The Globe and Mail
Kids are addicted to their screens. It’s gotten so bad that four of Canada’s largest school boards are suing the companies behind TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram, arguing that they deliberately distract kids from learning. If you’d like to get your kids addicted to something healthier, here’s a guide to the latest in children’s lit.
Remember This, Monique Polak, illustrated by Valéry Goulet (Orca Book Publishers, 9-12) Memory makes us who we are and young readers can explore its fascinating science and why it’s so important to our daily lives as Polak, with the help of Goulet’s engaging graphics, offers an excellent introduction to neuroscience. As well as tackling questions about how memory works and what happens when we start forgetting, she also explores collective history and the part memory plays in imprinting major global events in our minds.
Alone Together, Petti Fong illustrated by Jonathan Dyck (Orca Book Publishers, 9-12) Based on her 2021-22 podcast, Fong looks at how loneliness affects us and what we can do about it. Being lonely can be isolating, as we discovered during the COVID pandemic, but it can also challenge us to find ways to make connections. Fong looks at pop culture, history and science to see how being alone can also bring us together.
Books we're reading and loving this week: Globe staffers and readers share their book picks
kekwan etakwak mîkisîhk / What’s in a Bead?, Kelsey Borgford, illustrated by Tessa Pizzale (Second Story Press, 6-8) Tessa wants her Kohkom to teach her how to bead but first, Kohkom explains, she has to share stories about her Cree heritage and the way beading is connected to preserving her culture, language and identity.
Kaiah’s Garden, Melanie Florence, illustrated by Karlene Harvey (Scholastic Canada, 3-8) This book also explores the importance of strong intergenerational relationships in Indigenous communities and their role in teaching young people about their identity. Kaiah, her mother and younger brother have left the home they shared with Grandma and moved to a new town. As Kaiah thinks about what she’s left behind, she remembers the memory box Grandma had given her, which contains the beading creations they had made together, many of them inspired by plants and flowers. Perhaps Kaiah can use beading to create something new that celebrates their relationship.
Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak, Danielle Daniel, illustrated by Jackie Traverse (Groundwood Books, 3-6) This is a moving addition to Daniel’s previous explorations of Indigenous culture, Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox and Sometimes I Feel Like a River. Here, Daniel delivers 12 evocative poems about different trees. Traverse’s vibrant acrylic and gouache illustrations make visible Daniel’s hope that readers will reflect on their own relationships with the trees they interact with every day.
Walking Trees, Marie-Louise Gay (Groundwood Books, 3-8) This work was inspired inspired by Bosk, meaning “forest,” an art project by the landscape artist Bruno Doedens and the late Joop Mulder in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden where a thousand trees were planted in large wooden containers and wheeled about to create a “walking forest.” In an author’s note, Gay tells readers, “Bosk reminded me that we can change the world one tree at a time. And I wondered about the child who might be the first to take her tree for a walk.” Lily ask for a tree for her birthday but she quickly realizes that her little tree, George, won’t get the sunshine he needs. So, placing him in a wagon, she takes him out daily for a walk. And so begins a delightful transformation, exquisitely brought to life through illustrations done in watercolours, acrylics, pastels, pencil, ink and collage.
The Pig and the Dumpling, Bonnie Johnstone, illustrated by Veselina Tomova (Running the Goat, 4-8) Who doesn’t love dumplings! Ignatius, the porcine hero of Bonnie Johnstone’s wild and rollicking folkloresque certainly does but a chance encounter with a flying dumpling leads to a series of crazy collisions and near catastrophes in the little Newfoundland fishing village where he lives. Tomova’s lively illustrations add to the “you can’t catch” spirit of this wacky cautionary tale.
I’m From, Gary R. Gray Jr., illustrated by Oge Mora (Puffin Canada, 4-8) A lyrical ode to the small meaningful moments in an African-Canadian boy’s life, growing up in North Preston, N.S. This is a brilliant debut by a new and exciting voice in Canadian children’s literature, exquisitely illustrated by Mora. The book celebrates poignant moments but also poses some challenging situations, such as when a classmate at school asks: “Can I touch your hair?” or “Where are you from?”
K Is in Trouble, Gary Clement (Little Brown Ink, 7-12) This is Clement’s graphic-novel debut, a wonderful collection of five stories that offer us a portrait of the life and times, sometimes a little surreal, of K. It might remind readers of the Baudelaire children in Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events but these stories aren’t nearly as menacing. K finds himself the victim of crabby parents, unfriendly school authorities and a murder of crows but there’s a delightfully wry humour at work that will be deeply satisfying to readers who like things to be a little macabre.
Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne, adapted by Travis Dandro (Drawn & Quarterly, 7-10) Young graphic-novel readers are in for a treat because this faithfully follows A.A. Milne’s classic with no Disneyfication. Dandro certainly adds his own touches to his adaptation but it is a splendid homage to Milne as well as illustrator Ernest Shepard and is a wonderful way to introduce this classic to new readers.
Taming Papa, Mylène Goupil (Groundwood Books, 9-12) A stunning novel that asks the question, “what is a family?” Ten-year-old Mélie doesn’t quite know how to act when her father, Sami, a political prisoner in another country who’s been imprisoned her whole life, is released and suddenly becomes part of her Montreal life. They don’t speak the same language, he’s afraid to go outside and instead spends his time watching TV or napping. But slowly Mélie recognizes that families have all kinds of configurations.
The Weird Sisters, Mark David Smith, illustrated by Kari Rust (Owlkids Books, 6-9) In the latest wacky instalment of Weird Sisters, Hildegurp, Glubbifer and Yuckmina find themselves embroiled in a series of mysteries when a prized show chicken goes missing at the fall fair. Has their magic got something to do with the strange things happening? Is it a question of fowl play? It’s up to these hilarious witchy sleuths to save the day.