Okanagan CollegeLibrary
|
> Homepage > Administration > Student Services > Library > About OC Library > Campuses > Salmon Arm Library Information > Deakin Newsletter of Children's Literature > Deakin Newsletter October 2005
Deakin Newsletter October 2005Newsletter and reviews written by Dr. Andrea Deakin.Picture Books
"There was a mouse who had lost her baby..." She searches up hill and down dell, through the rainforest, but cannot find him. Suddenly a huge gorilla approaches her and bellows, "Stop!". Terrified that he will "crunch me up for lunch", the mouse mother takes off, the gorilla in pursuit, to China and New York, to Australia and the Arctic. Exhausted she waits trembling, only to have the gorilla open his hand and show her her baby. "Who were you running from, Mouse?" he asks gently before he takes them both home. The story, with its strong recurring expression of the mouse's terror, builds beautifully to the climax where the poor misunderstood Killer Gorilla is puzzled at her flight, and the mouse is wise enough to keep silent. Tony Ross's illustrations are hilarious as the gorilla grows in ferocity in response to the mouse's fear only at the end to gaze upon her with his kind brown eyes. This is another strong collaboration. Their previous work together, Tadpole's Promise won the Smarties Silver Medal.
A Apple Pie is a traditional English alphabet rhyme that has been traced back to at least 1671. The best known edition so far is that of Kate Greenaway in 1886. Gennady Spirin has chosen to set this delightful new version in Victorian times, using a gentle autumnal palette and inserting small details to discover. Every page contains an apple, each apple having its own small adventure. Meanwhile careful exploration of the pages will find details like the small fox in "F", the kangaroo in "K", or the lamb in "L". This version, unlike the earlier ones, has separate pages for "I" and "J", acknowledging both letters as separate entities – unlike earlier versions. This alphabet is certainly a pleasure to share with children; it is also an equal pleasure to sneak away on your own bookshelf and delight in from time to time.
Berlie Doherty and Jane Ray have both produced over forty books for children and have won, or been shortlisted for, major awards. This collaboration shows author and illustrator at their best in a gentle whimsical story of a ghost who, passing through walls and gliding upstairs, brings children their favourite dreams or turns frightening encounters into fun.
As she glides softly through the town Charlotte's toys come to life, a unicorn takes Tommy on a wonderful ride, and the bogeyman boogies with scared Owen. Berlie Doherty's poetic inviting text is accompanied by Jane Ray's bold energetic reality contrasted with Jinnie Ghost's ethereal white and gentle, lovingly concerned face. This is a very special picture book to share with young children, especially at Halloween.
First published in 1969, William Steig's touching story of the young donkey, Sylvester, and his enchantment is now available again in an edition which includes Steig's Caldecott Medal acceptance speech. This edition, apart from the pleasure it will give young children, is of interest to students of illustration and children's literature. In this edition, the original artwork, with careful corrections from the watercolour originals, gives a true sense of Steig's original intentions.
Ian Beck has adapted, and illustrated, Andersen's The Little Mermaid for a young audience. The story stays true to the original, except in the ending. The prince explains his marriage necessary "to cement two great nations in peace", and the sisters bring her the dagger, but the mermaid cannot do murder for her own happiness. Here Beck diverts as the mermaid's action, having broken the sea witch's spell, allows her to return to the sea and her family as once more a mermaid. I believe children can grasp the sense of Andersen's original ending and the idea of redeeming love- that the mermaid's action, although leading to her physical death- has turned her to sea foam and offered her the promise of a soul, forbidden to her before. I am not sure why we underestimate a child's ability to grasp something of this, if only to sense it. However, Beck has done a good job of translating the story into a text for younger readers, and his particular artistic style works well in his child-oriented yet sophisticated gently-toned illustrations.
A Pioneer ABC depicts the life of a pioneer family throughout the year. The Bandelore, for "B", an early form of the yoyo, and a hornbook for the letter "H", introduce children to precursors of present day toys and books for children. Each illustration is a visual social history, helping young children understand something of this past time, while it also depicts a letter, expanding on the information with borders showing other objects beginning wth that letter. Notes at the end expand in text on the illustrations shown in each picture. Gently presented in warm colour, this is a very attractive, family centered, introduction to pioneer life.
