Don’t Laugh at Giraffe (2012), by Rebecca Bender

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 18.1

Don’t Laugh at Giraffe

This colourful picture book lives its message: one of the best antidotes for sadness is laughter. The illustrations by author/illustrator Rebecca Bender delight the reader even before the humorous and effective twist at the end of the story. A successful element in the interaction of text and image is that Bender bolds the important words—mainly the verbs—on each page. So with the bold verbs creating motion, and the energetic pictures showing action and emotion, what Bender has created is a very lively picture book for young readers, who will be able to pick out the bolded words and match them to the action in the pictures.
In the scorching heat of the African sun, Giraffe and Bird—best friends but always bugging each other—have a tussle and are hot and thirsty. Already, many young readers will identify with two friends who are so dissimilar but yet “you rarely see them apart.” When Giraffe has troubles bending all the way down to the water, and ultimately falls in, all of the animals—including Bird—laugh at him. True to the age of the readership, this hurts Giraffe’s feelings, and he goes away, sad and humiliated. Bird, an insightful little chap for all his flighty ways—soon figures out that there is something he can do to help his friend. No moralizing here, just a little bird thinking about how his friend obviously feels. Young readers will be able to internalize the lesson of empathy well, as it is so subtle; Bender does not preach at all, but merely shows her readers—largely with her beautiful illustrations—one option in this social situation. The answer Bird comes up with is to make a laughing stock of himself: he sings, he dances, he teases the other animals, he makes a complete fool of himself, laughing all the time with the animals he is teasing—even Giraffe. “Anyone can see that the bird loves the attention … and the giraffe finally has a drink”… and the reader feels happy and giggly watching Bird floating on his back, spitting water up into the air.

Amos Daragon: The Key of Braha (2012), by Bryan Perro

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 17.5.

Amos Daragon: The Key of Braha

Amos Daragon: The Key of Braha, second in Bryan Perro’s “bestselling twelve-book children’s series” (dustjacket), is a complicated narrative reminiscent of Garth Nix’s Grim Tuesday or Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series.  The language and characterization, however, and especially the humour, seem aimed at a younger reading audience, one too young to fully grasp the political machinations driving the plot. The problem lies perhaps the translation—there must be better phrases than “positive gods” and “negative gods” for whatever the French is, for example (3-4)—but other characteristics of the text suggest that the writing itself was lacking in the original.

The plot is interesting, and I must say that the dénouement almost redeems the novel, but unfortunately not quite. The Key of Braha is a legendary key that will purportedly open the gates to “paradise” and “hell” (2) from the City of the Dead, Braha, where souls are judged. The doors have been sealed, and it will take a mortal who descends to the underworld and yet lives—or lives again—to unlock the mystery and the doors. Through the complex intrigues that provide the novel’s greatest interest, Amos Daragon is manipulated into this role. His search for the truth of what is happening to him is a well-constructed plot, but his characterization does not support the intelligence his author claims for him.

Amos Daragon’s cleverness in this novel does not rise to the level of the more experienced young reader: although King Junos claims that Amos is “wiser than most of my white-bearded advisors” (25), the ways in which he “tricks” his opponents are—in youthful parlance—lame. When a dead soul has no coin to offer Charon, Amos argues: “this man has nothing to pay their fare, well, I’ll pay if for him. In fact, if you allow them on the boat, I’ll offer you twice nothing” (49), a ruse which works, and is thus the first of many instances where the reader is amazed not at Amos’s brilliance so much as the stupidity of his adversaries. The three riddles he has to solve are equally unimpressive, as is his trick in stealing a golden spoon to prove himself the best thief in the city, or the argument that gains him the key in the end: “You were to keep the key until the light of the candle went off on its own,” the keeper of the key complained; “Yes, but I just blew it out. Therefore it did not go off by itself” is Amos’s “clever” rejoinder (155-6). This level of trickery is amusing to primary school children, perhaps, but the Ragnarök plot that Perro has created is more appropriate for the more mature intermediate or middle school student.

