Mock Children's Books or Mocking Children's Books?

Apparently there's a new trend in PR, the promotional "fairy tale."

"Entrepreneurs have a habit of describing their companies in David-and-Goliath terms. Now, some are taking cues from Eloise and James and the Giant Peach. A mini trend in the world of public relations has companies replacing their run-of-the-mill press releases with promotional materials that look and feel like children's books."

Here's the link to the entire article.

School Visits 101

I've had many more requests for school visits this year than I have had any other years. It's been a very fun, but busy, year and it's not over yet! If you are a teacher or librarian interested in hiring me or any other BC writer or illustrator for a visit, you might want to check out this info. from the CWILL-BC website. Funding assistance is available in some circumstances.

Huzzahs to Kathleen McNeely Kids

A big thanks to the children and teachers of Kathleen McNeely Elementary school in Richmond. I had a wonderful visit with you on Friday and you had such wonderful stories and questions. It was a pleasure! I had so much fun; I hope you did too!

Mark Your Calendars!

A couple of upcoming events you may want to attend if you're interested in the creators of Canadians books for kids.

Spring Book Hatching is June 14th at the Vancouver Public Library. You' ll have a chance to meet the authors and illustrators from CWILL-BC (Children's Writers and Illustrators of BC) that have new books to trot out. You can meet the creators, hear a bit about their book, get a book or three signed, win a door prize, and more fun. Here's a press release about the event.

And, BookFest: Vancouver Island Children's Book Festival, this coming Saturday, May 31st at Malaspina University. Here's an earlier post on the event. Hope to see you there!

Google Doodles

I'm not a hockey mother, but am a synchro mother, thus the very early mornings lately. Soon, soon, it will be over and the gloriously lazy mornings will be ours again. Into the pool for the team by 5:30, thus some early postings for me lately. I couldn't figure out today's Google banner, but my mouse tells me it's to celebrate the invention of the laser. Cool. If you ever wonder who makes those nifty logos and how they do it, check this out.

Just in case you think children's writers make the big bucks...

From time-to-time I peek in on Jane Yolen's journal, Telling the True, to see what she's up to. It's always an interesting read. She puts far more personal info. on-line than I'd ever be brave enough to do, but what I find most interesting is how damn hard this woman works. She is probably the most successful children's writer in North America; she's inevitably juggling several projects at a time, as well as speaking engagements, etc., (and she still gets turned down all the time BTW; that didn't surprise me, but it may surprise others), yet she still is watching her pennies. So...just in case you think writing a few children's books is going to make you rich, take a peruse through her journal for a reality check at just how hard one has to work. She recently posted a few tips on writing:

1. Eschew the exclamation point! If your prose is not exciting all on its own, a screamer (as it has been called in some circles, though not mine) is hardly going to help.

3. Don't let your characters float on the page. Unless, of course, they are birds, fairies, superheroes, or jet pilots. By that I mean anchor them with some action. Don't let them just talk and talk and talk. In theater, actors always have some bit of "business" that keeps their characters rooted in the real world. Even the birds, fairies, superheroes, or jet pilots.

8. Make your reader fall through the words into the story. As a wordophile, I love words like “furbelow” and “Taradiddles.” My favorite is the Scottish “Traghairm” which means to prophecy while wrapped in a bullock’s skin behind a waterfall.” But using a word that is unparsable at best and a bloody big STOP sign at worst is simply bad writing.

14. What about an editor? What do we want? What do we need? They are not necessarily the same thing. Well, this is what I want: truth, attention to detail AND the big picture, getting back to me on time, hard questions, and a love letter each bloody time we correspond. I want the editor to love the manuscript as it is, even though we both know it needs to be better. I want the editor to make the revision journey with me, sometimes leading me, sometimes a hand on my butt pushing me up the steep hill. I want the editor to be my voice in the publishing company, my cheerleading section, my advocate, and my sherpa. She (or he) does NOT have to be my best friend. In fact, sometimes having an editor as a best friend gets in the way of a good publishing relationship.

