think that they alone are experiencing that emotion. Everybody wants to fit in and be liked and loved and not be embarrassed. They need to know that everybody needs help sometime and can offer help too.

From Everybody! by Elise Gravel

Everybody just wants to be accepted and respected, and Elise Gravel's final message sums it up best.

We are each unique,

but we have so much 

in common.

We are all 

HUMAN.

Who better to learn about being human than from a variety of colourful and amorphous beings who look so different but are just like everybody else in what they feel and do and experience? Elise Gravel's message about recognizing that we, as humans, have many commonalities but that it's still okay to be different is as inclusive as it can get. Everybody! emphasizes the richness of diversity and the comfort of likeness, reassuring those who are or want to be different that they are deserving of respect and acceptance as much those who are or find relief and even happiness in being part of a big "everybody." And with her quirky menagerie of characters, Elise Gravel makes sure that everybody can be seen and included even if they're not orange or turquoise or lacking in a nose.

For some fun printables and colouring pages related to her books, Elise Gravel offers sheets on a variety of themes like "Everyone can like" and "It's OK to be different" on her website and I encourage everybody to partake in these. While being unique is pretty cool, being part of something greater can feel pretty good too and, thanks to Elise Gravel, young readers will now know that they are just like everybody and keeping very good company.

2021 Governor General 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 of

works for young people.

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

Blood Like Magic

Written by Liselle Sambury

Margaret K. McElderry Books / Simon & Schuster

 

The Fabulous Zed Watson 

Written by Kevin Sylvester and Basil Sylvester

HarperCollins

 

Firefly

Written by Philippa Dowding

DCB

Reviewed here

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Lee's Notes From the Field

Written by Angela Ahn

Tundra

Unravel

Written by Sharon Jennings

Red Deer Press

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

The Library Bus

Written by Bahram Rahman

Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard

Pajama Press

Reviewed here

Mii maanda ezhi-gkendmaanh/This is How I Know

Written by Brittany Luby
Illustrated by Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley
Translated by Alvin Ted Corbiere and Alan Corbiere
Groundwood Books

Reviewed here

 

On the Trapline

Written by David A. Robertson

Illustrated by Julie Flett

Tundra

 

Out Into the Big Wide Lake

Written by Paul Harbridge

Illustrated by Josée Bisaillon

Tundra

 

The Wind and the Trees

Written and illustrated by Todd Stewart

Owlkids Books

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

Les avenues
Written by Jean-François Sénéchal
Leméac Éditeur

Comme un ouragan
Written by Jonathan Bécotte
Les éditions Héritage

Le Dernier Viking
Written by Mario Fecteau
Les Éditions du Boréal

Stella, qu'est-ce que tu fais là? (Tome 1)

Written by Sandra Sirois

Éditions Hurtubise

Tara voulait jouer

Written by Frédérick Wolfe

Leméac Éditeur

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

À qui appartiennent les nuages?
Written by Mario Brassard
Illustrated by Gérard DuBois
Les Éditions de la Pastèque

Bouées: dérives identitaires, amours imaginaires et détours capillaires
Written and illustrated by Catherine Lepage
Les Éditions de la Pastèque 

La langue au chat et autres poèmes pas bêtes
Written by François Gravel
Illustrated by Laurent Pinabel
Éditions Les 400 coups

Ma maison-tête
Written and illustrated by Vigg
Fonfon
 

Le tricot
Written and illustrated by Jacques Goldstyn
Les Éditions de la Pastèque

Winning titles will be announced 

on November 17, 2021.

Little Moar and the Moon

Written by Roselynn Akulukjuk

Illustrated by Jazmine Gubbe

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-299-4

28 pp.

Ages 4-7

October 2021

 

Unless you've lived in a far northern community, you can't imagine the impact of day length on daily activities, especially around the summer and winter equinoxes.  But for little Moar, the fall is particularly concerning with the earlier onset of the night after a summer of full days.

Like most kids after school, little Moar and his friends like to play. But little Moar is always wary of being out too late, cognizant of the ever-darkening sky. You see, while many children are afraid of the dark, little Moar is afraid of the moon.

Whenever he looked at the moon, he saw a face. The face looked like it was giving him a half-smile, and that scared him.

From Little Moar and the Moon by Roselynn Akulukjuk, illus. by Jazmine Gubbe

So with the sky getting a little darker, he says goodbye to his friends and heads home. But another group of friends invite him to play a game of tag and he decides he can sneak in a game before it's too late. However, having so much fun, he loses track of time and, seeing the sky even darker, decides he must head home right then.

From Little Moar and the Moon by Roselynn Akulukjuk, illus. by Jazmine Gubbe

But on the way home, he encounters his cousin feeding his uncle's ten sled dogs. When he asks for little Moar's help, the boy relents, wanting to be helpful. Still the darkness comes as it does and little Moar runs into his uncle's house for shelter. How will the little boy make it home safely if the moon is always watching him?

