Cocoa Magic

Written by Sandra Bradley

Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-264-6

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

November 2022

There is much kindness in giving gifts in secret, in not expecting thanks or acknowledgement. It's giving for the sake of giving and not for reciprocity or reward. With the holiday season upon us, Sandra Bradley's book of Cocoa Magic, deliciously illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard, reminds us of the goodness of giving.

From Cocoa Magic by Sandra Bradley, illus. by Gabrielle Grimard

Daniel's Great Uncle Lewis is known as the Cocoa King of Charlottetown. From a very young child, Daniel learned the magic that came from a cocoa bean when vanilla, sugar and milk were added. By the time he is eight, he is spending an hour crafting chocolate into treasures at his uncle's shop before he is delivered to school.

From Cocoa Magic by Sandra Bradley, illus. by Gabrielle Grimard

When a new girl, Sarah, arrives at school, looking a little hesitant, Daniel comes up with a plan to make her feel more welcome. The day after her arrival, he slips a gold box with a single chocolate caramel into her desk. Like magic, when she opens the little box, Sarah smiles for the first time. He repeats this for several days, with a luscious vanilla fudge, a coconut cream and a piece of nougat. And each day Sarah seems less scared and more cheerful.

Then Daniel notices Ben watching Sarah enjoy her treat and decides to surprise the boy too with some magic. Was it the chocolate that made Ben a little kinder that day? Everywhere Daniel looks, it seems someone needs to be touched by a little cocoa magic. With a tearful classmate and an injured boy and more, Daniel enlists his uncle's help in delivering little boxes to the whole class.

From Cocoa Magic by Sandra Bradley, illus. by Gabrielle Grimard

Then his uncle goes away to the World's Chocolatiers' Conference in Switzerland and must close the shop for five days. Daniel is devastated. He misses his uncle, working in the shop and he worries that without their secret chocolate gifts, the joy would disappear from his classmates. He's wrong. In fact, his classmates bring the magic to Daniel when he needs it.

What a wonderful story of empathy! Daniel understands Sarah's nervousness at attending a new school, one which he himself finds cold and lonely, and then sees what his other classmates are feeling. He sees their distresses and finds a way, his way, to make them feel better. Sandra Bradley, a clinical social worker and therapist, makes the story of Cocoa Magic one of kindness without expectation of reciprocity. She shows the positive nature of giving both on the recipient and the giver. It is only when children feel safe and secure that they can appreciate the emotional needs of others and Daniel, embraced in the warmth of his uncle and his chocolate shop, has the capacity for that empathy. But by showing empathy for his classmates, Daniel gives them the capacity to feel for others. That is magic in itself.

From endpapers of Cocoa Magic by Sandra Bradley, illus. by Gabrielle Grimard

Gabrielle Grimard's illustrations, created with watercolour, gouache, coloured pencil and digital media, are filled with the sweetness of love, kindness, generosity and confections. (The endpapers are filled with an assortment of confectionary delectables too!) Though Gabrielle Grimard transports readers to the 1920s when boys wore knickerbockers, school desks had lift-tops and inkwell holes, and a special treat didn't need to be expensive or extravagant, she makes Sandra Bradley's story contemporary enough that young readers will see themselves in the diverse students who feel fear, sadness, pain and especially joy. 

There may be magic in the cocoa and the sugar but most of it comes from the empathy demonstrated through the gift giving. Perhaps at this time of year, that's the important message to cherish from Cocoa Magic.

The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Celebration of Nature

By Briana Corr Scott

Nimbus Publishing

978-1-77471-097-5

32 pp.

All Ages

November 2022

 

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas out there: snow on the ground, nip in the air and Christmas songs on rotation. It may be a little early for counting down the advent calendar or the twelve days of Christmas–technically between December 25 and Epiphany–but the joy of art in Briana Corr Scott's new picture book is a lovely way to herald the joy of the season in the natural world.

From The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Celebration of Nature by Briana Corr Scott

Nova Scotian artist and author Briana Corr Scott maintains the traditional symbols of the twelve days: the partridge, turtle doves, French hens, calling birds, golden rings, geese a-laying, swans a-swimming, ladies dancing, lords a-leaping, pipers piping and drummers drumming. But she embeds them in a natural world of birds and other animals, playing with the words and their meaning. For example, though the milkmaids are often depicted as young women at their farm task, Briana Corr Scott has eight monarch butterflies working milkweed. The drummers are northern flickers, a common drumming woodpecker of Canada. And the ladies are ladybugs on flowers of echinacea and mums among other plants. The words are familiar, but the images are uniquely of the natural world–as explained by Briana Corr Scott in her afterword–and bustling with the life of the outdoors.

