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by Kyo Maclear   illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault   Kids Can Press  2010    Neither Fork nor Spoon, can the lonely Spork find acceptance in the world?   Poor Spork.  A misfit in the cutlery tray, a one-of-a-kind in a world of deeply polar divisions. In a place were different kitchen utensils can live in harmony in the drawer this misfit simply doesn't fit in.  In an effort to fit in, to

First came the very special One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference, which taught kids about microfinance. Now, Katie Smith Milway brings us another powerful book: The Good Garden: How One Family Went from Hunger to Having Enough (Kids Can Press). The Good Garden tackles the topic of food security and is the inspiring story of a Honduran young girl and her family’s journey to growing enough food to meet their needs (you can watch a book trailer here). The book is accompanied by a Good Garden Enrichment Program, an online resource developed by One Hen, Inc.

A portion of all book sales go to fund One Hen, Inc.’s programs in disadvantaged communities.

& Other Strange Things Adults Tell You   written by Catherine Rondina illustrated by Kevin Sylvester Kids Can Press  2010 A collection of superstitions and folklore passed down by adults, refuted and supported, and an attempt to arm kids with the facts behind the phrases.  Entertaining, but it's no snopes.com. I like the idea of arming kids with the truth as a way of disarming the myths kids

Spork
By Kyo Maclear
Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
Kids Can Press
ISBN: 9781553377368
$16.95
Grades K-2
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(Click to enlarge panels)

Review copy from publisher.

Find this book at your local library with WorldCat.

With this month’s issue of PaperTigers being all about play, I picked up a Canadian poetry book chock full of rhymes one can skip, clap, bounce a ball or do actions to.  The book is called Eenie Meenie Manitoba by Robert Heidbreder, illustrated by Scot Ritchie (Kids Can Press, 1996.)  I’ve featured one of Heidbreder’s other poetry books in a previous post, and was also at the same time, quite happy to discover this book!

Eenie Meenie Manitoba explores Canadian geography in such delightful rhyming poems as “Toronto-to-to,” “Horsing Around BC,” “On the Rideau,” and “Charlottetown Fishmongers.”  In this huge country with such wildly diverse landscapes, climates and cultures, it’s great to find a book that attempts to cover all the ‘bases’ so to speak!  Alongside some poems are directions on how to use the rhymes in play.  For example, to the poem “To Be, or Not To Be,” one can pull petals off of a daisy in the way people used to with the old  ’she loves me, she loves me not’ rhyme.  “Apple Me Dapple Me” is a good poem to bounce a ball to.  And for skipping, there’s “Nova Scotia Lobsters.”  The trick is to memorize the poem so one can use it in play.   Summer is a good time to try out these rhymes and get your kids and yourselves outside with a bit of rope and a ball.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Carol at Carol’s Corner.

I did indeed, faithful readers!  Just about the time this blog was headed to an all new format I was traipsing the halls of the Javits Center during Book Expo 2010.  Being a working librarian and all, I was operating my library’s reference desk for most of BEA, but I was able to escape for a Thursday to see what there was to see.  I had about two hours on the floor, max.  That is a short amount of time, but it is amazing what one can accomplish when one is wearing shoes so uncomfortable that you are inclined to walk fast to dull the pain!

Sidenote: Historically, librarians aren’t BEA’s focus.  This is a bookseller convention and over the last few years librarians have started to trickle in.  They are not by any means catered to.  What I like about BEA is that I get to run into booksellers I wouldn’t normally run across.

Here then is my highly scientific view of all things BEA.  Ahem.

HIGHLY SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF ALL THINGS BEA

That was one of the staircases visible during the conference.  I admit, I was impressed.  I was unaware that Vladimir Tod had the clout to acquire the ENTIRE visible staircase at BEA.  Extra points for the colors as well.

