March 18, 2024

Spider in the Well

Written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan
Katherine Tegen Books (An Imprint of HarperCollins)
978-0-063289475
48 pp.
Ages 4-8
March 2024
 
The people of Bad Göodsburg have a problem: their wishing well is broken. The newsboy who delivers the papers–and sweeps the chimneys, delivers the milk, and shines the shoes–is tasked with one more job: find out what is wrong with the well. And when he hears about the charitable wishes of the baker, the doctor, and the shopkeeper, he is determined to ensure those wishes are granted.
From Spider in the Well, written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan
Making his way to the well, the boy learns that a spider in the well has been responsible for the well not working. But, though the spider was just being a spider, building a web that happens to catch the coins, it's what he reveals to the newsboy that truly gets the boy irate and screaming, "Unbelievable!" and demanding justice.

From Spider in the Well, written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan
But what justice needs to be achieved? And how will the town's newsboy and lackey ensure that righteousness prevails?

Without giving away the story of Spider in the Well, let me assure readers that this is more than a cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for. And it's not because wishes might be ill-advised. It's because people and their wishes are not always benevolent. Sometimes wishes are selfish and rooted in vanity, greed, and worse, and no one wants to be seen as less than virtuous. The fine citizens of Bad Göodsburg hide behind false virtues and are taken down by a spider and a boy who may be or may not be similarly ethically challenged.
From Spider in the Well, written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan
Jess Hannigan's tale of wishes gone wrong has the tone of a fable or even a fairy tale. It's told with a host of archetypes, from the self-righteous townspeople to the put-upon boy who overcomes unjust treatment to be rewarded in the end. There's even the anthropomorphic spider who helps the boy triumph. And for each one of these characters, Jess Hannigan gets the voices right, and gives the story a tone of reparation rather than of grifting. (You'll see what I mean when you read the ending.)
From Spider in the Well, written and illustrated by Jess Hannigan
Hamilton's Jess Hannigan is an illustrator–this is her first picture book as author-illustrator–and her digital artwork, strong in shape and colour, makes the story even more powerful. By creating characters and scenes that are both simplified and complex in content and perspective, Jess Hannigan draws us into the story and helps us to see the circumstances as the boy does. She has a striking style of soft but bold lines that create tension while keeping the reader sympathetic to the boy, something that is more easily achieved by drawing the townspeople as oddly shaped and weirdly coloured.
 
So, if there's a moral to the story of Jess Hannigan's Spider in the Well, it's to be careful what you wish for because you never know who may be listening. On the plus side, sometimes one person's wishes result in just rewards for another. Just ask the newsboy of Bad Göodsburg, now happily retired.

March 15, 2024

One Giant Leap


Written and illustrated by Thao Lam
Owlkids Books
978-1-77147-599-0
48 pp.
Ages 3-7
March 2024
 
Getting a child dressed, especially in winter, is akin to the prep required to outfit an astronaut. Each step must follow another to ensure coverage, safety, and fit. But when you're venturing out into that wide world of possibilities, it's best to be prepared.
From One Giant Leap, written and illustrated by Thao Lam
Zippers pulled up on a suit, boots tugged onto feet, gloves wrenched on, and a hat stretched down low on a forehead are just the first steps of venturing outside. But as the child is transported in an elevator to the 1st floor, an imaginative transformation occurs. What was a child in a snowsuit is now an astronaut in a spacesuit. So, when they finally venture outside, it isn't into the snow, it's onto the moon.
From One Giant Leap, written and illustrated by Thao Lam
Everything now is an exploration of a new land of shapes and structures. There's climbing and falling, searching and anticipating, and following footsteps. Are those aliens or something else? Is there peril? Can they communicate? Should they? What should they say?
From One Giant Leap, written and illustrated by Thao Lam
Can the astronaut reach their destination and fulfill their mission? Only by following their trek across barren landscapes of inhospitable structures and unusually-garbed creatures can readers even know whether they make it to...the coatroom at school.