From Little Moar and the Moon by Roselynn Akulukjuk, illus. by Jazmine Gubbe

Roselynn Akulukjuk, who gave young readers The Owl and the Lemming (2016), again takes us into Nunavut, not for a legend but instead for a quintessential experience for children: dealing with the impact of day length. Many kids love to play outside after school and most don't stay outside so long that they have to worry about the impending darkness. But when the darkness comes early as it does in the far north, making it home before the sun has set is crucial, especially for young who might be fearful of the darkness. Still little Moar isn't afraid of the darkness as much as he's apprehensive about the moon and the face his imagination perceives in its contours. Many cultures have lore associated with the pareidolic image of a face in the moon so little Moar's fear of this entity is not atypical. Many see a pair of eyes and a mouth in that natural satellite. Thankfully Moar's mother can reassure him that what he's seeing are contours and shadows but will he believe her?

Darkness can be frightening but Jazmine Gubbe, an illustrator, concept artist and animator, gives a warmth to that twilight and dusk, using the softness of pinks, greens and purples to transition to rich darker blues of the night. Her colours evoke place and time, bringing us to a Nunavut community in the fall, cool in temperature and vibrant in its activity of play and people. 

Fears are fears, whether in the short days of Nunavut or an urban setting in southern Canada. But for little Moar, his fear is based in his natural environment, not created from frightening graphics on visual media or elsewhere. His fear may not dissipate immediately with the wise words of his mother–fears are unfailingly stubborn–but knowing that he could outplay the moon with some careful maneuvers will surely go a long way to putting that moon in its place, far, far away from Moar.

Can You Imagine?

Written and illustrated by Wallace Edwards

North Winds Press (Scholastic Canada)

978-1-4431-7043-7

32 pp.

Ages 3-8

October 2021

From the brilliant artistry and imagination of the author-illustrator of Governor General award-winning Alphabeasts (2002), Once Upon a Line (2015) and What is Peace? (2016) comes a new picture book of wild artwork and inventiveness about inspiration and creativity.

From Can You Imagine? by Wallace Edwards

Faced with a blank canvas, an artist goes in search of ideas, heading out on a journey in hopes of inspiration. The plainness of his house, bicycle and surroundings emulates the blankness of his creative spark. But, it doesn't take long before everything changes around him and ultimately inside him too.

From Can You Imagine? by Wallace Edwards

His home's natural surroundings may be filled with grassy meadows and only a few straggly trees but there is a single flower with hummingbird and caterpillar promising more growth and vitality. Soon the artist is travelling in his red and white sportster through the woods teeming with colour and complexity and life. There are mega-flowers, parrots and a lion. There is a jester and Humpty Dumpty on his wall and faces hidden in trees and greenery.

From Can You Imagine? by Wallace Edwards

As he travels further in, his red-and-white car becoming snazzier with each page, he notes a bunny behind a bush and other travellers. But the illustrations tell us more. The rabbit, wearing a red coat and drinking tea, is 4-5 times larger than the bush and he's watching a violin-playing mouse accompanying a singing carrot. The travellers are a rolling robot, a frog on a turtle, a fish on a penny-farthing and a tiny rabbit in a tailed carrot car. Similarly a stop at a pond to hear small fish jumping seems pleasant and innocuous but Wallace Edwards shows us there is far more behind the scenes: a crowned toad, a mermaid and a surprised squid. As the artist continues on, he enters a busy city, so bustling that he seeks quiet in a desert which leads him to a mountain and a return home by air and unicycle.

But, home is now transformed. The flower has opened, the caterpillar is a butterfly and the grass is lush with flowers. Colour abounds now as does real life and inspiration for the artist. Still what he paints after all his travels is a lot closer to home than he could have anticipated.

Wallace Edwards is certainly a wizard with his pencil, watercolour and gouache, transforming landscapes of flora and fauna into surreal scenes of vibrancy and movement. That same complexity which he has imbued much of his art is prevalent in the views the protagonist visits in his ever-evolving transport, of which there are at least twenty red-and-white versions. The imagination can take you everywhere and anywhere and Wallace Edwards demonstrates this with zeal. But the storytelling of Can You Imagine? is what really transforms the art from incredible to superlative. That story is not told so much in words–there are fewer than 100 words of text–as it is in the melding of those words with the art. Like Wallace Edwards's message about finding inspiration and gaining new perspectives on familiar circumstances, Can You Imagine? inspires us to look and really see, to experience more from less, and to be mindful of the moment. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz who found the best at home only after an incredible journey, the artist in Can You Imagine? gains his own inspiration and perspective by the pencil and paint travels from his own wizard, Wallace Edwards, and offers us encouragement to do much the same to bolster our own creativities.