18. Dealing with the dreaded BLOCK. Here’s what I do if a project or piece of writing is being balky, threatening to stop up, or otherwise shut itself down. I stand up, walk about, eat a chocolate chip cookie (check this waistline if you want to know how I have been faring!). I have a cup of tea; watch a rerun of TOP CHEF or AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL; check email; read blogs like Fuse # 8 or BlueJo or Making Light; peruse magazines like Newsweek or Style 1900 or Smithsonian. (You now know more about me than is good for you!) What one is trying to do is to sucker in the hind brain, the lizard brain, getting it to work while it thinks no one is paying attention. If none of these distractions help, I turn to a different writing project. Since there are always plenty of them around, I never have to worry. Notice, I never settle into reading someone else’s finely-wrought novel during work on my own. If I do, it will be many hours or days before I resurface, my own projects forgot, and the beat of the novelist’s language in my head instead of my own novel’s voice. by Jane Yolen

Good advice all. Ms Yolen's site is a wealth of information and I recommend checking it out. Her book, Take Joy: A Writer's Guide to Loving the Craft is also a gem. (Here's a review.) Her classic picture book, Owl Moon, remains a favourite in our family and it's one book we'll never give away. It's a book very dear to her heart and family, too. One other thing I admire about Yolen is that she writes in almost all genres, from adult fiction to non-fiction to poetry. I find this encouraging and heartening, not being one who wants to be pegged...

All Hail the Query Shark!

Thanks for Fuse #8 for alerting me to this blog, Query Shark, on which "The Shark" evaluates query letters. As far as public service and what-to-read-before-you-submit, she's (I'm assuming said shark is a she, of course) is right up there with my other fav, Editorial Anonymous. If you think you're ready to submit, spend some time with these editors first.

The Museum Book

I like to think that I'm a pretty with-it gal, but I never made the connection that the origin of the word museum is the word muse. Duh. There, I've admitted it for all to see. This is just one of the little gems I learned in The Museum Book by Jan Mark, illustrated by Richard Holland. (Subtitle: A Guide to Strange and Wonderful Collections.) If you've ever been in my house, you'll know that I'm a bit of a pack-rat myself and rather fond of strange and wonderful collections. My own "collections" (a word which might be a tad rich for my ephemera) have no particular purpose other than being things that please me for one reason or another (and, of course, don't cost too much), so this book--explaining the origin and purpose of museums--is right up my alley.

Before you move on, thinking this is all rather dull, take a moment to see how Mark writes this gem. This is from Chapter 4: "By Aldrovandi's time, every collector wanted the most curious cabinet of curiosities, the most wonderful chamber of wonders, the biggest collection. A century later, things were really getting out of hand. The collections grew too large for boxes, too large for rooms. It was all very well for kings and rich men, as they had plenty of space, but not all collectors were kings and rich men.

Perhaps one day the collector's wife looked at her house, overflowing with fossils and dried toads and corals and plants and books and dragons' teeth, the stuffed crocodile and the nasty shriveled thing under the stairs that gave her the creeps, and said, "Either all that goes or I do!" The collector would think about this for a while and then find someone to take the collection off his hands."

I love how she speaks directly to the reader, as if they are truly in the know, on her side. It's a kind of nudge-nudge, wink-wink style that is very appealing and fun (to me at least!). I've never heard of Jan Mark before, but she was prolific in her day. (She died in 2006.) Here's a site maintained by her Flemish fans. I'll have to check out Thunder and Lightnings and Handles, which both won the Carnegie Medal.

The art by Richard Holland is a wonderful mixed-media collage style--perfectly eclectic for a book about museums, the most eclectic of things. Here's a peek at the first spread.

Here's what a reviewer at The Observer had to say:

There could not be a more marvellous memorial of Jan Mark, who died last year, than The Museum Book, illustrated with bright elegance by Richard Holland. This is an argument she must have wanted to make. There is nothing dustily didactic about it. It is a passionate, unpatronising, offbeat paean to museums and multiplicity.

Musing on Writing About Science for Kids

An interesting post from Steve Jenkins over at INK (Interesting Non-fiction for Kids) on the challenges of writing about science for children. Here's the crux of what he has to say:

I’m more interested in the problems that arise from the nature of contemporary scientific inquiry itself. These aren’t social or philosophical issues. Rather, they bring us up against the limits of human intellect and imagination. Much current science deals with the very large or the very small. The units of measurement used in astronomy and sub-atomic physics are so remote from our direct experience that they are nothing more than abstractions. The same is true of time. The impossibly short life spans of man-made elements or the billion-year intervals that describe the development of life are, once again, too extreme for most of us (perhaps any of us) to really grasp. I’m convinced that an inability to appreciate the time scale of the earth is at the root of many people’s refusal to accept evolution as an explanation of life’s diversity. It just doesn’t feel like it makes sense.