From The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Celebration of Nature by Briana Corr Scott

Briana Corr Scott uses gouache and oil paints to create these lovely double-spreads of ethereal scenes of fauna and flora, often using rose, teal, and gold to emulate the warmth and coolness of nature. As with her earlier books–Mermaid Lullaby, Wildflower, The Book of Selkie, and She Dreams of Sable Island–Briana Corr Scott keeps us in the outdoors, contemplating the interactions between plants and animals and the interrelationship of all living things. This could have been a counting book for young kids–and it could still work that way–or a fun predictable read because of the repetition of lines, but when the detailed art is the highlight, with amaryllis, Christmas cactus, cygnets and more hidden in the illustrations,  The Twelve Days of Christmas becomes the celebration of nature Briana Corr Scott intended.

From The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Celebration of Nature by Briana Corr Scott

Night Runners

Written and illustrated by Geraldo Valério

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-569-4

52 pp.

Ages 3-6

October 2022

Who needs words when art can say so much? Geraldo Valério is one of our most accomplished wordless picture book author-illustrators, telling rich stories in the natural world with a luxuriance of colour and shape and teeming with interaction that supersedes words. Night Runners is his newest.

From Night Runners by Geraldo Valério

In Night Runners, a stag–with a messenger bag–bounds across a field into a coniferous forest, lured by a shining circlet of stars in the sky. There are many downed trees and just as the stag turns to check out the possibility of wolves, he stumbles on a fallen tree and injures its leg. As the tearful deer lays there, waiting for the wolves to come and slay it, something amazing happens. The wolves do arrive, but they encircle the deer, and bring it water and foraged food, and even wrap the wound with leaves. 

From Night Runners by Geraldo Valério

Together they follow the beacon of stars to a gathering of animals around a fire. All animals are represented, from moose and beaver, dragonfly and rooster, snake and skunk, and they all welcome the wolves and stag to their company. But when the stag opens his bag, the gathering becomes a true party of song and dance, and the circle of stars becomes a sky filled with brilliant stellar orbs.

Geraldo Valério's message of finding unexpected friends, even among those most feared, is a compelling one, especially for our times. The deer expects the worst when faced with a potential enemy but instead finds compassion and companionship. And together they discover something even more powerful and add to it with their presence.

From Night Runners by Geraldo Valério

Geraldo Valério's story fills the reader with hope for respect and humanity, something desperately needed nowadays. We need to know that good can happen in the midst of tragedy and Geraldo Valério makes us feel that promise for goodness and empathy. His striking artwork, rendered in acrylic paint and coloured pencil on watercolour paper, gives us that hope, with the boldness of colour and line bringing the power of his story to the eyes.  The stars that shine are for everyone and, with his diversity of animals, both domestic and not, Geraldo Valério makes sure that everyone can be part of this story.

Winterkill

Written by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Scholastic

978-1-338-831-41-2

288 pp.

Ages 8-13

September 2022

 

Our way of life was being erased. We had to figure out a way to escape before we were erased too. (pg. 38)

With a war currently raging in Ukraine, it's easy to remember that Ukraine has suffered oppression for centuries. As it sought independence and freedom, the country was repeatedly targeted and made to suffer. Winterkill is but one story of an attempt to quash a people with a strong cultural identity and fervor for autonomy. 

In 1930, 12-year-old Nyl Chorny lives on a small farm with his parents and younger siblings Yulia (11) and Slavko (9) in the village of Felivka near Kharkiv. Ukraine is currently under the control of the Soviet Communists led by Stalin whose five-year-plan to modernise the country is really aimed at hurting Ukrainians by eliminating small family farms and combining them under large collectives called kolkhozes. Some villagers are buying into the lies told by Comrades Tupolev and Chort–Russians charged with governing them–and shock workers promising tractors, increased grain, and better opportunities. But for those like Tato, Nyl's father, the collectivisation is just a replacement for landlords and will have nothing to do with them. Still, they must abide by the demands of Communist workers who inventory all their goods, ban religious faith, and requisition their grain with the threat of being labelled kulaks and executed or deported. Some Communists are foreign specialists like Canadian George White who will be working at the future tractor factory and truly believes in Communism as does his young daughter Alice. Others have just found a new way to bully and exert control and gain wealth at the expense of others.

