Check out I.N.K.

Some interesting posts over at I.N.K. (Interesting Non-fiction for Kids): Dark Subjects and First Class Travel on Other People's $$. Had a dream about Fuse #8 last night. Obviously, I need a holiday, but both of these kids' lit blogs are worth checking out.

MOM, I'm bored!

If you're a parent, you might have heard that phrase a few times this summer. (Bored is a swear word in our house, but it still comes up from time-to-time.) The next time the b-word is uttered, toss a copy of Helaine Becker's Boredom Blasters their way and scream "Bored people are boring people." Okay, perhaps I'm the one who needs a holiday, but your kids still can't go wrong with this book, which has the subtitle: Brain Bogglers, Awesome Activities, Cool Comics, Tasty Treats, and More....

This is one of Becker's older books. It won the Silver Birch Award in 2006 and obviously delighted kids with ideas such as "Silly Kid Tricks," tips on fortune telling and palm reading, ideas for story and joke telling, quizzes (e.g., How Funny Are You?), recipes and a whole lot more. My favourite are the ideas for Wacky Machines You Can Really Use, which give instructions for Rube-Goldberg-style machines such as the Automatic Toaster, Automatic Face Washer and Automatic Dressing Machine. Lots of fun here, and if this book doesn't grab your little darlings Becker has a whole whack more: Funny Business, Secret Agent Y. O. U., Are You Psychic, to name a few. Boredom Blasters was illustrated by the lovely and talented Claudia Davila, who also illustrated some of my books.

Font Conference

Oh my goodness, this is too funny not to share. Thanks to BookNinja for the link.

Inclusive Literature vs. Propoganda in Sweden

It is a gimmic to sell books, or not? Do the books tell good stories? That's what we should be asking, I think. Would love to see some of the books. Anyone out there who has?

On the Road with Wow Canada!

Okay, it's not too PC considering the price of gas and global warming and all, but we're going on a road trip in a few weeks. To our credit, we'll be driving our spanking new hybrid, which we can ill afford (Anyone want to by a great Toyota 4-Runner? I'll throw in a box of great books to sweeten the pot!) and we'll be hiking once we arrive at our destination. In the car I'll definitely be packing Vivien Bowers' Wow Canada! Exploring This Land from Coast to Coast to Coast.

In this fact-and-fun-packed book, we join 10-year-old Rachel, her older brother Guy, a stuffed beaver (Bucko), Mom and Dad as they cram in their van and head out to explore our vast country from coast to coast to coast. (As Guy tells us in the introduction, "Our whole family is going on a trip across Canada. When my parents told us, they said we had to do it now because in two years I'll be fourteen and 'cool,' and I won't want to go anywhere with my family.")

The scrapbook style of the book provides something for everyone: a map introducing each province or territory, fabulous photographs with short captions, longer chatty entries of the trip as seen through Guy's eyes, lots of great, and very funny sidebars such as Exceedingly Weird (according to Guy), Food I Was Introduced to for My Own Good (such as oysters), According to Mom (who loves to fill in the details), According to Dad (more details and historical bits), Guy's Family Car Trip Survival Tips (new and crazy ways to drive your parents crazy), Things We'll Do and Places We'll Go Next Time, and more.

This book is packed full of info. I can't imagine how long it took Bowers to research and write. It is a keeper for sure and was deservedly so an award winner when it was released. (It won the Red Cedar award one year when I had a book on the short-list, too. It also won the BC Book Prize (Sheila Egoff award), the Hackamatack, and the Information Book Award from the Children's Literature Roundtables. ) Here's a review from Canadian Materials. Happy road tripping, whether you're on a bike, on foot, or (gulp) in a car.

To YA or Not to YA

The blur between what is an adult book and what is a "young adult" (YA) book is a fuzzy one as this article attests. Frankly, this sort of nonsense makes my blood boil,

Mark Haddon, who wrote numerous novels for children before “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” said in an e-mail message that he recalled “a number of people looking down their noses at me when I explained what I did for a living, as if I painted watercolors of cats or performed as a clown at parties.”

