$4.95 SPRING 2017 VOL. 40 NO. 1 RECOMMENDED BOOKS + OPINIONS + PROFILES + NEWS + REVIEWS FINDING OUR PLACE Reflecting the lives of readers in books Mike Boldt: Unleashing Bookmark! Great books Unique Magic to celebrate Canada’s 150th Birthday Reviews of over 40 books by Gord Downie & Jeff Lemire, Kathy Stinson & Dušan Petričić, Moira Young and more PRINTING OF THIS ISSUE DONATED BY FRIESENS Reading, naturally. friesens.com 1.866.324.6401 CONTENTS THIS ISSUE booknews Spring 2017 Volume 40 No.1 9 Seen at ... Editor Sandra O’Brien Melanie Florence and François Thisdale, who won the 2016 TD Canadian Copy Editor and Proofreader Mary Roycroft Ranni Children’s Literature Award for their book Missing Nimâmâ published by Design Perna Siegrist Design Clockwise Press, with Alec Morley, Senior Vice President, TD Bank Group. Advertising Michael Wile This informative magazine published quarterly by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre is available by yearly subscription. Single subscription – $24.95 plus sales tax (includes 2 issues of Best Books for Kids & Teens) Contact the CCBC for bulk subscriptions and for US or overseas subscription rates. Spring 2017 (March 2017) Canadian Publication Mail Product Sales Agreement 40010217 Published by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre ISSN 1705 – 7809 For change of address, subscriptions, or return of undeliverable copies, contact: The Canadian Children’s Book Centre 40 Orchard View Blvd., Suite 217 Toronto, ON M4R 1B9 Tel 416.975.0010 Fax 416.975.8970 Email [email protected] Website www.bookcentre.ca Review copies, catalogues and press releases should be sent to the Editor at: [email protected] or to Sandra O’Brien c/o the above address. For advertising information, contact: Michael Wile at [email protected] or 416.531.1483 4 13 Opinion: Finding Our Place: Thoughts Meet Eight Authors and Illustrators (and a Plea) from a Lifelong Nationalist Participating in the 2017 TD Canadian Gillian O’Reilly encourages writers to use Children’s Book Week Canadian locales as the settings for their Jason Chabot, Natasha Deen, Marianne Dubuc, stories. Melanie Florence, John Martz, Stacey Matson, 7 Gabrielle Prendergast and Emil Sher News Roundup 16 Jan Andrews, Deborah Ellis, Jacqueline An Interview with Ian Wallace COVER: Illustration from the 2017 TD Canadian Guest and Annabel Slaight named to Order We chat with the award-winning Ian Wallace, our Children’s Book Week poster by Ian Wallace of Canada; 25th Anniversary Announcement Book Week poster illustrator, who participated in © 2017. TD Canadian Children’s Book Week takes place from May 6 to 13, 2017. For more information for the Anne Connor-Brimer Award for Atlantic our first Book Week tour 40 years ago. visit www.bookweek.ca. Canadian Children’s Literature; Lisa Doucet celebrates 20 years at Woozles; Colleen 18 MEDIUM: Chalk Pastel MacMillan retires; Jim Munro (1929-2016); Bookmark! Reading Across Canada ABOUT THE ILLUstrator: Ian Wallace is an Congratulations to Joanne Naslund; New A selection of books that are set in Canada for award-winning author and illustrator currently school named for author/illustrator Barbara students from Kindergarten to Grade 12. living in Brookline, Massachusetts. Ian studied Reid; 2017 TD Grade One Book Giveaway at the Ontario College of Art, where he received title announced. 22 an associateship and scholarship for a year of Red Leaf Literature post-graduate studies. Since that time he has 8 This new column for 2017 features titles written and illustrated several hugely successful Keep Your Eye On... Monique Gray Smith chosen by Canadian Children’s Book News’ books that have won him many awards. He has reviewers. These books are thought to be of been the nominee for the prestigious Hans Christian 9 the highest quality and signify titles of Andersen Award given by the International Board Seen at ... exceptional calibre. on Books for Young People and has travelled extensively, having read to over 800,000 children A photographic look at book events 28 across Canada, the U.S., Australia, Great Britain We Recommend and China. Ian’s latest book, The Curiosity Cabinet, 10 will be published in 2017 by Groundwood Books. Profile: Mike Boldt Reviews of the latest Canadian books for As Mike Boldt heads out on his first Book Week children and teens. tour, he looks forward to inspiring a love of reading and creativity in the children he meets. 