Lower the Trap (2012), by Jessica Scott Kerrin

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 17.5

 

Lower the Trap

On the dust-jacket of Lower the Trap, we read that it is “the first book in the Lobster Chronicles, a trilogy about how life changes for three boys in a small coastal town when a giant lobster is caught in a trap.” What is most intriguing for the adult reader here is how the author will sustain interest in this seemingly small incident over three entire books, especially if—as is suggested earlier in the blurb—“the right thing would be to set the lobster free.” The description does not give the skeptical reader much hope, but this skeptical reader was surprised on every count.

Jessica Scott Kerrin has managed to take the smallest incidents of life in a Maritime village and give them an importance that young readers will not only understand, but identify with. Her child protagonists are carefully and artfully constructed. Their language, thoughts, and actions are simple and straightforward, both reflecting primary school children’s more simple modes of expression and allowing the young reader access to their thought and feelings through simple language. At the same time, the narration of the story includes sophisticated vocabulary that will ask young readers to stretch their knowledge: words such as “reverberation” (12), “behemoth” (21), “imperative” (62), “manically” (71), and “crustacean” (79). That she also includes local-knowledge vocabulary such as “mummichogs” (9) and “shoal” (75) adds to the depth of the setting, either as familiar or exotic, depending upon the reader.

The plot is equally simple and effective. There is the requisite conflict between the cannery owner who does not know or understand the community, or care to, and the fishermen who toil daily to survive. This conflict extends to the cannery owner’s son, Norris, and our protagonist, Graeme. When Graeme’s father traps the biggest lobster the town has seen in 50 years, the mystery of its history and its fate is tied up in a more straightforward mystery that Norris has tricked Graeme into helping him solve: who destroyed the teacher’s prize cactus. The two plots coalesce in the end, with Graeme learning a lesson in trust—of both his friends and his own instincts. More than this simple and necessary lesson, though, Graeme discovers that the despised Norris might share some of the integrity and community spirit that connects Graeme with his other friends. Even more than the ultimate fate of the lobster, this discovery provides ample scope for further stories of Graeme and his close-knit community.

Violet (2009), by Tania Duprey Stehlik

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 15.5.

Violet

Violet is starting a new school, but is worried that she won’t have friends because she is, well, violet.  When she discovers a myriad of other-coloured students in her new class, she is only somewhat reassured: “There were red kids, yellow kids, and blue kids…” But they all have red, yellow, and blue parents.
Mixed-ethnicity is explained to the reader through the vibrant skin colours of the characters, engagingly drawn by Jovanovic to reflect a world both interesting and yet subtly disturbing, much like Violet’s experience of school.  Violet’s Dad is blue; her Mom is red; Violet is purple.  The analogy is simple and effective.  The only problem with the story is that it ends too soon.  Once Violet realizes where her own unique colour comes from—blue+red=purple—the reader would benefit from her perhaps meeting another child in similar circumstances: Hazel’s parents could be green and brown; Amber’s could be red and yellow… But the story ends abruptly with Violet’s realization of her uniqueness, which does not, I think, send a message of belonging as strongly as this very promising and imaginatively conceived story could.

Wishing Star Summer (2001), by Beryl Young

A simple text telling of the visit of a young Belarus girl suffering from the unhealthy atmosphere of the post-Chernobyl landscape.  Tanya comes to Vancouver on a relief program to stay with Jillian Nelson and her family, but despite wanting to have a friend badly, Jillian finds it difficult to be a friend. The story is written with a young beginning reader in mind (ages 6-8?)—or rather, the narrative voice is simplistic enough that older readers will find it too young.  The highlight of the story is not in the plot, but in Beryl Young’s insightful portrayal of the tensions between the protagonist and her Belarus guest: I don’t think I have ever read a text which manages to portray the protagonist so successfully as a jealous, spoilt, 11-year-old and yet retain my interest and affection for the girl.  The characterization of the other members of the cast is equally powerful, and raise an otherwise banal and predictable story to one worth reading and sharing.