Many adults don’t realize how much the Y.A. genre has changed since their days of reading teenage romances and formulaic novels. “A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. is the Garden of Eden of literature,” said Sherman Alexie, whose first Y.A. novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” won the National Book Award for young people’s literature last year. Even the prestige of that award didn’t make him impervious to the stigma. “Some acquaintances felt I was dumbing down,” Alexie said in a phone interview. “One person asked me, ‘Wouldn’t you have rather won the National Book Award for an adult, serious work?’ I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian — that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing Y.A.”

and I think the author is bang on when she said that many adults have no idea what YA really means. Get thee to a book store and check it out. Really, anything goes, and some of the best literature going is written for young people who will gladly toss a book aside if it doesn't grab them from the beginning.

Kids' Books from Across the Pond

Things have been crazy busy without much time to post. For now, here's a list of recommended books from UK's Telegraph newspaper.

Pack Some Mags in Those Bags

Getting ready for a day at the beach or perhaps a road trip? Why not slip some kids' mags in with the Frisbee, sunscreen and lemonade? The summer issues of KNOW and YES Mag are hot off the press.

The theme for this issue of KNOW is night life -- what goes on in your neighborhood at night (ahem, just the stuff fit for the consumption of 6-to-9 year olds)? The kids can read about night-blooming plants and animals that are out and about at night. There's also a Where's Waldo-type spread that highlights the people who are hard at work while most of us are asleep. Elsewhere in the pages are columns on skin (and how sunscreen works), the steps that go into the making of a comic, garter snakes, shark skin, Mercury and how palaeontologists remove fossils from the rock. And, of course, activities, puzzle pages, and ideas of how to participate in future issues. Thirty-two pages of fun, fun, in my unbiased opinion!




For the older kids (and their parents), YES Mag is heading Into the Danger Zone! In this issue they're looking at science in the extreme -- outer space, volcanoes, venomous animals, deep sea, microbiology labs and more. There are also features on vehicles that run on air, the Svalbard Seed Bank tucked up in the chilly Norwegian mountains, and also the physics and chemistry of how those beach essentials -- sunglasses and sunscreen -- work.

Happy (Belated) Canada Day!

We had a happy Canada Day around Tough City. So happy and full of action that I didn't find time to post despite my best intentions. Before I get to a couple of books celebrating our big mass of a country, I'll pass this link on (since I seem to be hepped on alphabet books at the moment): Beyond the Letters: A Retrospective of Canadian Alphabet Books. It's five years out of date, but there's lots of interesting information, and, of course, links to great Canadian books, here. Definitely worth a look.

First up, Eh? to Zed: A Canadian ABeCedarium. Written by Kevin Major and illustrated by Alan Daniel, this is largely an illustrated book with pictures to pore over. Each page (and thus each letter) is allotted a page where Daniels has constructed a collage of images related to the letter. So, for example, the text for L is: Loon, lacrosse, Lillooet, lumberjack. And the accompanying image illustrates just that (with a twist in that the loon is a rubbing of the dollar coin, the "loonie.") But, like most picture books, there's more to it. If you read the text on both pages of a spread, you'll see you have rhyming stanzas such as this:

Gould, Gretzky, Greene, Grizzly bear
Habitant, Horseshore, humpback, hare

Daniel's illustrates the text in an interesting and varied way. For instance, for G we see Glenn Gould on the jewel case of a CD, a skating Wayne Gretzky, and a museum mounted grizzly bear (on a platform). Nancy Greene is shown on one half of one of those flip books where you can change the head, torso and legs of creatures (in this case people) to make funny images. We see Nancy's toqued-head and her legs with skis, but for a torso she has the back of Gretzky's (#99) jersey. Hmm, a little odd, but okay. The strange thing though is that a native person on the other side of the flip book (with a befeathered headress and leather-clothed legs and feet) has what appears to be a cowboy's torso. There is no mention of this native person here or in the text at the back of the book. An oversight or deliberately done to promote discussion? I'd love to know. (Actually, now I DO know! See below.)