Beware the Moral

A tip from my favourite snarky, sarcastic New York children's book editor, Editorial Anonymous, just in case you're thinking along the lines of, "I have this great idea for a book that teaches kids [insert lesson here]." It won't fly and here's why.

Hockey Books in Canada

It seems that the Stanley Cup with be awarded to a team south of the border this year. I'm not the biggest hockey fan, but I do feel nostalgic about the game, which I consider to be quintisentially Canadian. Somehow teams with names like the "Mighty Ducks" just doesn't cut it for me. It will always be a game of the Maple Leafs, Canucks, Canadiens, and such pour moi. Given that it's playoff season, here are a couple of great books about our favourite game.

The Hockey Sweater (originally published in French as Le chandail de hockey) by Roch Carrier. This classic begins: "The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places -- the school, the church and the skating-rink--but our real life was on the skating rink." Young Roch adores Maurice Richard and, when his own hockey sweater is ripped, his mother writes to "Mr. Eaton" and orders a Canadien's sweater. But, horror of horrors, when the sweater arrives it is a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater. A classic for sure.

You can listen to Roch reading the story from this clip from the CBC Archives. You can also watch the animated short The Sweater from the National Film Board here. The Hockey Sweater is illustrated by Sheldon Cohen. Here's his blog.

And then there's The Moccasin Goalie, which is also told in the first person. ("A long time ago when I was a boy, my family lived on the prairies in a small town called Willow. The winters there were very cold, with the wind blowing the deep snow into huge drifts. My friends and I didn't mind. This was our favourite time of year. Cold temperatures meant ice, and ice meant hockey!") In this tale, four friends--Anita, Marcel, Petou and Danny (the narrator) live for hockey. Danny is always the goalie. Since he has a crippled leg and foot he can't wear skates so plays in his moccasins, thus "the moccasin goalie." There's much excitement in town when a "real" hockey team is formed, with uniforms and all. But...Anita, Petou and Danny are not picked for the new team. ("Girls don't play hockey, Petou is too small and Danny can't skate.") I'll leave the rest for you to discover. This classic is written and illustrated by William Roy Brownridge. Here's a review.

Two of My Favourite Things

Now this is very cool. And it's not really that much of a stretch -- scientists, after all, are some of the most creative thinkers going. And if they can explain their work creatively and without the bafflegab and jargon, well, we're all the better for it.

While we're on the topic of science and literacy, the Canadian Science Writers' Association has announced the winners of their annual Science in Society book awards.


Winner in the 2007 children's book category: Baby Sea Turtle by Aubrey Lang and Wayne Lynch (Fitzhenry and Whiteside)








Winner in the 2007 youth book category: Polaris by Julie Czerneda (Fitzhenry and Whiteside)

More BC Book Prizes finalists

A follow-up to yesterday's post, here are the finalists for The Christie Harris Illustrated Literature Award. (Blurbs from the BC Book Prizes site.)


The Day It All Blew Away, by Lisa Cinar

Huge-headed Mr. Tadaa and the little person are mighty lonely. Surrounded by characters who are always tipping their hats and shunning those who don’t return the favour, poor Mr. Tadaa has a head too big for his hat. Even worse, the little person’s hat is so big it wears him. One blustery day, Mr. Tadaa’s hat and the little person are blown away by the wind ... and right into each other! A surprise twist at the end shows that even in a world of hat-tippers, nonconformists can find happiness and friendship. Vancouver-based writer and illustrator Lisa Cinar graduated from Emily Carr Institute with a BFA in Fine Arts. This is her first book. Here's a review.


Elf the Eagle, written by Ron Smith, illustrated by Ruth Campbell

Elf is a baby eagle who worries about many things, including the distance from his nest, high up in a tree, to the ground, way, way down below. He also worries about his sister, Edwina, who is older and more adventurous than he is. Eventually, when his baby down grows into strong, black feathers, his parents stop bringing him food and tempt him with tasty morsels that they keep just out of reach. Elf gets very hungry and one day he accidentally tumbles out of his nest; before he knows it, he is flying. Founder and publisher of Oolichan Books, Ron Smith is the author of three collections of poetry and a book of short stories. He lives in Lantzville on Vancouver Island. This is his first book for children. An Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design graduate, Ruth Campbell is a painter who was born and raised in Montreal. She now lives in Vancouver.