As a wordless picture book, One Giant Leap has a story that is driven by the cut-paper collage of Thao Lam's artwork. The story which is immense comes from the reader seeing and interpreting the visuals. Is that a rocket launch pad or an apartment elevator? Are those aliens or children in colourful snowsuits? Are those buildings or mountains, man-made structures or lunar landforms? Vietnamese-Canadian author-illustrator Thao Lam, known for her complex and meaningful books including The Paper Boat: A Refugee Story and The Line in the Sand, still knows how to do playful. Dressing in a snowsuit and venturing out into the greater universe, this child embarks on an other-worldly adventure, fueled only by imagination. What they experience is all up to them, and Thao Lam lets us see what they see. It's a textured landscape of dull grays and blacks, with only a dash of colour from an orange spacesuit or when other bizarre creatures appear. But in that lunar landscape, it is all about starkness, with the energy provided only through the child's imagination.
From One Giant Leap, written and illustrated by Thao Lam
Whether stepping onto an unknown space body or onto a frozen city street, it's a giant leap of daring that must come from within. It's knowing what to expect and never knowing what could be found. For this little one, it's One Giant Leap into inventiveness and creative thought, and it looks like they had a great flight.

March 13, 2024

West Coast Wild Rainforest

Written by Deborah Hodge
Illustrated by Karen Reczuch
Groundwood Books
978-1-77306-839-8
44 pp.
Ages 3+
March 2024
 
Each time I read a book in Deborah Hodge and Karen Reczuch's West Coast Wild series (see the list below), I am transported to the Pacific Northwest to visit the forests, coasts, waters, and mountains. I get to stand under majestic conifers and watch animals play. With West Coast Wild Rainforest, Deborah Hodge and Karen Reczuch lead us into the temperate rainforest and show us the wonders within.
From West Coast Wild Rainforest, text by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Karen Reczuch
Our walk through the rainforest begins with the rain and its role in keeping the forest growing and the fires away. In addition to those multi-storeyed trees, Deborah Hodge introduces readers to mosses, lichens, and other vegetation of the undergrowth. That lush forest is perfect for making a home, and there is much discussion about the relationship between Douglas squirrels and the trees which provide them with shelter and food, and which the squirrels inadvertently replant.
From West Coast Wild Rainforest, text by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Karen Reczuch
In each part of the rainforest, there is life, and the cycles that happen with that life. There are the streams where young salmon hatch. Later they will return to spawn in these same streams, and then become food for the bears, wolves, and eagles, with leftovers fertilizing the forest.
In this wonderful cycle of nature, the trees protect the salmon and the salmon feed the trees. 
From West Coast Wild Rainforest, text by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Karen Reczuch
As the natural cycles of the forest are revealed, more animals are introduced, from black bears and bald eagles, to gray wolves, black-tailed deer, western screech-owls, chest-backed chickadees, and banana slugs. Everything has a place and a purpose, and together they help the forest to grow and thrive and nurture others.

West Coast Wild Rainforest is a lovely walk through a unique biome that defines one part of Canada. For those on the West Coast, this book will be a literary hike to see and smell and feel a complex of ecosystems that encompass vegetation, water, land, and animals. For the many readers who may never have the opportunity to visit British Columbia and its coastal areas, West Coast Wild Rainforest entreats us to do the same but teaches with Deborah Hodge's text and beguiles with Karen Reczuch's watercolour and pencil artwork. This is an opportunity to learn and to be present in a luxuriant biome unique to our Pacific coast. By telling a story with a scientific basis, Deborah Hodge's words show a reverence to the Pacific rainforest without dulling the learning with endless details. And with  Karen Reczuch's illustrations, depicted with realism and profound awe for the landscape and biota of this area, West Coast Wild Rainforest will reach many young, and older, readers and entrap them in the beauty of the Pacific coastal rainforest and fascinate them with its teeming life.