In Caramba Marie-Louise Gay introduces us to a cat that appears to be like any other cat, except he cannot fly. Fly? Well, all the other cats do. Caramba feels very left out of his world. His friend, the little Piglet, Portia, tries to comfort him, but without success. At first his friends giggle at his attempts, and it takes some time for two of them to try and help by taking off with Caramba between them, clutching each hand tightly. When they let go and tell him to flap his arms, Caramba falls like a stone into the sea. That is when he discovers he can do what no other cat can do...he can swim. Caramba, who at times reminds me very much of young Sam, has that same engaging shyness and insecurity that we see in Sam. It makes him endearing and his final triumph all the more satisfying. The delicate and witty watercolours no longer spill enthusiastically off the pages; but then Caramba is a self-contained young puss too. Marie-Louise Gay captures all the insecurity and wonder of the young. I do not know who is more startled when the kitten hits the water, the fish or Caramba, but that moment of fear and hesitation blossoms into vigorous and triumphant splashing, and every youngster will understand completely how Caramba feels.
Shi-shi-etko touches on a serious theme and handles it beautifully. These are the last few days before the young girl will leave her family to attend residential school. We spend them with her and her family doing familiar things and enjoying familiar pleasures - visiting the creek and memorizing every rock, visiting with family, taking a canoe out on the lake and gathering memories from the trees and the land around her. Poetic and aware of a child's sensibilities, this is a beautiful and touching picture book. Kim Le Fave enters fully into the mood of the story, showing thoughtful restraint and using a warm palette that reflects the early days of autumn and a gentle reserved line in illustration.
Clip-Clop is also a piece of social history, a celebration of the horses that were a common sight on city streets at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Each animal had a different rhythm, a slightly different sound to its hooves. On cobbles or blacktop, going uphill or down, the sound would change. Two different milkmen delivered to our street when I was a child, and you knew, before you saw them, if it was yours or not. These are the animals that Eleanor Koldofsky celebrates as her young observer, Consuela, meets them all, from the milkman and grocery cart to fireman's horses and the rag and bone man's nag. As we meet the horses we also meet a series of people who used horses in their work and sense the relationship that builds up between young observer and working horse. Consuela's day and her horses are presented with observed care, and, I feel, affection, by illustrator David Parkins. There is a definite feeling that he knows of what he paints and loves and appreciates it. His people could step from the pages, and between text and illustration those horses come alive.
Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler are the partnership which produced The Gruffalo. Now they have given us a funny lively tale in rhyme about a witch who has room on her broom for others. As the witch and her cat sail across the sky she loses one thing after another - her hat, the bow in her hair, her wand. Each item is found by a creature who asks for a ride. Gladly the witch obliges until her broom snaps, dropping her into the clutches of a fierce red dragon. How the others, cat, dog, bird, frog, save her makes for an unusual and witty climax. Exuberant and colourful in text and illustration, enjoy Axel Scheffler's "magnificent broom" equipped with all modern conveniences, the story is ideal for reading aloud. Fiction Books
Forget-Me-Not, written in the form of a diary, takes Roberta through five months beginning with May 7th, 1945 and the end of the war in Europe. Through her eyes we see the excitement and the celebration while we also observe the affect the war and the months following cessation of hostilities has on the fifteen-year-old and her family and friends. Side by side world events and family problems and rejoicings mingle in a familiar brew. I was three years younger than Bobby when the war ended, but reading her reaction to peace, the discoveries in the camps, the dropping of the atom bomb, brought back vivid memories long suppressed. She was in Canada, I in Britain, but the telling, and Bobby's reactions still rang true and with familiarity. Bobby's story has its funny side, as well as its poignancy. Here are all the old insecurities of growing up and adjusting to a new adult status- shall she be a nurse ( notice she does not consider being a doctor in 1945), for she is good at hospital volunteering, although her medical diagnoses- freely given at home after consultation with her beloved book of medical terms- are not cheerfully received. Why is her friend Nancy visiting her brother and not her? What will happen to her father's factory job now that the fighting is all over? Skillfully weaving historical fact with everyday events Ms. Haworth-Attard has given us a story true to character and to period, and introduced us to a young woman who feels very real, and who captures our hearts.
Roxy's Baby might appear a little melodramatic, except that the story is based on actual events. The author tells how she heard it first over the radio where a young woman was being interviewed. Her first reaction was to hesitate, how could she write a children's story about something like this; then she realised that what had happened to that teen was happening to girls the age she wrote for, hence Roxy's Baby. Roxy is self-centered, selfish and wild, preferring the company of equally wild friends. One night at a party a kiss leads to more and she finds she is pregnant. Rather than deal with her family she runs off to London. There she meets a couple who seem kind and sympathetic, and who offer to look after her, along with other young girls in the same plight. At first Roxy relaxes in this comfortable atmosphere and makes friends with a young Irish girl, but gradually things she sees and hears do not add up, there are questions that are skillfully parried. Roxy has been wild and selfish, but she is no fool,and as she puts things together she realises the terrible danger that she and her child are in. Faced with the danger, above all, to her child, Roxy becomes fearsome in its defense, turning quickly into a strong and resourceful woman. This compelling story would make a strong topic for discussion in teen classes.