Jeffrey and Sloth, written by Kari-Lynn Winters, illustrated by Ben Hodson

Jeffrey can’t think of a thing to write, so he doodles instead, only to have his doodle begin to order him about. Jeffrey struggles with the situation until he discovers that the most strong-willed doodle is powerless against a well-told tale. Jeffrey and Sloth is bound to have children rushing for their coloured pencils and their pens to see who and what they can create. Kari-Lynn Winters is an author and playwright. A graduate of Canada’s National Theatre School, she also performs with a children’s theatre group, The Tickle Trunk Players. She is currently completing her Ph.D. in the Language and Literacy Department at UBC. Ben Hodson is an award-winning artist based in Ottawa. Here's a review.


Pink, written by Nan Gregory, illustrated by Luc Melanson

Vivi is dizzy with wanting pink. Perfect pink. The kind the rich girls have, beyond the budget of her beloved truck-driver dad. One day in the window of a fancy toy store she sees something that embodies everything she longs for—a bride doll in a dress of perfect glistening pink. She saves and saves to buy the doll, walking the next-door dog and running errands. But when she takes her parents to show them the precious doll, she experiences a crushing disappointment. Pink is a touching story about longing for something beyond reach and finding something better close to home. Nan Gregory is a Vancouver-based award-winning author and professional storyteller. She won the CLA Book of the Year Award for Wild Girl and Gran and the Sheila A. Egoff Prize and the Mr. Christie’s Award for How Smudge Came. Luc Melanson is a commercial artist who has illustrated many picture books. He lives in Montreal. Here's a review.


A Sea-Wishing Day, written by Robert Heidbreder, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton

On a hot summer day, a wish transforms an urban backyard into a place of breezy high-seas adventure. As our bold Captain and Skipper ride the salty waves, they encounter a beastly sea monster, buried treasure, a scurvy pirate crew, lovely mermaids and more. The creative pair who brought you the acclaimed I Wished for a Unicorn offer up another celebration of the boundless distances a childhood wish can travel. A retired elementary school teacher, Robert Heidbreder has been enchanting children with his joyful poems and rhymes for more than two decades. His 2005 book, Drumheller Dinosaur Dance, won the BC Chocolate Lily Young Readers’ Choice Award. Kady MacDonald Denton is an author and illustrator of books for children and lives in Peterborough, Ontario. Here's a review.

Celebrating BC Books and Magazines

I'm a bit late with this, but we're smack in the middle of BC Book and Magazine Week. If you go to their website you'll find a listing of events. Perhaps you'll find one near you? Or, why not check out a BC magazine you haven't cracked open before -- there sure are enough of them. According to BCAMP (the BC Association of Magazine Publishers) there are over 75 to choose from, including (ahem) KNOW and YES Mag of course, but also such diversity as Room of One's Own, The Block, Small Farm Canada, and Lusitania. Browse the full list at the BCAMP site.

Now, though, I'd like to mention the finalists for the BC Book Prizes in the two children's lit. categories:

Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize
(All blurbs from the BC Book Prize site.)

The Alchemist's Dream, by John Wilson

In the fall of 1669, the vessel Nonsuch returns to London with a load of furs from Hudson Bay. It brings something else, too—the lost journal from Henry Hudson’s tragic search for a passage to Cathay in 1611. In the hands of a greedy sailor, the journal is merely an object to sell. But for Robert Bylot—a once-great maritime explorer—the book is a painful reminder of a past he’d rather forget. As Bylot relives his memories of a plague-ridden city, of the mysterious alchemist John Dee and of mutiny in the frozen wastes of Hudson Bay, an age-old mystery is both revealed and solved. The Alchemist’s Dream was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award. John Wilson is a prolific writer specializing in historical fiction for young adults, and this is the fourth time he has been shortlisted for the Sheila A. Egoff Prize. He lives in Lantzville on Vancouver Island.