After getting my press pass I went inside.  Rather than scout out where anyone actually was, I wandered around, vaguely heading towards any area where there was a large group of people.  This is sort of how I tackle ALA Conferences as well.  Call it my SMS or Systematic Meandering System.  In this particular case, I found myself at the end of the conference floor where the authors were signing.

I’m not a signing type o’ author, but if I ever become one I hope that the universe will acknowledge that I feel great boatloads of sympathy for any first timer or small press writer stuck next to a big name.  There were a couple of those roundabout 10 a.m. on a Thursday morning, but I shan’t name names.  I went over to the big board at this point to see if anyone interesting was coming up.

Dang!  Lemony Snicket had been signing the previous day.  If I were playing some perverse version of Author Bingo, Snicket/Handler would be The One Who Got Away.  I’m horrendously afraid of him, to the point where I was at a party thrown for him once and managed to give him a berth of about six yards at any given time.  I can’t explain it.  I adore him but he intimidates the eyelashes off of me.  Not his wife, the lovely authoress Lisa Brown, she of the YA novel Picture the Dead.  If I ever meet her I’ll bloody talk her ear off.  But Handler… someday, man.  Someday.

So who was around and about?  Well, I think Adam Rex was signing, but it wasn’t like I’d be able to engage him in conversation or anything.  No sir… I wanted someone I’d never met before.  Someone, ideally, I’d read as a kid.  The answer?

This guy.

Aw, yeah baby.  That’s James Howe, author of everything from Bunnicula to Totally Joe to his newest picture book Brontorina.  Which I got signed for the niece.  I like to call that a mission accomplished.

With my signed book in tow, I set out to see what was new from the pubs this season.  And not the New York based o

See Saw Saskatchewan is a children’s collection of poems about Canada by Robert Heidbreder, illustrated by Scot Ritchie (Kids Can Press, 2003.)  I found out about this delightful book from librarian Sue Fisher’s blog, Mousetraps and the Moon.  For National Poetry Month which was April, Sue featured various  children’s poetry books on her blog.

See Saw Saskatchewan is a playful collection of poems  that can be skipped to, ball-bounced to, or clapped to.  The poems are about life in Canada in various locations featuring activities, or animals, or sights particular to the locale.  There’s definitely a touch of Dennis Lee in these poems that’s detectable in such poems that play on Canadian place names like in  ‘Niagara Falls’:

Kapuskasing sings
Cornwall calls
Thunder Bay storms,
And Niagara
FALLS!

In fact there are a lot of playful references to famous children’s rhymes which you can tell by the titles of some of the poems like ‘Pick a peck of P.E.I.’ or ‘Take Toronto by the Toe’.  I had to laugh at the poem referring to my home city of Winnipeg: ‘Winnipeg Mosquitoes’. Yes, we do often have them and in enough abundance, to make them poetry-worthy! There’s a cute illustration of two besotted mosquitoes sucking blood out of a finger, which vaguely reminded me of a line from John Donne’s ‘The Flea’ — “wherein two bloods mingled be” — except in this case it’s the reverse with the blood of one Canadian ‘mingled’ into two lovelorn mosquitoes! Now if that isn’t an image of Canadian love, I don’t know what is.

Do you know of any good poetry books that celebrate your locale? Or play with the funny names of your towns and cities? In Canada, we have some great place names like Moose Jaw and Nipissing, Tumbler Ridge and Nanaimo. See Saw Saskatchewan does a nice job of making Canada a fun place to read about with its delightful poems set all over the land.

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by jama at jama rattigan’s alphabet soup.

Things have been quiet on this blog but there have been busy scurryings behind the scenes. My new website is almost ready and I am looking forward to showing it to all of you.

It has been fun to finally put all my artwork together in one place and has made me realise that the last few years have been busy! The new website will have my blog integrated into it, so once everything is live, I will be adding a link so that you can find it easily and hopefully visit.