The Wolf Mother (Mothers of Xsan)

Written by Hetxw'ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson)

Illustrated by Natasha Donovan

HighWater Press

978-1-55379-978-8

32 pp.

Ages 9-12

September 2021

The Mothers of Xsan series from Hetxw'ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson) and Natasha Donovan are a series of illustrated non-fiction books for middle-grade readers that examine one animal species in depth and with an Indigenous perspective. The Wolf Mother is the fifth volume in the series and focuses on the life of one wolf pup as she grows into a wolf mother and on the communities and ecosystem in which she thrives.

From The Wolf Mother by Hetxw'ms Gyetxw, illus. by Natasha Donovan

Beginning in the Gitxsan Moon of Lasa'Yan'tsa, The Wolf Mother's story opens with a description of the young wolf pups' capabilities and needs, focusing on a small charcoal black female.

The smallest of the pups is a charcoal black female, who has a tiny strip of white fur above her left eye. The black wolf already has a sense of smell 100 times better than any human, and even domesticated dogs cannot compare to her ability. Right now, she only has a nose for mother’s milk. Her ears grow larger every day, her eyesight gets sharper, and her legs stretch farther, and she is beginning to desire to explore beyond their cozy den among the pines.

From The Wolf Mother by Hetxw'ms Gyetxw, illus. by Natasha Donovan

With each new lunar cycle (the list of Gitxsan Moons is appended to the story), the grey wolves develop new skills, hunting prey like gax, the rabbit, and venturing further and further into their habitat.

From The Wolf Mother by Hetxw'ms Gyetxw, illus. by Natasha Donovan

After two years, the small black pup is now ready to become Nox Gibuu, the Wolf Mother. She sets out alone, eventually welcomed by another pack and bonding with a young male, ready to grow her own family.

From The Wolf Mother by Hetxw'ms Gyetxw, illus. by Natasha Donovan

As she grows that family, the Wolf Mother along with her pack become a community of caregivers, each with a role to play with respect to the young and their environment, keeping all in balance and thriving.

From The Wolf Mother by Hetxw'ms Gyetxw, illus. by Natasha Donovan

Though the text of The Wolf Mother reads as a story, rather than organized as much children's non-fiction, the wealth of its information about the grey wolf's biology and behaviour cannot be disputed. By telling it as a natural history story, Hetxw'ms Gyetxw invites us to witness the wonders of these animals and their communities and place in the world. There are still several non-fiction features, like the purple-boxed footnotes to identify new words like "natal" and "domesticated" and a map of the Gitxsan Nation of their unceded territories of the Northwest Interior of British Columbia, but that information sweetens the story rather than impedes it. There is no distraction from the Wolf Mother's story from pup to mother and leader.

Natasha Donovan's artwork continues that gentle storytelling, giving us the real depictions of the animals and the land, appropriate for a non-fiction book, but also embedding elements of West Coast art. From a stylized moon or a wolf, Natasha Donovan reminds young readers of the First Nations' framework for the story, brightening that realism with a sense of connection between the grey wolves and the land and its people.

The Mothers of Xsan series is a popular one for children, especially for those who love non-fiction and are too often told they're not reading if they're not reading fiction. With this series, they are reading, they're learning about an animal and its place in a bigger world and they're gaining an appreciation for the richness of a First Nation in terms of its community and customs. As the newest addition to that series, The Wolf Mother echoes that storytelling, taking the book beyond information book, and treating readers to textual and graphic art that is dramatic both in its content and heart.

The Sockeye Mother (2018)

The Grizzly Mother (2019)

The Eagle Mother (2020)

The Frog Mother (2021)

The Wolf Mother (2021)

Sorry For Your Loss

Written by Joanne Levy

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-2707-3

250 pp.

Ages 8-13

October 2021 

Yes, Sorry For Your Loss is about death and grief. But it's also about respect and honour, life and support, and friendship and family. It's about being there for people, both the living and the dead.

"...being there for people in their time of need is an honor." (pg. 32)

During the summer between her Grade 7 and Grade 8 school years, 12-year-old Evie Walman is working part-time at her family's funeral home, Walman Memorial Chapel. She replenishes supplies like toilet paper and paper towels, ensures visitors have a ready supply of tissues, and does general tidying and vacuuming. She doesn't mind. She wants to be a funeral director like her dad and intends to learn all she can from him and her mother whose counselling background makes her a full partner in the family business. Evie has learned much about the Jewish funeral traditions and how to be respectful but sometimes her chattiness gets the better of her. However, that talkativeness may be just what is needed when she meets Oren Katzman.

