How to use this Page

“A wonderful student but…” is a phrase that would commonly show up on my report cards and I swear my dad’s eye would twitch each time he stumbled across one of those “buts”. The only complaint I ever got all through school was my lack of concentration. English class was spent deep sea diving, looking [...]

My dad is weird. Besides claiming to be from Mars, my dad has a freezer full of dead goldfishes. Okay, “full” might be an exaggeration; there’s maybe half a dozen or so. My dad stopped raising goldfish after they all died. Instead of flushing them down the toilet or throwing them out with the trash, [...]

Shhhhhhhhhhh… Read more after the jump. From morning to night, we are constantly hustling and bustling, our senses bombarded by noise and images. Every minute filled and counted for, down to the tenth of the second. It is amazing that we can still find pockets of quiet in an over-stimulated world. The Quiet Book, written by [...]

The moral of the story: modesty and perseverance will always be rewarded. Read more after the jump. Author and illustrator Brian Wildsmith gives us his personal take on an old classic, The Hare and the Tortoise. Inspired by the La Fontaine version, Wildsmith simply retells the fable about a race between a boastful hare who thinks [...]

With the recession hitting hard, I am finding myself housebound this summer. With no big plans to take off to places unknown, I am exploring my own backyard instead. One great thing about living in Toronto is the mix of cultures and ethnicities and you don’t have to go far to experience different parts of [...]

I am finding it hard to keep motivated these days, to keep plugging away at my goals when it feels like I am hitting a brick wall at every turn. When things get tough, it can easily send your mind into a tailspin, so much so that you forget what your goals even are. It’s [...]

This week, we continue to think outside the box. Read more after the jump. Antoinette Portis’s sequel to Not a Box is just as imaginative and engaging. Not a Stick introduces readers to a little pig and his stick. Insisting it is not just a stick, the little pig demonstrates its many uses: a [...]

Last week, our super duper cat-scratching post was delivered, with the manufacturer’s guarantee that this will become our cat’s new best friend and will make him the envy of all cats. Well, Binky wasn’t impressed. However, he was wild about the box it was delivered in; he spent hours playing with the packaging. I remember [...]

He shoots, he scores!!! Like millions of other Canadians this past Sunday, I was glued to my television set, watching the gold medal game between Canada and United States in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. One game. One chance. One winner. It was intense, with the U.S. tying up the game 30 seconds before the end [...]

Chicken wings, sausages, salami and RIBS are a few of my favorite things, which is a major offense for a vegetarian. Three years ago, I had it in my head that it would be a brilliant idea for a vegetarian to attend rib feast, which is exactly like it sounds like – all-you-can-eat ribs from [...]

When I was in junior high, I had a mean old bat for an art teacher. Let us call her Old Bat for short, in order to protect the not-so-innocent. Whenever she got angry, her voice would screech like nails on a chalkboard, and no matter what the weather was like outside, she would inevitably [...]

Growing up, my dad had a red station wagon, and every summer we kids (sibling and cousins) would pile into the back and off we would go to the beach. It was probably an hour outside the city, but it seemed to me like it was an endless drive before we saw water. Read more [...]

Goodnight, Little Bear (1961) Chipmunk's ABC (1963) The Bunny Book (1955) by Richard Scarry Golden Books 2008 At first blush there isn't really much one can say about these classic picture books featuring early Richard Scarry artwork. The stories themselves are practically ur-picture book archetypes: the little bear that won't go to bed and "hides" on his father's shoulders; a basic animal ABC