On the news front, I will be starting to work on a new picture book soon which I am very excited about. It will be published by Kids Can Press, a Canadian publisher, which I am very happy about too. Even though I live in Montreal, most of my work comes from the U.S., so it will be nice to work on a project that is on my home turf :)

And this weekend is the Great Goose Egg Auction that benefits Open Fields School . If you are looking to buy a unique gift (for yourself or a special someone), the auction begins Saturday, May 8th at 1.30pm.
There is an on-line bidding option too, if you can't attend the event but want to participate.

Little Red and Alice

Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be by Daniel Loxton. Kids Can Press. 2010.

About: Evolution, for younger/ middle grade readers.

The Good: Evolution, a tricky scientific concept, is described and explained in a way that is both easy to follow yet also captures the complexity of the topic. Colorful illustrations support the text; one of my favorite sequences illustrates how whales evolved from land animals.

When questioning evolution, certain questions are usually raised. Including the eye question -- "how could evolution produce something as complicated as my eyes?" Illustrations and text explain just how evolution results in eyes, both the eyes found in humans and in other animals.

It's not just science that is discussed; frauds are, also, including fossils found with both human and dinosaur footprints. It explains deciphering the footprints; and the pretend fossils that were created as souvenirs after.

There is a glossary, but no bibliography. Luckily, their are online resources. The front matter explains that this contains materials originally published within Junior Skeptic, the children's section of Skeptic magazine. Information and reviews of the book are at the website. The author is the Editor of Junior Skeptic.

Kids Can Press, the publisher, also has online resources for parents and teachers.




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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

by James Leck Kids Can Press  2010 A trio of hardboiled detective stories for the upper middle grade set. Jack Lime is a kid people go to when they need to have problems solved.  Problems like cheating boyfriends and missing bikes and gambling rings and kidnapped... hamsters. As with all detective stories, Lime has to wade his way through the sort of half-truths and double-crosses he's

Think Again. JonArno Lawson. Illustrated by Julie Morstad. 2010. Kids Can Press. 64 pages.

I really enjoyed this poetry book! I was actually surprised by how much I liked it. The jacket describes this one as a "collection of quietly beautiful and surprisingly humorous short poems" that "reveals first love's uncertainties, frustrations, and joys." I don't usually mention the jacket description of a book, but in this case, I think they said it much better than I ever could.

What did I like about these short poems? Well, I found them to be true, to feel authentic. I thought they were very good, very short observations of life, of love. Some poems are self-reflections.

I enjoyed so many of these poems: Thoughtless, Up For Grabs, Pleasant, The Heart, and Oh Star I Never Wished Upon.

Here are two about time. In fact, both are named Time.

Time

The past cannot be paid for
And the future can't be bought:
You've got the present moment and
That's really all you've got. (29)

Time

Time comes quick and raw, it can't be
Slowed or refined
It moves so fast because
it's leaving everything behind. (53)

If you're reading this on a site (other than Becky's Book Reviews or Becky's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Watch This Space: Designing, Defending and Sharing Public Spaces by Hadley Dyer and Marc Ngui. Kids Can Press. 2010. Copy provided by publisher. Online teacher resources.

About: The history and value of public spaces.

The Good: A variety of information, colorfully illustrated with a lot of details, explains what public space is; its value; its multiple uses; and what teens and kids can do for the promotion of public space.

Public space is something that, for many people (not just kids) simply "is." There is a park; there is a sidewalk; there is a bridge with graffiti. Why do we have parks? How long have people had parks? What are some of the purposes public spaces serve? Art, relaxation, escape, sports, cultural events, health. Even design is addressed, along with an exercise on "how to build it" if you were designing a park.

Reading this as budgets are being slashed and cut right and left made me a bit depressed, in all honesty. Many of the concepts, ideas and suggestions are based on public funds and funding. As public money is cut back, the advertisements that Dyer deplores will only increase. While Dyer does not address the connection between mental illness and homelessness (see here and here) she does address other underlying causes of homelessness (such as abuse and addiction); as funding for social programs that address such issues get cut, it's not hard to speculate that the rates of homelessness will increase.