Baboon: A Novel, by David Jones

Fourteen-year-old Gerry Copeland has mixed feelings about flying back to his parents’ research camp in the African savannah. While his biologist mom and dad study baboon behaviour, he’ll be thinking about the video arcade and restaurants back in the city. When their small plane goes down, Gerry wakes up thinking a baboon has broken his fall but is shocked to realize the furry arm is his own. Gerry’s only chance is to stay with the baboon troop but will his parents ever recognize him? Baboon has been shortlisted for several prizes, including Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children and has been listed in the Children’s Fiction Top 10 List by the Ontario Library Association and the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age. David Jones lives in Vancouver.

The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane, by Polly Horvath

Like her National Book Award-winning The Canning Season, The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane is filled with plot twists and extraordinarily strange characters. It is also a moving meditation on loss and finding family in the most unlikely places. Following the death of their parents, two cousins are sent to live with their distant, scholarly uncle and his eccentric house staff. Told in four characters’ voices, the novel is a layered account of one bad year from multiple points of view linking humour and pain. Polly Horvath has written many award-winning books for children and young adults, including The Trolls and Everything on a Waffle, which won the Sheila Egoff Prize in 2002. She lives in Victoria.

For Now, by Gayle Friesen

In Friesen’s previous book, Losing Forever, Jes learned to accept the inevitability of change. But change is moving at a heartbreaking pace and her world shifts by the day. There’s lots of uncertainty in Jes’s life, but the biggest uncertainty of all is love. Everyone has a different opinion on it. Dell says love should be so intense that it makes you puke—this from a girl who’s swept off her feet as easily as a dust bunny. Jes’s teacher says that love is about reuniting what was once divided—this from a guy who’s going through a divorce. If anything’s for sure, it’s that love is never predictable, but, as Jes begins to see, no one ever gives up on it. Born and raised in Chilliwack, Gayle Friesen studied English literature at UBC before becoming a writer. Her first novel, Janey’s Girl, won the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award. She lives in Delta.

Porcupine, by Meg Tilly

When her father is killed in Afghanistan, twelve-year-old tomboy Jack Cooper (or Jacqueline, as her mother insists on calling her) watches helplessly as her mother crumbles. Before long, Jack moves with her younger siblings from her Newfoundland home to a rundown farm on the Prairies with a great-grandmother they didn’t know existed. In the process, she learns that families come in many different forms and that love, trust and faith can build a home anywhere. A moving and inspiring tale, Meg Tilly’s Porcupine is a novel about adaptation and new understandings. Formerly a film actress, Meg Tilly is the author of two adult novels, Singing Songs and Gemma, and is currently at work on her second novel for young adults. She lives in Vancouver.

Congratulations, all.

This is getting long, so I'll post the finalists for the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize in another post.

Earth Day, a good time to redeem myself after yesterday's on-line hissy fit. Thank goodness there are far more fabulous books out there than aforementioned self-published dreck (I know, I know, there is some very well done self-published non-dreck) and Peter Sis's books are great examples of innovative non-fiction for kids.

In honour of the fact many of Charles Darwin's works are now on-line, I thought I'd take another peek at Sis's The Tree of Life (which has a subtitle reminiscent of the fabulously long titles of Darwin's time: A Book Depicting the life of Charles Darwin: Naturalist, Geologist & Thinker.) (Thanks to BookNinja, by the way, for alerting me to the Darwin archive and this article re. the release.) Using wonderfully detailed illustrations -- a Sis version of Where's Waldo and I Spy books, but much more beautifully rendered of course -- he introduces young readers to Darwin's life, his work, and some of his discoveries and ideas.

Here's Sis's Author's Note from the beginning of the book:

Charles Darwin regretted that he hadn't learned to draw. Instead, he kept detailed descriptions of everything he saw. It is these dense and vivid written passages in his diaries, letters and journals that have inspired me to use my own drawings, based on contemporary sources, to tell this story of his life. The text in my visualization of Darwin's diary entries has been freely condensed from his various writings about the voyage of the Beagle. Other sources for quotations and information include Darwin's autobiography, his letters, and the first edition of On the Origin of Species.


Sis takes us through Darwin's life story with the use of sketches, captioned illustrations, lists, diary entries, etc. We see Darwin as a child right through to his death. One of the most interesting spreads explained Darwin's serendipitous assignment as naturalist on the Beagle. We learn of his father's displeasure and how (with help from his maternal uncle Josiah Wedgewood), his father finally relented. On this spread Sis has used list to explain Father's Objections (e.g., That it would be a useless undertaking.) and then Practical Arrangements (e.g., case of strong good pistols; book on taxidermy; bible). Then we launch into his journey for several spreads followed by his life back in England, trying to piece it all together. (After the voyage, Sis clevery describes Darwin's activities into three parts: Public, Private, and Secret ("his developing a theory about the evolution and adaptation of species.)