When Red Sea begins, fourteen-year-old Libby is a self-interested, sulky and difficult young woman. She has been brought, struggling and objecting, on a year-long sailing adventure with her mother and her step-father, Duncan. As they wait in port she makes it very plain how she feels, making sure they are late leaving harbour, a little distance behind the rest of the boats who have left in a group for safety from pirates on the Red Sea. When they are attacked and Duncan is killed, she finds herself on a crippled boat with a seriously injured and unconscious mother. How she survives, finding, at last, safety and help for her mother, makes for an exciting tale. By the end of the adventure she is certainly not the young woman she was.
Colleen Heffernan has tackled a difficult subject in her first young adult novel, and handled it with great subtlety and compassion. Hattie's brother, Will, enlists in 1916 and is sent to fight in France. The stress of his decision affects his family in different ways. Her mother slides into depression, her younger brother becomes violent, and her father is beside himself wondering how he can keep running the family farm without help. Hattie is busy trying to keep a calm centre, care for her mother, try and calm Johnny, run the household, and keep communication open with Will. She can do no more. In desperation her father hires a young conscientious objector from a good background, David Ross. Hattie and Johnny are furious, believing all "conchies" to be cowards, but as the situation develops and Hattie learns more about David, she realizes that there are many kinds of courage. The family setting and the stresses suffered by all the characters ring true, and are presented in a compassionate and clear way so that young readers can truly feel what is at stake for every member of the family and community, as well as for David. There is no black and white - just suffering, conviction, forgiveness and redemption. This is a fine thoughtful novel.
A simple device, her granddad's old dog whistle, takes Mary into the past, uncovering family secrets that will bring peace of mind to the old man. Mary's grandfather has injured himself, and so Mary and her mother have gone to look after him for a while. In the old house Mary examines the photographs of her great-grandfather and his family, and feels drawn to her young grandfather and his sisters. The discovery of the old dog whistle, and the single sharp note she blows on it, draws her back into the past as she becomes her great-aunt, Mary, and takes part in the events that have forever left a deep sadness in her grandfather. Ms. Lupini uses a simple device to great effect as she slips Mary between the past and the present, allowing her to see the events through the eyes of her great-aunt and the responses of the siblings. The story unfolds realistically, and the truth that is uncovered at the end fits perfectly with the characters she has given us. There is no trick denouement. If you read carefully, especially character, everything rings true. The Whistle is an absorbing story peopled with interesting believable characters who draw the reader, as they do Mary, into the life of the family and its secrets.
Claire Vigere helps her grandfather with his string of Canadian horses, les petit cheval de fer as they were known. He understands them well and they respond as well to her as to her grandfather. She talks to Beau Albert and he appears to understand and respond. The winter of 1863 is a hard one, and in order to survive the family is forced to sell their two best, and well- beloved, horses, Beau Albert and Tibeau. The horses have been sold to be shipped down to the States where they will be used by the Union army as cavalry horses or workhorses, pulling the great guns. Claire, unable to face losing the horses, disguises herself as a deaf boy, so that her accent will not give her away, and stows away on a wagon heading into the war zone. This gripping and unusual story conveys vividly the rapport and understanding that can develop between animals and humans. Claire's relationship with both horses, but particularly with Beau Albert, is an essential part of the story. We follow the hazards and suffering of both men and animals, and we have a vivid picture of the lives of the lads attached to the regiment to care for the horses. The frustration, misery and cruelty of the battlegrounds, somehow always more terrible, it seems, in civil war, is brought powerfully to life in this emotional and exciting story.
Only a few basic plots underline all fiction. It is how they are developed, woven and embroidered by character and setting that shows the skill of the author as creator and storyteller. It is always a pleasure to find a new world brought as completely to life as it is in Holly Bennett's fantasy novel, The Bonemender. Gabrielle is an excellent bonemender. She is also of the royal family of Verdeau, and these two duties keep her fully occupied, sure of her commitments and adjusted to the cycle of life around her. One day, however, a stranger arrives, seeking help for an injured friend. The strangers are Elves, for a long time strangers to Verdeau. Unusual as their appearance is, more of concern is the news that they bring. It appears that people to the north of the peaceful kingdoms of the Krylian Basin, the Gref Orise, are planning an invasion of the plain. Before all is over Gabrielle's life will be totally disrupted, she will have suffered grievous loss, and she will have discovered a secret about herself. Totally engaging, and peopled with interesting and engaging characters, The Bonemender is a strongly told, highly readable, and very enjoyable fantasy.