Tabloidology (2009), by Chris McMahen

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 14.5.

Tabloidology

The lessons that Tabloidology delivers are important: issues of representation—truth, falsehood, exaggeration, omission—are combined with a lesson in achieving balance that many readers will be beginning to learn themselves.  On this level, Tabloidology is an ambitious story.  Unfortunately, the narrative style detracts from the power of the message.  It is only a small step from engagingly irreverent to over-the-top ridiculous, but this story takes it.  Many young readers may appreciate the over-the-top humour in the text, but even grade 4 to 6 readers—at whom it seems to be aimed—will likely find it too silly for their tastes.

One of the protagonists, Trixi, writes fictional stories—”a great big pack of lies” (66)—for the school newspaper, which, when the paper is photocopied on a magical photocopier, come true the following day.  A fabulous premise, but excessiveness in a multitude of narrative aspects weakens the effect.  Small issues become traumatic, while serious issues such as poverty and child neglect are considered sources of humour; the adults are made stereotypically ridiculous; and the predictability of the events the protagonists are worried about seems to belittle the reader—or at least not demand very much in the way of critical reading.  So much could have been right with this story, if the humour, the stereotypes, the silliness, were toned down just a little.  The balance the protagonists learn is necessary in media reportage would be beneficial here as well: the important messages that this story could have delivered are lost in a humour that tries too hard.

Hound and Hare (2011), by Rotraut Susanne Berner

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 17.1

Hound and Hare

Trans. Shelly Tanaka.

Hound and Hare’s underlying message of tolerance is admirable, and one all children need to learn, but in this book the story is not sufficiently engaging to mask the author’s overt moralizing.  The language-play, too, does not engage: phrases like “the dog days of summer, you might say” (11), “stuck here like a pooch in a pup tent” (25), and “raining like hares and dogs” (43) are meant to amuse, but fall flat.  The subtleties of having Harley Hare use canine terms like “This place is going to the dogs” (24) and Hugo Hound use rabbit allusions like “Let’s hop to it” (27) are overshadowed by the numerous attempts at dog and bunny jokes that are less carefully applied.
While the narrative fails to impress, however, the illustrations are delightful.  The coloured-pencil drawings are both simple and expressive. The emotions on the characters’ faces speak more strongly than the words at times, and the detail of setting is just the right level for the younger reader or listener to enjoy.  While a contemporary text, the illustrations remind me strongly of some of my favourite picture books as a child, like Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings (1941), or Syd Hoff’s Danny and the Dinosaur (1958).

A Fairy Garland of BC Flowers (194-), by Dorothea Allison

In my other life, I work for the Canada’s Early Women Writers (CEWW) project, headed by Dr. Carole Gerson at Simon Fraser University.  The project aims to construct an online database of all Canadian women who published—in any genre, in any forum—before 1950.  CEWW is one of the seed projects for the larger database project, the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC), run out of the University of Alberta, and headed by Dr. Susan Brown.

Connecting my love of early Canadian literature with my love of children’s literature, I have been reading through the children’s texts written by some of our authors, with the intent of sharing them—if only superficially—with others.  The first such text was The Bells on Finland Street, by Lyn Cook; this is the fourth.

A Fairy Garland of BC Flowers

This captivating little book was written by a teacher in the North Okanagan Valley. She came to Canada in 1912 to visit her cousin, as part of a round-the-world tour that began with visits to her sisters in Burma and India. While in Oyama, she fell in love with her cousin’s neighbour, Robert Allison. She had accepted a teaching position in Okanagan Centre, but when the couple married in December of 1913, she gave up her position (as was required of married women at the time) but stayed involved in education and other community services in the Kalamalka area. Dorothea remained involved in North Okanagan community affairs for the rest of her very long life; she died in 1981, at the age of 103.