At the back of the book there is a densely packed (VERY small font!) four-page spread of text and this is not to be missed: it is full of gems. The pages are titled The Choice of Words, The Choice of Images and is followed by: "Kevin Major's caravan of words cheers our history and celebrates our heroes. It couple the well known with the obscure, the curious with the symbols of our nation. For every province and territory there is a place name, for many junctions of our country something to be discovered. Here are some morsels of information the author came up with for the 104 words."

Even more enlightening and interesting are the notes to Daniel's art: "Alan Daniel's response to these 26 quartets of words reflects the cultural artefacts that have emerged throughout our history. The tableaus he has created are filled with both folk and fine art, the sacred as well as the commercial. They are objects to display in museums and toys to fill a child's idle hours. Several of them call for special mention." So, for example, the Mountie is a whirligig, the Humpback is a soapstone carving, and a cornhusk doll holds a Lacrosse stick. Here's what he has to say about the flip book for G: "A flip book can put Nancy GREENE on skates or make her namesakes Graham and Lorne do a switch-about in television land." Oh, you mean that's Graham Greene? Yikes, I never would have known unless I mined the back for this detail. It's unlikely Graham Greene or Lorne Greene will mean much to kids, but hopefully it won't be lost on the adult reader and it certainly made me want to pore over every other page to see what else would come to light.

Here's the Q, X and Z test:

Quahog, quarter horse, quints, Qu'Appelle
Xenon, xylograph, x-country, x-ing
Zamboni, zipper, zinc, zed

Okay, a bit of a stretch for some because xenon, Zamboni's, and zippers aren't really Canadian (zippers are marginally), but Major skillfully makes them fit in his explanatory notes, so I'll give him that!

In honour of Canada Day, or any day for that matter, this book is one for the bookshelves of all Canadian kids. Just don't forget to spend time with the four pages of notes at the end. They bring so much more to the book and truly make it interactive, not to mention giving an excellent grounding in the diversity of our countries history, geography, citizens, culture, and art.

Here's a review from Canadian Materials.

One More Alphabet Book

Okay, a week or so ago I said I was going to review some alphabet books and then stopped at two. Not much of a list, so here’s another one: M is for Maple: A Canadian Alphabet. Another one from Sleeping Bear Press in Chelsea, Michigan. Apparently they have plans for one from each province (and territory perhaps?). If, like me, you’re wondering why an American publisher is so keen on Canadian content here’s some insight from the June 2008 issue of Quill and Quire: “…publisher Heather Hughes grew up in PEI and also lived in Edmonton before settling in Ann Arbor, Michigan.”

First, the Q, X and Z test:

Q is for Quebec
X marks the spot (where the Last Spike was driven)
Z is for zipper

I like how the author has handled the Z, which was actually not designed by a Canadian:

Z stands for Zipper, which everyone knows
is very important in tents and in clothes
A U.S. inventor had a zipperish notion
but it took a Canadian to get the zipper in motion.

In the notes that accompany this page, he adds more information. (The zipper was invented by an American, but it was perfected and patented by Canadian Gideon Sundback.)

The Canadiana covered in this title is broad indeed: Anne of Green Gables, Kim Campbell, the Dionne quints, Eh, northern lights, Ojibwa, Stampede, Underground Railway, etc. It’s a cursory look at the country, of course, but what can one do with only 52 entries. (Each entry has a main entry – the rhyming text – and then another entry for that letter. For example, U covers both Underground Railway and Ukranians.)

This title is written by Mike Ulmer and beautifully illustrated by Melanie Rose. Ulmer, who is the sport’s columnist at the Toronto Star, has also written a few other alphabet books, including J is for Jumpshot: A Basketball Alphabet and H is for Horse: An Equestrian Alphabet. Rose has been the illustrator for a number of Sleeping Bear titles and it's clear why -- her illustrations support the text well and, in particular, she captures the essence of people well. A particular favourite is the joy on the gold seeker's (K is for Klondike) face as well as the two children playing in a pile of ruby red maple leaves (M is for maple.) This last image is used on the cover.