🌲•🌲• 🌲•🌲•🌲
 
West Coast Wild series
 West Coast Wild (2015)
West Coast Wild At Low Tide (2022)
West Coast Wild Rainforest (2024)
West Coast Wild Baby Animals (coming May 2024)

March 11, 2024

The Club

Written by Eric Walters
DCB
978-1-77086-734-5
264 pp
Ages 9-12
March 2, 2024
 
It's the start of their Grade 8 year, and Jaxson and best friend Logan are looking forward to making their final year in middle school an epic one. While Logan is all about basketball, Jaxson is driven by playing his trumpet. But then a new girl, Liv Parker, joins their school. Though Jaxson sort of kind of has a girlfriend, Samantha, Liv is an extraordinary trumpet player, and she and Jax are thrown together, in a good way.

When the music teacher, Ms. Hooper, auditions the students for the senior band, she knows that Liv and Jax are going to be the stars of the band and hopefully take them to the city championship, finally. In fact, she wants them to play a duet for the first school assembly just days away. To prepare, the two have to meet after hours at each other's homes. Though their households are very different, with Liv and her mom Jenn, a cybersecurity expert, living in an immaculate big house with a grand piano, Jax and his mom Ali, an artist and art history prof, live in a cluttered house filled with colour and stuff. Still, the two teens find they have a lot in common, including their music, love of sushi, and ways of thinking. Moreover, when asked about their dads, they both acknowledge that subject as "complicated." 

But soon things get even more complicated for both of them. When Samantha learns how much time Jax is spending with the new girl, she feels threatened and he can't convince her that they're only friends. Still, with all their rehearsing for assemblies and solos, Jax and Liv are spending more time at each other's houses, and by chance, their moms are becoming friends. But with that friendship, personal details are shared, and Jenn and Ali begin to wonder whether the kids share more than just a virtuosity with the trumpet.
 
The theme of family is a common one in contemporary stories, with families that were once deemed traditional now being seen as just one of a myriad of forms that families can take. Whether a family has a mom and dad like Logan's, or is a single-parent household like Jax's or Liv's, or like those reconfigured through divorce or loss, a family is a family is a family, and Eric Walters recognizes that families come in all shapes and sizes and are all natural. What makes them families is the love and respect that is given and received within that construct. And regardless of how that family was created, whether through sperm donation, a heterosexual marriage, adoption, or one of countless other ways people enter others' lives, it is valid and valuable if family members choose for it to be so. (Thankfully the kids' moms give them some choice about whether to explore their paternal heritage and never compel them to embrace DNA as the ultimate basis for family.) 

Blood makes you related but it doesn't make you family. (pg. 176)
Fortunately for Jax and Liv they would probably always have become family, regardless of their DNA. Just as Logan and Jax always considered themselves brothers, Liv and Jax were already simpatico because of their love of the trumpet and music. The DNA just made their relationship official and genetically solid.
 
Eric Walters's Afterword tells the reader that the story of The Club was inspired by a true story of half-siblings discovering each other through their DNA. Their story, like that of Jax and Liv, was one of positive connection. For the kids in The Club, there is no conflict or expectation that they must embrace strangers as family. For those two kids, it happens organically. But without the support of their core family, related or not, neither teen would've been secure enough to welcome others in and put themselves out as they become part of a larger club.

The story of The Club could be happening anywhere in the world. The circumstances are not uncommon, and with access to DNA and ancestral records, it's becoming more frequent that genetic relatives are being linked. But Eric Walters makes this less about the process and more about the outcomes and what they mean for these kids. Their worlds have changed and in a good way. I do wonder about those circumstances for which "new" family connections may not be positive or welcome but that would be another story. In The Club, Eric Walters gives us a story of being a family, discovering family, and making family. For Jax and Liv, they are able to strengthen what is already there with those who were previously unrecognized and make for a new type of familial association.