The volume itself comprises 28 short poems: an introduction, the 26 letters of the alphabet, and a farewell.  The cover, title page, and poems are decorated by delightful wood-cut prints, with a lithe little fairy flitting about the flowers. The copy I have in my hand is signed not by the author, but by the illustrator, Janet Macmillan, whose name when she signed it was Janet Macmillan Blench. The author thanks in her dedication a “Mrs. Helena Parham (Botanist, Vaseux Lake), who has taught us so much about the flowers of the Okanagan Valley.”

As an alphabet, the author tells us, it was difficult to find the right flower for each letter: some were hard to come up with, and for some letters there were too many options. I can well imagine, and modern readers will be surprised by some of the choices she has made: frittillary, kinnikinnick, pentstemon, urtica, and zygadena are not flowers I remember from my Okanagan childhood! The flowers she does include are all local wildflowers: no orchids or jasmine adorn these pages. The poetry is sometimes shaky in rhyme or meter, but at other times perfectly lovely. Description of the volume requires words that are sweet and diminutive: it is truly a “fairy book” of flowers, in tone and content, visually and poetically. If my children were younger, I would want a copy to keep, for it is a fine combination of art, simple poetry, and tribute to the valley I was born in.

Little Gray Doors (1926), by Alexandrina Woods

As promised, my less-than-glowing review of an early twentieth-century children’s book: Little Gray Doors, by Alexandrina Woods. This author is one of the early Canadian female authors listed in the Canada’s Early Women Authors project, which aims to construct an online database of all Canadian women who published—in any genre, in any forum—before 1950.  CEWW is one of the seed projects for the larger database project, the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC), run out of the University of Alberta, and headed by Dr. Susan Brown.

Little Gray Doors (1926)

Little Gray Doors suffers from one of the predominant problems of early twentieth century literature for children: it is not only prescriptive, but premised upon guilt as a motivation for behaviour. The first four stories in the collection each show a child learning through fairly drastic means a lesson in good behaviour; the last story, “The Fairy Glen,” shows a magical visit to fairy-land given to a well-behaved child, a visit of which there is no memory on her waking.

The opening story, “Little Gray Doors,” has a naughty boy, sent to bed without his tea, suddenly and inexplicably out in the garden where he discovers a doorway in a tree truck, leading to a hallway full of little gray doors. Behind each door, he sees a different world in which the children are unhappy, mischief abounds, and chaos reigns. On the wall above each door is cryptically written L.O.P. He reaches the end of the hallway to view a final room in which a group of exhausted women, obviously mothers, sit around mending toys and clothing with tears in their eyes. At this point, he sees the full message: Land of Punishment.  It is not certain to me whether the punishment is being inflicted on the children or the mothers… regardless, it is a dismal experience, and the guilt-ridden David returns gratefully to the land above, resolved to behave in an impossibly perfect manner from now on.

The stories become increasingly less traumatic as the book progresses, but none actually manage not to create a feeling of guilt in the child reader.  “The Mirror” tells the metaphoric tale of a young boy who is given a mirror by his “King” (Jesus), whose face will be reflected instead of the boy’s. Each time the boy fails to behave, the mirror becomes clouded or seems cracked, until it is not longer useable.  The boy must take a Pilgrim’s Progress journey back to see the King, during which he performs good deeds. The King forgives him and restores the mirror.

"The Fairy Glen": Betty flying with Tania on the golden goose

“The Magic Needle” teaches young Ruth be content not knowing or understanding the whole picture of what she has been set to do; “Paternoster” helps the unnamed protagonist to understand that all creatures’ lives are worthwhile, as they are all created by “Our Father”; and “The Fairy Glen” has perfectly organized and disciplined young Betty taken on a trip to fairy-land. Here, she cannot dance without diamonds on her toes, coloured jewels on her skirt, and pearls in her hair—like the fairies—but she is granted all these riches by the small animals she has helped in her real life.  In the end, though, she is returned to her bed and her jewels are taken back to fair-land, the incident is explicitly forgotten: “the clock was ticking as though nothing had happened … and the little China Shepherdess has never said one word about the strange things she saw and heard” (121).

