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Volume 39 Number 3 Fall 2017 ISSN0708-594X IN THIS ISSUE • I*+,-./01*2 Jean Little • CANSCAIP’S F-,+@ YBC,D – Barbara Greenwood • A W-,. AN-/+ W-,. C-/*+D – Karen Krossing • IRR/D+,C+-,’D SSB+0TN--S – Miriam Körner Plus all of our regular features (Logo variation by Andrea Beck) Introducing… Jean Little by Jo Ellen Bogart Jean Little has been a member of CANSCAIP for every one of its 40 years. In fact she was there at its conception in 1977 when eleven authors and illustrators met for the first time at Port Colborne’s Literary Festival and realized that what the scattered creators of children’s culture in Canada needed was to organize. As we look back at CANSCAIP’s amazing 40 years it seems only fitting that we also share a retrospective look at one of Canada’s earliest and most shared many hours in the car Going to our successful children’s writers. wonderful Group for writers, illustrators and performers, CANSCAIP. Our various rides I #$% $%&'( )* #+,)' )-,% .+*/,0' because toGether became a combination of mobile Jean and I have been friends for more than writers’ workshop, counselling session and three decades. For years, Jean and I have traded confessional. We often talked about what we stories about family, the youngsters, our were writing at the time. On one ride I told her siblings and parents, about friends, animals, about a rhyming book I was working on, especially doGs, and just life in General. We reciting some lines. She said to me, “What if her pupils were covered by scars, making her you stuck in a third line with internal rhyme blind. As she Grew, her eyes Grew and the and completed the verse with that third line?” scarring no longer covered the pupils and she She was riGht in that her suGGestion vastly had some siGht. She was able to see, if not well, improved the pattern. I told her that the but anything she needed to examine needed to changes would be hard to do and she assured be very close to her face. She loved hearing me that I was up to the task. That book, Sarah stories and wanted very badly to be able to read Saw a Blue Macaw, is dedicated to Jean. herself. When she did learn to read, she held As we talked about books, we each were books so close that she Got the book’s ink on introduced to a variety of her nose. This habit, and being subjects, and discovered a few cross-eyed, led to her being favourites we had in common, made fun of. In Little by Little, such as Anne McCaffrey’s Jean described her early life as dragon books. Jean told me of “an unending battle to be like her love of Rosemary Sutcliff’s everyone else.” wonderful books, especially When the family later moved to Warrior Scarlett, and how she Jean’s father’s hometown of visited Rosemary in her home Guelph, she was not treated well in England and corresponded by other students and her best with her for years. I told Jean friend was a schoolyard tree, about my interest in natural which she huGGed and held history and she sometimes conversations with. In hiGh asked about creatures she was school, Jean still found herself including in a book, especially having a hard time making reptiles. friends. As the child of medical If you want to understand missionary parents, the church Jean Little, you need to was, naturally, a Great influence understand her love of story. in Jean’s life. Her mother’s deep She has professed to distain non-fiction, always faith had a calming and reassuring effect on veering into the joys of story. In her revealing Jean and the church was a place of support and autobioGraphies, Little by Little: A Writer’s friendship. AlthouGh at first Jean resisted her Education and Stars Come out Within, she mother’s suGGestion of joining the church- recreated scenes from her life, with dialoG that based orGanization C.G.I.T., Canadian Girls in she felt would help her readers understand how Training, she finally relented. There she met events affected her, intellectually and Girls who didn’t tease her. They became the emotionally, as she Grew. friends she so badly wanted. Even thouGh Jean Jean has led an extraordinary life. She was had two brothers, Jamie and HuGh, and a born on January 2, 1932 to medical missionary younger sister, Pat, to keep her company, she parents in Taiwan and later lived in Hong Kong still wanted friends of her own. before moving back to Canada at age seven as Jean’s father was keenly interested in World War II threatened. Living in Canada literature and was very encouraging of her presented the first of many adjustments Jean efforts to write. One sure way to Get his full would have to make in her life. attention was to show him something she had Jean’s poor eyesiGht was a Great factor in her written. He tended to serve as an editor, even childhood experiences. When she was born, when Jean was hoping to hear only praise. At 2 times, she was accepting of his advice, but an unrealistic recovery. She knew her students there were times when Jean’s own strong needed books that had satisfying endings in feelings about her work made that hard. Her which there was no miraculous recovery. Jean father’s comments sometimes struck her as decided that she could be the one to write such interference. He always stressed the a book and so she created the character Sally importance of polishing a work Copeland, a child with cerebral until it shone. Eventually Jean palsy and leg braces. This story came to realize that his advice won the Little Brown Children’s was riGht on the mark. Book Award and became her When Jean decided to Go to first book, Mine for Keeps, university, the registrar was published in Canada in 1962. At worried that it miGht be too last Jean was living her dream hard for her, with limited of being a writer. She had also eyesiGht, and suGGested that found a Great friend and editor she take longer than four years, in Ellen Rudin, who published or even not Go for a degree. Jean many of Jean’s books in the U.S. finally convinced any doubters at a time when Canada’s and registered for university, publishing for young readers taking a full load of courses. was very limited. Her father had a heart attack Many of Jean’s best loved just when Jean was leaving for books sprang from her own university and continued to be experiences and outlooks, or in poor health, passing away the lives of someone she has during her second year. Less known or heard about. Jean than a year later, Jean fell ill explains that she had heard and missed weeks of classes. stories about a young Girl With the same strength she has named Anna Solden who came often exhibited throuGhout her to Canada from Germany and life, she went back and worked for the family of Jean’s managed to Get her work done, Grandmother, Martha. Anna even with the huGe reading defended Martha when she was load of an English major. A teased by her siblings for being hiGhliGht of Jean’s time in chubby. Jean decided to use the university was the chance to real Girl’s name for the name of attend small Group non-credit her character in the book From lectures by Northrup Frye. In Anna. The story tells how four years, Jean Graduated, on Anna’s family fled impending time, with hiGh standing in her war in Germany and class. immiGrated to Canada. Her character had poor After Graduation, Jean worked at a school for eyesiGht and made a basket for her parents, just children with motor disabilities. To qualify for as Jean herself did when she was in a class for the position, Jean attended training courses in the visually impaired, with a teacher named Salt Lake City, Utah. As she read to her Miss BoGart. The sequel, Listen for the Singing, students, Jean also began to notice that stories was written because of Jean’s desire to revisit about handicapped children usually ended in the Solden family and see how the war affected 3 them. In this book, Anna is able to help her Jenny developed a close friendship, sharing brother Rudi when he returns from the war many interests and beliefs. blinded. A Great contribution to Jean’s recovery from Problems with Jean’s vision did not keep her dark time was Getting her first seeing eye Jean from being adventurous. She met doG, the yellow Labrador Retriever, Zephyr. She Rosemary Sutcliff on a trip to England, and journeyed to New Jersey and spent weeks lived in Japan for months when she training, first on her own, then with her new accompanied a friend who was working there. doG. She felt an exhilarating freedom with this She also bouGht a cottage that she named intelliGent and well trained doG. ThouGh Gilead, and it became a Great Zephyr excelled at Guiding, he place for family Get-toGethers. reacted agGressively to other Jean’s life continued to be doGs and only a visit by a influenced Greatly by the determined trainer Got the biG problems with her vision. yellow doG past this dangerous When the blisters from behaviour. Jean has had three Glaucoma became too painful, more seeing eye doGs, Ritz, the affected eye was removed.

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