 

If you want to eat, join the kolkhoz. (pg. 50)

 

Still the family farms as best they can, managing with less after Nyl's Uncle Illya is executed for being a kulak, and Auntie Pawlina and baby cousin Tanya move in with the family. A bumper crop of wheat, millet and corn in the summer of 1930 has them all hopeful again and the family considers leaving the Soviet Union via Auntie's cousins in Ternopil, a city across the border in Polish Ukraine. But all those dreams go up in smoke when soldiers steal all the grain while the families celebrate the harvest.

Relying on foraging, hunting and fishing for food, and no way to get money needed for travel, Nyl and Slavko steal away to work in Kharkiv where the tractor plant needs construction workers. But what they find there is as dismal as at home though they are able to make some money. Still, what they return home to is worse than they could have expected. Whether any of them will ever survive, much less escape, a genocide by starvation and violence is Nyl's story to tell.

Winterkill is a big story. It is so big that I can't possibly reveal all the details and nuances of Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's story in a short review. There are good people and evil ones, both Ukrainian and Russian. There is joy and heartache, resourcefulness and laziness, greed and generosity. And there is oppression. Though much of Winterkill deals with the Holodomor, the 1932-1933 genocide of Ukrainians by starvation, it's a story that's bigger than that. It's about that oppression of people and culture. There is resilience, as Nyl demonstrates with his story, but there is death and destruction and horrific suffering. And Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch tells it with such authenticity that this book of historical fiction could be a biography. Still, she tells it with sensitivity and compassion and allowed this  Ukrainian-Canadian to read it with appreciation, albeit filled with sorrow.

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch will launch Winterkill at the Brantford Public Library’s downtown branch on Thursday, November 24, 2022, at 6 p.m. Copies of the book will be available for purchase from Green Heron Books for signing by the author.  

2022 Governor General Literary Awards: Winners announced

 

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

Books were awarded in seven categories, both in French and English, and I'm so pleased to announce the winners of those books for young readers.

Congratulations to these winners!

 

• • • • •

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

 WINNER

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet

Written by Jen Ferguson

Heartdrum (HarperCollins)

 

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

WINNER

The Sour Cherry Tree

Written by Naseem Hrab

Illustrated by Nahid Kazemi

Owlkids Books

 

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

 

WINNER

Cancer ascendant Autruche
Written by Julie Champagne

la courte échelle

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

WINNER

Trefle
Written by Nadine Robert
Illustrated by Qin Leng 

Comme des géants

👏👏👏

Congratulations to this year's finalists

and these four stellar winners  

of books for young people

 

👏👏👏

Boney: Guest review

This review was written by Grade 8 student Hasini K.

Written by Cary Fagan

Illustrated by Dasha Tolstikova

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-548-9

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

October 2022

 

While Annabelle and her dad are taking a walk in the woods with their dog, Scoot, Annabelle discovers an animal bone. Annabelle asks her dad if they can take the bone home, and her dad agrees. 

 

Annabelle decides to make the bone her new playmate, and names him Boney. Annabelle feels that Boney is a great playmate – and she is completely in love with her new friend! They hang out at the park and Annabelle even makes Boney a bed complete with a blanket and pillow in his own room. 

From Boney by Cary Fagan, illus. by Dasha Tolstikova

However, when creatures run wild in Annabelle's dreams, she wonders for the first time where Boney truly belongs. What becomes of Annabelle’s and Boney’s friendship? You'll need to read the book to find out.

Boney is written by Cary Fagan and illustrated by Dasha Tolstikova. It is a short but sweet story with very vivid and beautiful illustrations which are very thought-provoking. Kids may wonder where Boney, the bone, was actually from. The story does mention how the bone could've been any animal, but we can't help but wonder. I would recommend this book to readers from Grade 1-4 since it is pretty relatable in many ways. At some point in our lives, we all have to deal with the fact that something we might be doing is not right, even if we want to do it. Making tough choices is also very hard to do, no matter your age. Personally, I liked how the story had a really meaningful message. It teaches us that, sometimes, we have to do things that aren't easy to make the situation right. It captures the innocence and uncertainty of kids when they’re dealing with conflict within themselves. Little kids would especially take losing a friend or a toy or item they have gotten attached to, as Annabelle must do with Boney, very hard. I would certainly grab a copy of this creatively written book to enjoy!

~ Written by Hasini K., Age 13

2022 Le Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse: Winner announced

Today, the Canadian Children's Book Centre and Communication-Jeunesse (CJ) announced the winner of the 2022 Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse from an impressive short list of finalists. Congratulations to this year's French-language award-winning author who will receive $50,000.

 

 

Prix TD de littérature jeuness canadienne 

Lauréat

 

La fin des poux?
Written and illustrated by Orbie
Éditions Les 400 coups

 

 

 Toutes nos félicitations!

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