There is nothing redeeming in the message of Little Gray Doors: no child could live up to the expectations of behaviour set by the author, and while the punishment and guilt for misbehavior is explicit, there are no positive results in the real world, for the good behaviour Betty shows.

The Joyous Story of Astrid (1931), by L. Adams Beck

In my other life, I work for the Canada’s Early Women Writers (CEWW) project, headed by Dr. Carole Gerson at Simon Fraser University.  The project aims to construct an online database of all Canadian women who published—in any genre, in any forum—before 1950.  CEWW is one of the seed projects for the larger database project, the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC), run out of the University of Alberta, and headed by Dr. Susan Brown.

Connecting my love of early Canadian literature with my love of children’s literature, I have been reading through the children’s texts written by some of our authors, with the intent of sharing them—if only superficially—with others.  The first such text was The Bells on Finland Street, by Lyn Cook.

The Joyous Story of Astrid (1931)

“L. Adams Beck” is one of the three pseudonyms used by Elizabeth Louisa Moresby Beck; the others are “E. Barrington,” which she used for historical fictional biography, and “Louis Moresby,” which she used for non-fiction. Beck was from a prominent British imperial family, and travelled extensively in the Orient before settling in Victoria, BC. Moresby Island, a part of the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, is named after her paternal grandfather.  The pseudonym “L. Adams Beck” was used primarily for writings dealing with Eastern mysticism and religion, which she studied intently. The Joyous Story of Astrid, while not predominantly religious or philosophical, does present tales from Asian traditions to the young Canadian reader.

I must admit that I am generally skeptical about the quality of many novels for children written in the early twentieth century: so many of them are trite and prescriptive at best, and positively controlling at worst (wait for my upcoming review of Little Gray Doors [1926], by Alexandrina Woods). The Joyous Story of Astrid, however, delighted me in its freshness, its lack of prescriptive condescension, and its healthy representation of an eschatology that differs from the prevailing Christian notions of Heaven and Hell.  The writing style is somewhat dated, unsurprisingly, but I would still heartily recommend the text to young readers today. My only regret is perhaps that it does not actually present a philosophical belief to young readers; I think Beck would be admirable proponent of a more explicit message, so balanced is her presentation in this short story cycle.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a short story cycle is a collection of short stories contained within an over-arching narrative frame; the stories and the frame narrative together construct the whole of the narrative. In The Joyous Story of Astrid, we are introduced to Astrid, a “moon-child” as she is born beneath a full moon right on the stroke of midnight. Thus, she belongs to the Moon Goddess, and sleeps all day, coming out to frolic with her nocturnal friends in the forest at night. By and by, the Moon Goddess tells her stories of her own life, as well as the lives of children and animals and mythical creatures in other lands: China, Japan, India… lands where the people believe in the magic Astrid lives by. The stories themselves are delightful, although interrupted perhaps too much by the narrative frame plot in which the Mr. Mouse and the Mouse Queen orchestrate the marriage of the Mouse Princess, with the help of Astrid and her wish-dog, Jock.

As Astrid learns more about “true dreaming” and the creation of “mind-flowers,” she learns more about “The Back of Beyond,” the place where all knowledge will be acquired. Initially, this seems to be a metaphor for the Christian Heaven, but by the end of the text, Astrid and Jock cross the “Cold River” and enter the Back of Beyond, where “they were slowly beginning to see that a wonderful new story, which yet was the old story too, was starting for them, exactly as when the daffodil bulb hidden underground sends up a golden flower into the sunshine” (281-2). The Back of Beyond is a magical place, where the gods and fictional characters are real, where there is no need of houses or protection, where maturity and vision have been achieved and the toil and hardship of life falls away: a nirvana for children, presented in a simple and powerfully enticing way.