Here’s a review from Canadian Materials and here's a teacher's guide.

On Tasha Tudor

Wow, I had no idea. I played Little House on the Prairie in my playhouse, but she took it all the way.

Reading on Paper vs. Reading On-Line

This is a great article from Slate, by Michael Agger, illustrating beautifully how we read on-line. Well worth a look.

The Lists of Summer

And so the summer book reading lists begin. Here's one from The Tyee. I'm not sure what's more fun, reading the book blurbs or the blurbs that introduce them? (e.g., Perfect book to read during the commercial breaks of Dancing with the Stars reruns; perfect book to hold open with mouth whilst spooning tofulatti into your mouth; perfect book to read on the beach, especially under small arms fire or threat of hurricanes...).

Tips For Success

The sun is shining, the house is quiet, I've got the best coffee in the world (or at least my world) and Fuse #8. As usual, her site is full of great reviews and links-o-rama. Here's one from today, which will be invaluable for anyone trying to get into the baffling industry of children's books. Take heed, take heart. Thanks to Pixie Stix Kids Pix for all of the work that went into this. Looks like another site for my ever growing list of RSS feeds.

The Quest for Independence

I live in a remarkable place. Remarkable for its beauty and charming citizenry of course (ahem), but also for the fact that is has four, YES FOUR, independent bookstores. That, in a place with approximately 5000 people in the greater region (say, if I drew a 100 km diameter circle from where I live). Granted, there are a gazillion visitors to the area each year and they certainly do help, but we like our books here and I personally love our bookstores. Now, whether they all survive in the end is another thing, but they're hanging in there. (All have to sell other stuff -- coffee, kites, more coffee, kayak trips, expensive outdoor clothes, etc. -- but the primary purpose in three of the stores is to sell books.)

If you've ever wondered why writers and publishers whine about the dearth of independent bookstores, check out this blog post by Annick Press president Rick Wilks. As he says, independents mean diversity and that is a fine thing in many (actually, all) aspects of life: the more diversity, the more choice for you dear reader. The more diversity, the more knowledgeable staff who've actually read the books and care about giving you the best information (and book, of course) they can. So, just as when you shop for food (and, well, just about anything) cheap is most often not better. Cheap means someone is getting screwed. So, please, when it comes to books, put sticker price aside and support your independents.

Magook!

A seriously good time was had by moi as I prowled through a few of my favourite second-hand book shops in the last few days. Today I was thrilled to come across an copy (hard cover with a dust jacket) of an Ann Blade book I'd never heard of: The Cottage at Crescent Beach published in 1977 by Magook Publishers Ltd., a publisher I'd never heard of. Then, I troll further through the stack and came across a little soft cover with the title in big red caps.: MAGOOK, also published in 1977. And, inside is also the same story by Ann Blades followed by a four-page bio with pictures, a "new poem" by Dennis Lee (I Eat Kids Yum, Yum!), a craft (how to make paper), another story, The Halloween Switch by G. Joan Morris, and a fold out (the back cover) comic, Magook, by M. and W. Brown. Serious second-hand scores!

So, first MAGOOK. I'm a bit slow on the up-take, but it's a cross between magazine and book. The editors' note says: "MAGOOK! Sound funny? Well, we are a kind of cross between a magazine and a book because each and every issue will feature a complete book. We are something new, and we are pretty excited about it.") Apparently it was a venture of McClelland and Stewart although I can't find too much on-line about it. The one I picked up was the first issue and the publication notes say it will be published 16 times a year. (Working on a magazine that comes out six times a year I can't fathom 16!) More searching only came up with reference to 4 (possibly 5), so, sadly, it never lasted. No visuals available for either Crescent Beach or MAGOOK -- I must get that scanner hooked up so I can show you.