To be glass half full girl, Watch This Space offers important, constructive ideas about getting involved. It encourages and promotes grassroots efforts, which will be all the more valuable as funding goes away. In addition to these terrific ideas and suggestions (such as involvement in library teen advisory groups and government youth commissions), I would have liked Watch This Space to have included concrete resources (links to websites as well as books) about teen advocacy. Librarians, teachers, and parents can put together this information (including local resources) for their students and kids.





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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

Started in 1973 by a small group of women in Toronto who wanted to produce books for Canadian children, over the years Kids Can Press has broadened its mandate to produce books for children around the world. The company is now owned by Corus Entertainment Inc., a Canadian-based media and entertainment company. Their catalog includes a long list of award-winning titles, in over 30 languages, with each book designed to develop children’s literacy levels and a love of reading. They are considered forerunners in publishing books that promote a world view.

Sheila Barry, Kids Can Press’ editor-in-chief, answered our questions about One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference, one of the seven books selected for inclusion in our Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set Donation Project, and about other topics related to the company and to multicultural children’s literature.

Q&A

PT: One Hen by Katie Smith Milway, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes is one of the most talked about books of the last few years (and arguably the one most used in classrooms across the United States and Canada). How did this project come about for Kids Can Press?

SB: Katie wrote a picture book for Kids Can some years ago, so we were the first people she approached when she decided she wanted to write an informational picture book that would allow her to share her knowledge of development issues in Africa, where she once worked in a village very like the one in the book. Since we had already published other informational picture books on global subjects, we were excited to work with Katie on developing her concept—and obviously we’ve been thrilled with the end result.

PT: Did Kids Can expect the book to do as well as it did, or have some of the ripple effects of its publication come as a surprise?

SB: We hope all our books will do well, but sometimes it does seem that a book comes into the world at exactly the right time to take off. With One Hen, we knew we had done something pretty original in making the subject of microloans both accessible and inspiring for children. We hoped buyers would appreciate our accomplishment, and we’ve been gratified to see that our title clearly struck a chord for many, many readers.

PT: What about the choice of Eugenie Fernandes to illustrate One Hen? How did CBP go about finding the best match for the story?

SB: Eugenie Fernandes is very well-known in Canada as both a writer and an illustrator of picture books for very young children. But in addition to her classic picture books (her new book Kitten’s Spring just came out), she has also illustrated an older book for us called Earth Magic, a collection of poems by Dionne Brand, a Trinidadian-Canadian writer. This book marked a real departure for Eugenie, and it also showed us that she would be perfect for One Hen. Eugenie’s mixed-media artwork creates the effect almost of magic realism, a hybrid style that is perfect for this book, since it is at once a picture book and a work of non-fiction.

PT: For those readers who may not be familiar with Kids Can Press, how would you describe your catalog? What are some of your bestselling books/or genres?

SB: Kids Can Press is a Canadian publisher dedicated to children’s books. We publish for children from birth to age 16, and we publish

Scaredy Squirrel At The Beach. Melanie Watt. 2008. Kids Can Press. 32 pages.

Scaredy Squirrel never goes to the beach. He'd rather vacation at home alone where it's safe than risk being surrounded by the wrong crowd.

To avoid encountering the wrong kinds of crowds, Scaredy Squirrel plans on making his own private beach, right at the bottom of his nice happy nut tree. True, kitty litter doesn't have quite the same feel as sand. But still, a few sacrifices must be made for safety, right? But there is one thing his beach needs--really needs to be complete. Seashells. What's a squirrel to do? This one heads off to the real beach to get a few. To bring home. What will he learn along the way?

This one is funny and cute. I definitely liked it!

© Becky Laney of Young Readers

Scaredy Squirrel. Melanie Watt. 2008. Kids Can Press. 42 pages.

Scaredy Squirrel never leaves his nut tree. He'd rather stay in his safe and familiar tree than risk venturing out into the unknown. The unknown can be a scary place for a squirrel.