40 Printed in Canada. Index of Reviews SPRING 2017 CANADIAN CHILDREN’S BOOK NEWS 1 9781459813243 HC FROM THE EDITOR SANDRA O’BRIEN Board of Directors Daryl Novak, President Roland Stringer, Vice-President Robin Taylor, Treasurer Nancy Hartry Sylvia Moretti Leslie McCallum Felicia Quon Carol McDougall Zain Velji Lynne Missen Staff Charlotte Teeple Executive Director Shannon Howe Barnes Program Coordinator Meghan Howe Library Coordinator Camilia Kahrizi Marketing and Website Coordinator Patrons Marilyn Baillie Merle Harris Barbara Kissick Welcome to the first issue of Canadian Children’s Book News for 2017! This year marks Kit Pearson Shelley Stagg Peterson Canada’s sesquicentennial anniversary, and we plan to introduce you to as many great Ian and Deb Wallace Canadian titles as we can over the course of this special year. I think Gillian O’Reilly’s Sponsors article is a fitting piece to mark Canada’s 150th birthday and hope that more writers and illustrators will be inspired to set their stories in the towns, cities, provinces and territories Amazon.ca Charles Baillie of our great nation. Fleck Family Foundation Friesens Our cover on this issue features the stunning poster image created by Ian Wallace for the Perna Siegrist Design 2017 TD Canadian Children’s Book Week. This is the 40th anniversary of Book Week, and Rawlinson Moving & Storage Simon & Schuster Canada Ian was one of the first participants to go out on tour all those years ago. Be sure to read John Spray the interview with Ian found on pages 16 and 17. Sylvan Learning TD Bank Group In this issue, we are making a few changes and have introduced a new column entitled Funders “Red Leaf Literature.” In this column, we will feature titles chosen by Canadian Children’s Canada Council for the Arts Book News’ reviewers who have deemed these books to be of the highest quality and of Canadian Heritage (Canada Book Fund) exceptional calibre. And, while we recommend all the titles listed in the magazine, we Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism found these titles had a little something extra. Perhaps they feature exemplary writing, Ontario Arts Council perhaps the artwork is masterful or perhaps the topic covered has been done so with great Ontario Arts Foundation skill. And whether you’re a parent, teacher or librarian, our reviewers feel that these books Toronto Public Library would make an excellent addition to your home, school or library collection. We hope you will enjoy this addition to the magazine. Our Thanks We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for We also feature a profile of author / illustrator Mike Boldt, who hopes to inspire a love the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring of reading and creativity in the children he meets on his Book Week tour, and we discover the arts to Canadians throughout the country. what eight of our first-time Book Week participants are looking forward to as they head out to visit students across the country in May. You’ll also find our regular “Bookmark!” column, featuring titles set in Canada, a chat with Monique Gray Smith, author of Tilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience and My Heart Fills With Happiness (illustrated by Julie Flett), We acknowledge the financial support of the in our “Keep Your Eye On” section and reviews of many new and recommended books. Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Canada Book Fund program. Venture into a new book today! Sandra O’Brien We acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,737 individual artists and 1,095 organizations in 223 communities across Ontario for a total of $52.1 million. Your feedback is important! Thank you to Friesens for generously sponsoring the EMAIL COMMENTS TO [email protected] printing of this magazine. Like us! facebook.com/kidsbookcentre Follow us! @kidsbookcentre WWW.BOOKCENTRE.CA SPRING 2017 CANADIAN CHILDREN’S BOOK NEWS 3 OPINION GILLAN O’reilly Finding Our Place THOUGHTS (AND A Plea) FROM A LIFELONG NATIONALIST By gillian o’reillY How do we reflect the lives of our readers in our books? If books are both windows and mirrors, we have become much better at offering mirrors — allowing kids to find their families, their sexuality, their heritage or skin colour, their abil- ities and their experiences in Canadian children’s literature. But, too often, we forget that finding their “place” in a literal sense is also important. We don’t talk about “place” as much as we talk about the oth- er facets of childhood that we are eager to reflect and present. Perhaps we think it sounds too nationalistic, too limiting or a little old-fashioned — too redolent of Earle Birney’s awkward, unconfident Canada, “a high-school land, dead-set in adoles- cence.” Consequently, “place” is something that gets lost in the shuffle, and it shouldn’t. As a lifelong nationalist, I look back to my childhood — a time of burgeoning Canadian nationalism. We got our own flag; a couple of years later, we rejoiced in our country’s cen- tennial. We enthusiastically celebrated all things Canadian, even though much of our cultural development was in very nascent form. I grew up in a family that prized reading — and with a moth- er who prized Canadian culture and who intensely disliked the attitude that literature or art that came from somewhere else had to be better by its very nature.