March 08, 2024

Kids Write 4 Kids Creative Writing Contest: Deadline March 31, 2024

Ripple Foundation, a Canadian educational charity run solely by volunteers, works diligently to support creative literacy for young people. To that end, they have established an annual writing contest called Kids Write 4 Kids, and that contest is on now. If you're a Canadian young person in Grades 4 through 8, then you have until March 31, 2024 to submit your story, whether fact or fiction, or poetry. Details are listed below.

Why You Should Enter?
  •     Winners get published (see previous winners here).
  •     Proceeds from book sales are donated to the winner’s charity of choice.
  •     Winners become judges for next year’s contest.

Entry Details
  •     Open to Canadian residents only.
  •     Students must be in Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8.
  •     Stories must be original and written entirely by the author.
  •     Only one entry per author will be accepted. (Subsequent entries will be disqualified.)
  •     Only single author stories qualify. (No co-authored stories.)
  •     Stories are accepted in English only.
  •     Stories can be fact or fiction, prose or poetry.
  •     There is no entry fee and no purchase is necessary.
  •     All entries must review the story checklist.
  •     Entries must be submitted by the author’s teacher, parent, or guardian at this online form. 
Contest rules and regulations are posted here
 
 
Submissions
  • Maximum word count: 5,000 words (includes “a,” “an,” and “the,” but not the words on non-story pages such as the title page).
  • Invented spelling is accepted.
  • The text must be typed and submitted as DOC file format.
  • Do not submit any images. (If your story does have images and your story is selected,  Ripple Foundation will contact you to obtain original images.)
 
 Deadline for submissions
  • March 31, 2024
 
Although the contest was announced last fall, I was slow to get this posted. But, young writers still have weeks to get a submission in. So, time to get writing!
 
Good luck!
 
💻✐💻💻💻

March 06, 2024

Circle of Love

Written by Monique Gray Smith
Illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt
Heartdrum (HarperCollins)
978-0-06-307870-3
32 pp.
Ages 4-8
Releases March 12, 2024 
 
Indigenous writer Monique Gray Smith and artist Nicole Neidhardt take us into the heart of an intertribal community center where all are welcome, making for a richer kinship with diverse persons and where family extends beyond blood.
 
tawâw
(nêhiyawêwin: "there is always room")

Molly, her sibling, and her parents are joining their family and community for a feast at their local center. As they partake in the various activities, whether dancing, singing, reading, eating, or storytelling, Molly is bursting with feeling. She frames her experiences with her emotions, and by doing so Molly is mindful of the moment and what she is feeling. When Molly's Kôhkom and her wife, Kôhkom Raven, sing a welcome song, Molly feels connected. When she reads books to the little ones, she feels kind. When her sibling plays their fiddle, she is energized. Everything makes Molly feel something, and she always sees the positives, whether nourished, honoured or awed. And always there is love. And love is love, regardless of its form, of those who feel it, of  those who give it, and of those who need it.
From Circle of Love, text by Monique Gray Smith, art by Nicole Neidhardt
Moreover, everywhere there are reminders that this is a center based in Indigenous culture, whether it be the beading the children do, the sweetgrass burning, an elder smudging, traditional jingle dance, the beating of a drum, or a Métis sash. Everyone is welcome and there is room for all. 
From Circle of Love, text by Monique Gray Smith, art by Nicole Neidhardt
The lovely sense of community is unmistakable in Circle of Love. Diné (Navajo) illustrator Nicole Neidhardt, who came to Victoria BC from Arizona and New Mexico, ensures that her digital images depict everyone, showing different expressions of gender, family, ages, abilities, and backgrounds. Like the food at their table, there's a bit of everything and everyone, making their community vibrant and strong and satisfying. 
From Circle of Love, text by Monique Gray Smith, art by Nicole Neidhardt
Monique Gray Smith is a two-spirit writer of Cree, Lakota, and Scottish heritage whose picture books, novels, and non-fiction have been fueled by her ancestry. She writes for the very young and young adults, about traditions, residential schools, and reconciliation, and she writes of empathy and love. Circle of Love, like My Heart Fills with Happiness and You Hold Me Up, reminds us of the good that comes with building relationships, of being mindful of the moments that give our lives meaning, and of remaining grounded in our belonging to family and community. Monique Gray Smith honours those who are like her and not like her. She celebrates everyone by including them and recognizing their contributions to the community. With comprehensive notes appending her story, Monique Gray Smith ensures that, in this circle of love, everyone is welcome.
From Circle of Love, text by Monique Gray Smith, art by Nicole Neidhardt