I really liked this picture book. I liked Scaredy Squirrel a lot. I could relate to him in some ways. Because the unknown can be a bit scary. Readers may not share Scaredy Squirrels exact fears--green Martians, killer bees, tarantulas, poison ivy, germs, and sharks--but chances are they can relate to fearing something. Scaredy Squirrel is thrust into an adventure and forced into facing the unknown. And he learns that sometimes fears are just silly, and that life is meant to be enjoyed, to be lived. Out of the nut tree.

© Becky Laney of Young Readers

This month’s focus for the Social Justice Challenge is Water, a precious, life-giving resource that many of us take for granted. It is only relatively recently that awareness is growing everywhere of water being a finite resource. Many of us just have to turn on the tap for a ready supply of clean water for drinking, washing, even playing – but it is shocking indeed to think that nearly half the people living in the developing world do not have access to clean water; and that, according to UNICEF:

“Inadequate access to safe water and sanitation services, coupled with poor hygiene practices, kills and sickens thousands of children every day, and leads to impoverishment and diminished opportunities for thousands more.”

Older Brother and Little Bother cite a statistic they believe comes from WaterAid that 3 people die every 10 minutes because of a lack of clean water. In an attempt to turn this remote, hopeless-sounding figure into something they can get their heads round, we are currently reading Ryan and Jimmy: And the Well in Africa that Brought Them Together by Herb Shoveller (Kids Can Press, 2006). This is the wonderful and inspiring story of how the determination of one small boy in Canada, Ryan Hreljac, captured people’s imagination so that he was able to raise the $2,000 needed to buy a well for a community in Uganda – and then go on raising money to fund drills for more wells – so that now, the Ryan’s Well Foundation, with the now eighteen-year-old Ryan at its head, is working to bring safe drinking water and increase sanitation and hygiene awareness in 16 countries around the world.

Another engaging book and superb resource for raising young people’s awareness about water is One Well: The Story of Water on Earth by Rochelle Strauss and illustrated by Rosemary Woods, also published by Kids Can Press, in 2007. You can read my joint review of both these books here.

March 22nd is the U.N. designated World Water Day and the th

Mattoo, Let's Play! Irene Luxbacher. 2010. [February 2010] Kids Can Press. 32 pages.

My Mattoo is a shy cat. He never wants to play. I don't know why I'm a very friendly person.

I really liked this one. It's about a little girl with a big personality having trouble playing with her cat. She can't quite understand why her shy little kitten may not like everything she does. Can this little girl find the perfect way to play with her cat?
Is there hope for this relationship yet?

What I enjoyed about this one--besides the large personalities involved--are the illustrations. I just love how imaginative and playful they are. I love the tone they evoke. They really complement the story, the text so well. I love how the illustrations show imagination at work.

© Becky Laney of Young Readers

C'mere, Boy! By Sharon Jennings. Illustrated by Ashley Spires. 2010. [February 2010]. Kids Can Press. 32 pages.

Dog wanted a boy. He asked his mama, "Can we get a boy? Can we? Please? Can we?" Dog's mama looked around the doghouse and said, "We don't have room for a boy. And who would take care of him?"

Dog is a pup who really, really wants a Boy. A boy all his own. The text shows him to be desperate for a Boy. Some of these situations are so absurd because of the twist, but it works in its own odd little way.

For example,

On Friday, Dog told his mama he was going shopping. "I'm not coming home until I find a boy," he said. First, he went to the mall. A sign read, NO DOGS ALLOWED! Dog was ordered off the premises. Next Dog went to the park. A sign read, DOGS MUST BE ON A LEASH. Dog was chased away.

Kitten's Spring. By Eugenie Fernandes. 2010. [February 2010] Kids Can Press. 24 pages.

Morning hums,
Kitten listens.
Frog croaks,
Tadpole glistens.