After a terrible car accident which killed his parents and left him with bruises and in stitches, as well as an arm cast, Oren no longer speaks. Evie meets Oren while his uncle, Jared Silver, makes arrangements at Walman's, but, though she tries to help, she ends up feeling like she says all the wrong things. She does put her craft skills to work creating a paper quilling project for Oren to represent him and his parents but it's not until a chance meeting at the cemetery has Oren spending days at the Walman's house with Evie while his uncle is at work that the two really learn about each other. They're not going to become friends–Evie is determined not to have friends–but they form a seemingly tenuous bond based on grief, compassion, and their common need for support.

Though I know author Joanne Levy is no longer of middle-grade age, she easily gets into the head of any twelve-year-old who wants to fit in and be liked, and who experiences loss and doesn't know how to ask for help. At first glance, the silent Oren and talkative Evie might seem like complete opposites with Oren having lost his parents and Evie's family still intact. But the two kids are more complementary of each other, giving what the other needs, even if they don't know it. Their relationship is crafted on small things like watching TV, eating ice cream and paper quilling, but founded in loss and hurt that both are experiencing. Through the exploration of the Jewish traditions, from the tahara to the shiva, Oren and Evie search for understanding with the help of the other, and create something new for themselves and those around them, easing the grief a little bit at a time.

Ga's / The Train

Written by Jodie Callaghan

Illustrated by Georgia Lesley

Interpreted/translated by Joe Wilmot

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-200-5

36 pp.

Ages 6-9

September 2021

With National Day for Truth and Reconciliation being recognized yesterday, there has been an important push for greater understanding about the impact of residential schools on Indigenous people. Jodie Callaghan and Georgia Lesley's book The Train, first winner of the Second Story Press Indigenous Writing Contest, was on the book list I prepared to help educators and parents address the topic of residential schools. However, with a new dual-language edition–Mi'gmaw and English–released recently, I thought it was appropriate to review this meaningful book now.

From Ga's / The Train by Jodie Callaghan, illus. by Georgia Lesley, interpreted/translated by Joe Wilmot

A young Ashley is walking home from school through fields and weed-covered train tracks along the dirt road that leads to the old train station when she is surprised to be met by her uncle. She is perplexed when, in answer to her question about what he is doing there, he claims that he is waiting for the train. They both know that the train no longer runs here, but he explains that he's sad that their people have forgotten about this place.

From Ga's / The Train by Jodie Callaghan, illus. by Georgia Lesley, interpreted/translated by Joe Wilmot

Uncle remembers when the train would come infrequently and bring supplies. Then one day, he and his three eldest siblings were sent to the train with other children from the village and taken to a school where their clothes and baskets were taken away and their hair cut off. 

We weren't allowed to speak our language. We weren't allowed to be Nnu.

From Ga's / The Train by Jodie Callaghan, illus. by Georgia Lesley, interpreted/translated by Joe Wilmot

Uncle tells his niece how that train changed everything. But, he is hopeful that things will be okay some day, as he hears and sees the joy in her and her sister's play.

"I wanted you to know where your family has come from, Ashley. So you can be proud of where you are going."

Still he comes to remember and to wait for what was lost to come back. Now, Ashley offers to wait with him.

 

As with all stories of residential school survivors, there is heartbreak. It's for the loss of lives, of language, of family, of culture. It's also a bone deep legacy. Ashley's uncle needs to revisit this scene of tragedy, hopeful that slowly it will become something different for him. And now Ashley can help him in his waiting and remembering and grief. By matching the then and now with a significant intergenerational relationship, Jodie Callaghan of Listuguj Mi'gmaq First Nation demonstrates the long-lasting tragedy of the residential schools while suggesting that healing will come from younger generations. They are still impacted by what their elders experienced but they want to help in going forward, as they can. Jodie Callaghan's text is both rooted in the past and the future, much like a train moving from there to here, and is both anguished and expectant. The tragedy is acknowledged and healing awaited.

From Ga's / The Train by Jodie Callaghan, illus. by Georgia Lesley, interpreted/translated by Joe Wilmot

Georgia Lesley's artwork similarly depicts the contrast of the then and now, differentiating between the starkness and dullness of a wretched past in a residential school with the brightness and promise of a niece's company in a lively meadow in sunshine. Georgia Lesley's paintings have an organic feel to them, very much a grass-roots atmosphere, reflecting Uncle's candour and Ashley's readiness to learn and help.

In Ga's / The Train's powerful preface, it is revealed that Joe Wilmot, also of Listuguj First Nation, interpreted/translated The Train into Mi'gmaw in response to his own mother's loss of language with her subjection to residential school. He hoped "that this book will be a reminder of all that was left behind at the residential school." Sadly there was far too much left behind. Still, the telling of these stories helps bring them from the shadows into the light of now, offering opportunities for better.