March 04, 2024

Hugo's Haunted Handbook

Written and illustrated by Dave Whamond
Owlkids Books
978-1-77147-587-7
32 pp.
Ages 5-8
Releases March 15 2024
 
Who better to help others get rid of their unwanted ghosts than Hugo? After all, he got rid of his ghost. Or did he?
From Hugo's Haunted Handbook, written and illustrated  by Dave Whamond
Hugo's first instruction is to ensure that you really have a ghost, so he has devised three simple experiments. The first involves cookie crumbs, the next uses a camera, and finally there's locating any ectoplasm.  (He also notes that the pros use EMF Readers.)
From Hugo's Haunted Handbook, written and illustrated  by Dave Whamond
So, if you have a ghost, the next step is to learn about them. Did you know that they watch us, have bad days, get static cling, and love practical jokes?
Darn! They short-sheeted me again! You guys...
The problem for Hugo isn't that ghosts are necessarily scary; they are just annoying. (No one wants to be interrupted in the bathroom!) So, Hugo has 5 useful tips that the reader can use to get rid of their ghost forever.

With Tip #1, to yell "Bam shicka lam shicka boom boom bam" three times, Hugo gets to work. Trouble is that the ghost doesn't seem to respond as Hugo wishes.
Yep, still here.
Now what? Hugo tries several other fixes, all things that kids can do. (Okay, cooking up the Ghoul Begone potion might be tricky if you can't get your hands on maggot snot or aardvark poop, though raisins always seem to be plentiful when you're a kid.)
From Hugo's Haunted Handbook, written and illustrated  by Dave Whamond
Sadly, Hugo's ghost gets his feelings hurt with Hugo's claims about the supernatural being. Will their relationship ever be the same? Or should it?

Hugo is so earnest in his endeavours that it's hard not to take him seriously. But, with his quirky suggestions, coupled with an uncooperative ghost who is always peeking out, listening, commenting, and just being present, Hugo doesn't quite cut it as an aficionado at ghost elimination. What's worse is that instead of getting rid of his ghost, Hugo has offended the little guy who thought they were friends. By turning the tables on Hugo and his ghost, author-illustrator Dave Whamond just adds another dimension to an already amusing interaction, taking Hugo's Haunted Handbook from funny to side-splitting.  
From Hugo's Haunted Handbook, written and illustrated  by Dave Whamond
Dave Whamond can always get his readers laughing, both through his text filled with word play, and his cartoon illustrations. (Check out Muddle School, Alien Nate, and Nick the Sidekick for three previous examples.) With a ghost who feels down–"You haven't said BOO all day!"– or who complains about getting Cheeze Doodles' orange dust all over his white outfit, or with Hugo remembering their game of Hide-and Ghost Seek, Dave Whamond plays with his words and makes us laugh. But then the words are accompanied with Dave Whamond's comic artwork and all the scenes become wilder and yet still familiar. Kids, and their parents, will laugh at the scary recorder practice, the "ghost slime" at the bottom of Hugo's backpack, and Hugo lamenting the ghost ruining his sales pitch. 

If you have a ghost, reading Hugo's Haunted Handbook might be helpful but it might just offer suggestions to being a good friend, still an admirable endeavour. Now, about those monsters.