I like this one. I liked both the text and artwork in this one.It's simple. But it works. With just two short lines on each spread, it's great for reading to little ones. As a young kitten explores her surroundings, little ones are exposed to all sorts of animals--pairs of animals really: cows have calves, frogs have tadpoles, ducks have ducklings, etc. I definitely like the wonder of it. Seeing kitten's wonder at the world around her, the natural environment. It captures the newness of it all. The text has a poetic flow to it.

Chicken clucks,
Chick scratches.

Duck quacks,
Duckling hatches.

Smith, David J. 2009. If America Were A Village. Illustrated by Shelagh Armstrong. Kids Can Press.

I loved this book. Loved the concept of it. What is it about? The author imagines America as a village of a hundred people. That still didn't come out quite right. I'll let the publisher help:

Today there are 306 million people living in America. This enormous number can be difficult to grasp, especially for a child. But what if we imagine America as a village of just 100 people?

• Who are we?
• Where do we come from?
• Where do we live?
• What are our families like?
• What religions do we practice?
• What do we do?
• How old are we?
• How wealthy are we?
• What do we own?
• What do we use?
• How healthy are we?

America is a country of immigrants. Almost every person in the United States can trace ancestors back to other parts of the world.

If the America of today were a village of 100:
15 would be of German ancestry, 11 would be of Irish ancestry, 9 African, 9 English, 7 Mexican, 6 Italian, 3 Polish, 3 French, 3 Native American, 2 Scottish, 2 Dutch, 2 Norwegian, 1 Scotch-Irish, and 1 Swedish. The rest have other backgrounds.

That is quite a change from when the first U.S. census was taken in 1790. If America had been a village of 100 in 1790, 53 would have come from England, 19 from Africa (most of them slaves), 11 from Scotland and Ireland, and 7 from Germany. The rest had various backgrounds including French, Swedish, and Native.

Early on, most immigrants came from Europe, but that began to change after 1900:

In 1900, 96 percent came from Europe, 1 percent from Latin America, and 3 percent from other places.
In 1950, 53 percent came from Europe, 40 percent from Latin America, 6 percent from Asia and 1 percent from other places.
In 2000, 15 percent came from Europe, 49 percent came from Latin America, 31 percent from Asia, and 5 percent from other places.

Papineau, Lucie. 2009. Lulu's Pajamas. Illustrated by Stephane Jorisch. Kids Can Press.

Lulu is a mouse who loves her pajamas. Her pajamas "smell as good as a pink dream. They are as soft as a butterfly kiss." In her pajamas, her mama tells her stories. In her pajamas, her papa sings her songs. In her pajamas, she snuggles down with Lili-poo, her ladybug. One day, Lulu decides that life would be much better if she could wear her pajamas ALL the time. Her parents let her wear her pajamas to school, but life isn't as perfect as she'd hoped. Her pajamas are now dirty, stained, and smelly. Maybe she shouldn't wear her pajamas at all if they're only going to be like that. Can Lulu's parents show her that pajamas are best worn only sometimes--at night?

© Becky Laney of Young Readers

Spires, Ashley. 2009. Binky The Space Cat. (A Binky Adventure). Kids Can Press.

I loved, loved, loved this one. It's about a cat, Binky, who has just received his certification. He has become an official "space cat." I'd tell you more about what that means. But it is super-top-secret information. And I don't want to be scratched and hissed at. Curious? Read the book yourself!

While I can't tell you about the top-secret-purpose of space cats, I can tell you more about Binky. He lives with two humans--one big, one small. And he has an important job, one that involves protecting his humans.

Actually Binky hasn't ever been outside.
He lives here, in this space station,
Entirely surrounded by outer space.
That's why, until now, he has had to stay inside.
Outer space isn't safe for an ordinary cat.

Despite his young age,
He quickly realized...
That aliens...
Were...
Everywhere!!
He could tell they were aliens
Because they could fly.
Even kittens know
That only aliens
Can fly.