Treasure Island is one of the landmark books of children's literature. A combination of sea story and adventure story, it was both thriller, each section of the story building the tension, and an introduction to the complexity of human character. This gripping tale also suggested the insecurities that lie in judging too quickly those you come in contact with. Long John Silver is a complex character - a brutal man who can be almost heroic, and who is so vividly drawn that he steals the focus from everyone, even the young hero, Jim Hawkins. It is he and his parrot who are best remembered. Who does not react instantly to "Pieces of eight!". The Australian artist, Robert Ingpen, has illustrated this new edition from Blue Heron Books/ Raincoast Books. Ingpen has designed, written and illustrated over one hundred books and was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1986. He has recently illustrated other classic stories - Around the World in Eighty Days, The Jungle Book, and the centenary edition of Peter Pan and Wendy. Vigorous and powerful illustrations accompany this edition, and while the events are strongly portrayed, perhaps even more striking and interesting are the portraits of the characters, especially Ben Gunn, that appear throughout the book. Poetry
John Foster is an accomplished compiler of poetry books for the young, and this collection, now in paperback, is no exception. From Tennyson and Rossetti to Charles Causley, Jack Prelutsky and Ted Hughes, Foster ranges from thoughtful observation and delight to slapstick humour. There are over ninety poems, illustrated by seven different illustrators. Poems to read quietly, poems to memorize, in all, this is a collection to delight in. Do not miss “The Animal Alphabet” tucked inside the front cover, before you ever begin. Non-Fiction
There have been several books on Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope, including a YA novel by Eric Walters, called Run. Maxine Trottier's book is aimed at younger children and in her lucid style she conveys the unpretentiousness of Terry's upbringing, his hopes of becoming a high school Physical Education teacher and the devastation of the diagnosis of cancer in the spring of 1977. When he reaches his decision to run the Marathon he fully realises for children the courage and determination he showed. The book is fully illustrated with photographs and also contains reproductions of the letters he sent home on his way across Canada. This is an excellent, clearly written and attractively presented introduction for young children to Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope. Educators will find it especially valuable.
Canada Moves West is a compilation of five volumes first published in The Adventures in Canadian History series – “The Railway Pathfinders”, “The Men in Sheepskin Coats”, “A Prairie Nightmare”, “Steel Across the Plains”, and “Steel Across the Shield”. These are the stories of the engineers and railway men, the men who worked on building the line that drew the country together. Here, too, are the stories of the immigrants, many from Eastern Europe, who settled the lands the railway opened up, and here are those whose lives and cultures were forever changed, the first nations people of the plains and mountains.
In 1997 Barry Shell gave us Great Canadian Scientists, a book that was seized upon by all those with children who showed any scientific bent. Sensational Scientists is an updated and expanded version of that book. In it Barry Shell profiles twenty-four Canadian researchers working in a wide range of fields, from biophysics and genetics to chemistry and anthropology. The researchers include Julia Levy, a microbiologist and immunologist, who co-discovered photodynamic anti-cancer and ophthalmology drugs; Henri Daimon, a pure and applied mathematician and one of the world's leading number theorists, Bertram Neville Brockhouse, a nuclear physicist , who won the Nobel Prize in 1994 for designing the triple-axis neutron spectroscope to investigate condensed matter, and William Ricker, a fisheries biologist, the inventor of "The Ricker Curve" for describing fish population dynamics. Each article gives a brief summary of their background, how they trained as a young scientist, their particular area of scientific enquiry and suggestions for further exploration. The book is packed with photographs and diagrams, suggestions for experiments the young readers can conduct themselves, and discussions on how to set up in a career in science. AwardsEleanor Farjeon Award (United Kingdom) Award Shortlists: TD Canadian Children's Book Award: Finalists: Alan Cumyn. After Sylvia. Groundwood Books. 2005 Smarties Prize [now The Nestle Children's Book Prize] (United Kingdom): 5 and under 6-8 years 9-11 years The Blue Peter Shortlist - United Kingdom/BBC The Book I Can't Put Down Best Book of Facts Best Illustrated Book to Read Aloud 2005 Governor-General's Award - Children's Literature - Text
2005 Governor-General's Award - Children's Literature - Illustration
Top |
/Library/Images/deakin/Killer+Gorilla.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/A+Apple+Pie.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Jinnie+Ghost.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Sylvester+and+the+Magic+Pebble.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/The+Little+Mermaid.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Pioneer+ABC.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Caramba.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Shi-Shi-Etko.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Clip-Clop.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Room+on+the+Broom.jpg)
/Unsorted/Forget-Me-Not2.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Roxy$!27s+Baby.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Red+Sea.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/A+Kind+of+Courage.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Whistle.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/The+Horse$!27s+Shadow.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/The+Bonemender.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Treasure+Island.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Oxford+Animal+Poems.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Terry+Fox.jpg)
/Library/Images/deakin/Canada+Moves+West.gif)
/Library/Images/deakin/Sensational+Scientists.jpg)