Although I found the detailed drawings and explanations of his journey captivating -- and I'm sure younger readers will as well -- I'm not convinced that children will make the necessary leaps as to how he used these observations in his development of the ideas of natural selection. As I've written before, I think explaining natural selection and evolution is tricky and, in that vein, it can be such a challenge to distill it down. (Will young readers understand words such as adaptation and selection for instance?) So, while learning about Darwin's observations and discoveries on the Voyage of the Beagle are interesting in their own right, I'm not sure kids will make the connections between some of the things he'd seen on the voyage and his eventual development of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Of course Darwin took years to do this and he also incorporated other observations into this mix and I'm glad Sis included his (many) years after the Voyage as well. (As a side note, I was happy to see that Sis mention how Darwin spent eight years studying barnacles after his return. I always thought that was kind of quirky!)

Having said all this, I found this partial review by Roger Sutton at The Horn Book in the article The Ones That Got Away: Great Books That Didn't Get Their Due by Rick Margolis, in which Sutton makes a good point:

"Published to great reviews but no awards, Peter Sís’s The Tree of Life (Farrar/Frances Foster Bks., 2003) confounded those who wanted a straightforward explanation of evolution. Instead, the book is a remarkable joining of two imaginations, Sís’s and Darwin’s, hard at work to show us that scientific investigation is anything but straightforward. It instead requires the intense scrutiny of apparently disparate phenomena—just like this book.—Roger Sutton, The Horn Book"


(Yes, I agree, but I think this further points to how this book is definitely not a picture book for really young readers -- I think it's best suited for kids in the upper grades of elementary school and even beyond.) Quibbles aside, I think the book is a wonderful introduction to the life of one of our world's most important scientists and thinkers. His ideas (and of course those of Alfred Russel Wallace, who eventually came up with the same ideas, but was never as widely recognized) were indeed revolutionary and as the years go on are strengthened. The Teacher's Guide for this title is an added bonus, and will help strengthen many of the ideas introduced in the book. (Another reason why we need engaged and interested teachers and librarians in schools -- this book can bring you to a whole other level with wonderful instruction and discussion.)

I'm Almost, But Not Quite, Speechless

Uncharacteristically, I'm not quite sure what to say. Others have said it well, especially Colorado Writer who made this comment on Editorial Anonymous's post on this book: Barf-o-rama.

Others weigh in (yuck, yuck)
Patricia Storms over at BookLust, Nicholas Lezard at The Guardian and
Feministing. You can view a few pages over at Newsweek (make sure you check out the size of the doctor's shoulders). Ack, ack, double ack.

I probably shouldn't waste any cyberspace (or brain cells for that matter) ruminating on this, but frankly it ticks me off. Oh, and did I mention when this gem will be released? Mother's Day. Lovely.

I promise to be more productive and positive soon.

I'm Cravin' These Crayolas

Okay, I try to stay on task here, blogging about kids' books and other writerly things, but these crayon sculptures by Diem Chau were just so cool. And didn't we all started our careers as writers and illustrators with crayons? Make sure you check out Chau's site -- lots of goodies to ogle over. (Thanks to design*sponge for the link.)

Turning Up the Volumes

If you're in BC (and even if you're not; you can listen on-line) you might want to turn the dial CBC on Saturday mornings to check out Sheryl MacKay's North By Northwest. Alan Twigg, writer and publisher of BC's treasure, BC Bookworld, and supporter of all things literary in BC has a spot on the show every other week called Turning Up the Volumes. In each spot he profiles a BC writer and/or book that you may, or may have not, heard of. The shows thus far have been far-reaching and varied, from Wylie Blanchet, author of the classic The Curve of Time, to Eric Collier, author of Three Against the Wilderness, to Betty Pratt-Johnson, whose books on diving in BC are long-standing classics. All of the past shows are available on-line here. Twigg also spearheads the Author Bank, which includes entries on all authors from BC (an impressively long list).