Another nice surprise in the hard copy was a newspaper clipping about Ann. No date, but I suspect it's from the same era (late 1970s) as the book. Ann's art is so recognizable -- I know most of her work: Mary of Mile 18 (which won the Children's Book of the Year in 1972 as voted by the Canadian Library Association); A Dog Came, Too; A Salmon for Simon and so on. I have to say that the art in The Cottage at Crescent Beach is the loveliest of the bunch IMHO. The soft watercolours are perfect for the nostalgic remembrance of a childhood at Crescent Beach before it was consumed by White Rock (my mom remembers going there as a child, too -- it was out in the "country" then of course) and the illustration of the children underwater is particularly beautiful and evocative.

The article I found in the book is a really interesting read, too, recounting Blade's career and early attempts and successes when there were very few children's books being published in Canada. In the article, Ricky Englander (who went on to start Kids Can Press) is interviewed in her capacity as librarian at the Children's Book Centre in Toronto. The article also talks about Blades' nervousness at being asked to illustrate books by Margaret Atwood (Anna's Pet) and Margaret Laurence (Six Darn Cows):

"Six Darn Cows came out in November 1979. Blades laughs as she recalls a meeting with Margaret Laurence. 'She liked my illustrations, but I said I thought the cows looked a bit like dogs. Then she hugged me and said, 'They're lovely cows.'" Imagine having the honour of illustrating the work of those two Margarets!

So, I wonder, have any of you ever heard of (or perhaps you remember?) MAGOOK? What were the other copies like?

Between the Covers

Crazy busy around here, but here's a little snippet of interest from AbeBooks (via BookNinja; thanks!) about the treasures found between the covers of used books. My best finds have been in cookbooks. I picked up a hardcover copy of The Joy of Cooking awhile back and found slips of paper with handwritten recipes for Mina's Oatmeal Cookies, banana bread, and a newspaper clipping for "New No-Bake Treats!: Chocolate Favorite Flavor for Cookies" (no date, but 12 oz. tins of "beef loaf" (!) were 2 for $1.00; and creamed corn was 6 tins for $1.00). On the end pages are hand-written recipes for Grace's Oat Cakes, Pink & White Squares, Never Fail Biscuits, Jam Jam Cookies, Bean Salad and more. Sound like the fare of bake sales and church potlucks to me.

The recipes bring to mind a favourite book around here: The Party by the very talented Barbara Reid (such a great website; don't skip the intro.).

I can just see these recipes this cook took the time to write out decorating the overflowing food tables in this keeper.

If you haven't read The Party, check it out. It's a gem and is guaranteed to bring a flood of memories to anyone over 40 (and probably younger). It's a perfect read for the inevitable summer gatherings of friends and family. Here's a link from Ms. Reid's website and here's a review. This gem was the recipient of a Governor General's Literary Award in 1997.

So what have you found between the covers of a used book? Do tell.

More ABCs

Today, C is for Chinook: An Alberta Alphabet, another installment in Sleeping Bear Press's series of ABC books. (I've got one of my own ABCs cooking -- sad to hear they aren't taking submissions at the moment.) C is for Chinook is written by Dawn Welykochy and illustrated by Lorna Bennett. As in the S is for Spirit Bear, the BC title, the author gives a great overview of the people (Anthony Henday; The Famous Five, Nellie McClung and friends; John Ware, Mary Percy Jackson, etc.), places (Red Deer Valley, Lake Louise, Writing on Stone, Bar U Ranch, etc.), animals (Bighorn sheep, Great horned owl, etc.), and other phenomena representative of the province (e.g., Chinook winds, hoodoos, dinosaurs, icefields, etc.). The four-line poems pique the reader's interest (and may be enough for some), while the longer text blocks expand upon the topic of the page or add more.

Politics aside, I adore Alberta. I lived there for a few years, met my husband there, and travelled through the province as much as I could. I don't think there is a province in our vast country with such a breadth of fabulous parks and interpretive centres. Our most memorable family vacation was to visit friends in the Rockies then head over to southern Alberta to stay at Dinosaur Provincial Park, visit the Tyrrell Museum, walk through a coulee filled with dinosaur nests at a place whose name escapes me, marvel at the walls of petroglyphs at Writing on Stone Provincial Park overlooking the Milk River, then over to Fort MacLeod, Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump and up to Frank Slide. Fabulous stuff. So, this was a nostalgic look back at the province I love.