Writing West Coast History

Ever been rescued by the Coast Guard on the west coast? If so, get your fingers tapping and write a short (very short) story for the story contest being held in honour of the Bamfield Life Boat Station's centenary celebration. (You can also use the experiences of others if you haven't been so "lucky" as to have been rescued by these fine folks.) I have been rescued by the Canadian Coast Guard, but it was on the east coast. Too bad -- it's a pretty good story. Another time...

Creatures Big and Small, Old and New

I am such a fan of Karen Patkau's work and I've had two of her books on my desk for awhile now, just waiting for a moment to blog. Karen is an illustrator and author from Toronto and she's published several books, including the natural history gems I have here: Creatures Great and Small and Creatures Yesterday and Today.

It's often the simplest of concepts that work so well. In Creatures Great and Small, Patkau explores animals of the world, but focusses on the large and small (although not always the largest and smallest) in each category. So, for the spread on amphibians she illustrates the Chinese Giant Salamander and the Poison Dart Frog. Four lines of text, written in the first person, give information on the animal pictured. For Chinese Giant Salamander, for instance, she writes:

I live in the mountains, among the rocks
of muddy riverbanks. Nocturnal, I am
awake at night. That is when I crawl along
the cold riverbed, searching for a meal.

Each text block reads almost like poetry to my ear. No doubt children will enjoy searching for the smallest creatures. On the spread on insects, for instance, the Feather-winged Beetle is about the half the size of a grain of rice. On the mollusk spread, a small garden snail "streaks" across the bottom of the page.

This book can be used in so many ways. Of course, children will love the bright illustrations and searching for the creatures, but parents and teachers can also use the book as a jumping off point for discussing animal classification (mammals, fish, birds, amphibians, arachnids, insects, etc.) and also units of measure. Two spreads at the end of the book help explain comparative sizes using kid-friendly terms (big, really big, small, really small), yet also have more complex ideas such as using grid squares to measure off size, and visual comparisons (e.g., actual size, 2 x actual size, etc.). This information may go over the heads of some children, but that's okay. At some point it will be useful even when they think they are too old for a picture book. (You never are, IMHO.) And I was so happy to see metric measures listed first, followed by imperial. Metric is, after all, the measure of science (not to mention Canada and most of the world; the US being the most notable hold-out).

Here's a review of Creatures Great and Small and the publisher's catalog copy.

Creatures Yesterday and Today uses the same format but introduces us to creatures now extinct, and their distant relatives alive today. This is a fabulous concept and one that I don't think is tackled often, at least not in a picture book format. The first spread (labelled Creatures Yesterday), for instance, shows the dinosaur diplodocus. The text reads:

I was a giant planting-eating dinosaur,
with a big heart and a tiny brain. My neck
was so long, I could nibble fern leaves in
the forest while standing in an open field.

The next spread (Today) shows us a skylark with the text:

As I fly, you can hear my warbling song.
Like a theropod of long ago, I have a
wishbone, scaly feet, and hard-shelled
eggs. Am I a living dinosaur?

Theropod might send the teachers (but probably not the kids, who would know) searching for a dictionary, but Patkau has thought ahead and included a glossary for words that may need explanation. (And I'm wondering if planting-eating is an error -- plant-eating would certainly have scanned better.) Shelves are groaning with books on dinosaurs, but this book fills a gaping hole in paleobiology. Patkau goes beyond "dinosaurs as prehistoric animal" and introduces young readers to a broad range of prehistoric creatures: Hylonomus, Brontoscorpio, Smilodon, the crustacean Canadaspis and more, most of which they've probably never heard of. This is such a strength of the book. There is so much more to the prehistory of animals than dinosaurs and Patkau has sent young readers down the road to exploring the fascinating world of paleobiology.

Patkau's art at first glance seems simple, but it is so subtly rendered, with wonderful textures and patterns in each figure. The illustration of the Phorusrhacos, for instance, looks as if it has been carefully cut out of 10 or so different textured papers, yet it is computer generated. Patkau's style is definitely unique, engaging and recognizable. These books are as useful in art class and they are in science or language arts.

Both books include maps as endpapers, showing the relative locations of each animal illustrated. In Creatures Yesterday and Today, two spreads show a geological timeline and gives the approximate time when each of the prehistoric creatures lived.

Here's a review and the catalog copy for Creatures Yesterday and Today.