Welykochy has done a masterful job of exploring the breadth of Alberta and this book provides 26 (and more!) places to springboard off on discussions of the natural and cultural history of the province. Lorna Bennett's uncluttered art, beautifully rendered, helps to evoke the many moods of the province. My favourite is the hunkered down "Doc" Mary Percy Jackson, riding horseback through a snowstorm enroute to assist the women who needed her.

Q test: Q's for erratic quartzite [at Okotoks] (a clever way to bring Okotoks and Ice Age in!)
X test: X stands for railway crossing/By train immigrants came to our land/Settling out west to farm,/ it was what the government planned. (X is a tough one; I'll give her that!)
Z test: Z is for a safari at the Zoo [illustration of zebras] (Segue into a discussion of the world-renowned Calgary Zoo.)

Here's a review from Canadian Materials. And here's a teacher's guide. Finally, meet the author, hear (and see) her read, and learn about the book at this YouTube video.

ABCs of Canada

I'm always on the prowl for alphabet books and have been fiddling with one myself, which will probably never see the light of day (or a printing press). Sleeping Bear Press, from Chelsea, MI, seems to specialize in them, including titles for Canada. Each has its own flavour and a different writer-illustrator team. All are worth a look. Let's start close to home...

S is for Spirit Bear: A British Columbia Alphabet by G. Gregory Roberts and illustrated by Bob Doucet.

Each spread includes four lines of rhyming text and then a longer explanation of the ideas introduced in the stanza. Here's the entry for E:

E is for Emily Carr
with her artist soul and artist hand.
She inspired us with her written word,
and her paintings of her land.

As a lifelong resident of BC, I appreciate the breadth of the representations of BC the author included. Aboriginal people, dogwood (our provincial flower), Steller's Jay (our provincial bird), BC ferries, Steve Nash, Ogopogo, Zeballos, etc. Clearly, Roberts did his homework. He is cognizant, for instance, that after using Queen Charlotte Islands for Q, to mention the name preferred by the Haida residents, Haida Gwaii, and it's great to have so many current references, such as the discovery of "Kwaday Dan Sinchi, the "long ago person found." I have only a few quibbles, one being that I found a few of the rhymes a bit clunky and also that there was really not much representation of the northern part of the province (north of Haida Gwaii). Minor quibbles though and this book would make a great keepsake, introduction to the province, and useful resource in the classroom and library.

Any writing instructor will tell you that if you're interested in writing an ABC book, to do the Q, X and Z test first. If you don't have a good match for those letters, it's not going to fly. So, here's how Roberts approached the challenge:

Q test: "Q is for Queen Charlotte Islands,..." (BC has a few choices for Q, so this was a good choice.)
X test: "The name Terry Fox holds the X..." (Hmmm, a bit of a stretch, but Terry needs to be in this book, so I forgive!)
Z test: "Z is for Zeballos,..." (Nice exposure for this little island town.)


Here's a review from Canadian Materials and here's a teacher's guide.

More Huzzahs

Just back from a fabulous week of events in the Nanaimo area. The organizers of Book Fest, the Vancouver Island Children's Book Festival, put on an outstanding event. It was so well organized and you treated the presenters so wonderfully. Attentive and interested hosts and drivers, lovely meals in stunning settings, keen readers young and old. I had a fabulous time and I'll be back with my own children, and hopefully children from our town, in tow. If you haven't ever attended this event, mark it on the calendar for next May. It is so well worth it. Thanks also to the students and teachers of the schools I visited this week: North Oyster, Seaview, Ladysmith Elementary and Middle schools, and Pleasant Valley (as well as the libraries in Nanaimo and Gabriola). It was also such fun meeting other writers and illustrators. Had a blast. I'll be back!