Compiled by Alice Curry, illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski, with a Foreword by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,
A River of Stories: Tales and Poems from Across the Commonwealth
Commonwealth Education Trust, 2011.

Ages 8+

What a fabulous anthology!  Seaside, riverside and wellside stories; rain, dewfall and rainbows; a sea-devil from Grenada; gosile ghosts from the Solomon Islands; Rain and Fire arguing in Namibia; Hermit crabs marching in the Bahamas and mother and son crabs walking crookedly in Sri Lanka; three brothers from Mozambique and three more from Kiribati; sailors and fishermen; the beautiful goddess Mawu of the Waters from Ghana; stars in the sky and in the sea… Such a wealth of legend and contemporary observation, all brought together by the unifying theme of water and through Jan Pieńkowski’s gorgeous illustrations.

Published to commemorate the 125^th Anniversary of the Commonwealth Education Trust, A River of Stories brings together each of the 52 Member States of the Commonwealth of Nations in a vibrant mix of traditional storytelling and poetry that highlights both individual cultures and universal human concerns.  By basing the book around water, anthologist Alice Curry immediately creates the potential for empathy among the book’s readers, for water is something that we all experience, though in different ways, as indeed Curry ponders in her thought-provoking introduction. The Prince of Wales, in his Foreword, also points out the way these stories and poems from a vast array of cultures and traditions are a way of “enhancing and explaining reality” and “encourage us to think about the kind of future we will pass on to our children and grandchildren, and the central importance of water to that future.”

As well as a lavish full-bleed double-page spread given over to each section title and a delightful illuminated letter introducing each story, Pieńkowski’s bold illustrations splash across every page: a monkey hangs from the header line here; there, the green “claw-like hand” of the malignant Nkalimeva from Swaziland holds tightly onto the dismayed elephant’s nose that stretches across the whole width of the book.  Pieńkowski’s iconic silhouettes and stylised use of color echo the full gamut of the shading possibilities of silk-screen printing to great effect, from solid overlay to beautiful gradations that belie the apparent simplicity of the design.

Some of the writing may already be familiar, such as Kenya’s entry, an extract from Verna Aardema’s now classic “Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain”.  Much of it will very likely be new, and with the sources given at the end, there is plenty of scope for further exploration.  Each story or poem is no more than a five-minute read and since each one begs to be read aloud, this is the perfect book to have on stand-by to take advantage of spontaneous readaloud opportunites.  It would be a good idea to keep it to hand in any case, as it’s likely to become a firm favourite with young readers.

Marjorie Coughlan
February 2012

Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, illustrated by Raúl Colón,
Alicia Alonso: Prima Ballerina
Marshall Cavendish, 2011.

Ages 10+

Alicia Alonso, the latest in a series of portraits of Latin figures by award-winning author and poet Carmen Bernier-Grand, is written in lyrical free verse, a style that particularly suits the dramatic life of this beloved Cuban dancer.

Alonso’s long career has been marked by many difficulties. Already a highly regarded dancer in Cuba, she and her young fiancé, also a dancer, immigrated to New York in 1937, when Alicia was 15 and pregnant. She resumed ballet as soon as her daughter was born. In a field known to destroy bodies and careers early in life, Alonso continued dancing until she was in her seventies, despite diminishing vision from a detached retina that led eventually to blindness.

Bernier-Grand tells the story in touching word-sketches of key moments in Alonso’s life: selection for the role of Swanilda in Coppélia; romance with Fernando Alonso, her eventual husband; parental disapproval of ballet as a career; separation from her daughter during her U.S. tours; learning Giselle while blind and hospitalized by using her fingers as her feet; ballet shoes stuck to her feet with dried blood; eventual refusal to dance in Cuba while Batista was in power.

“She counts steps, etches the stage in her mind.
Spotlights of different colors warn her
she is too near the orchestra pit.
She moves, a paintbrush on canvas…
She imagines an axis
and pirouettes across her own inner stage.”

Raúl Colón’s stylized pastel illustrations poignantly evoke ballet’s beauty and Alonso’s suffering, despite which she has had one of the longest, most esteemed careers in ballet history. Vision in one eye was partially restored in 1972. Alonso, who founded the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, still choreographs dances at age 92.

Back matter includes a detailed biographical narrative of Alonso’s life; lists of some of the ballets she has danced and choreographed and awards she has won; a glossary; an extensive bibliography of sources and websites; and notes on the text. While the simple story of the ballerina’s life will appeal even to very young children, the reference material is rich enough for an older child to use for a research project. In the process of understanding a woman artist’s life struggles, young readers will also learn much about U.S.-Cuban relations.

Charlotte Richardson
February 2012

Winter nights are long, cold and dark in northern countries like Canada.  So often, getting up for school means trudging out into the pitch blackness which can be a little unsettling.  In Caroline Woodward’s Singing Away the Dark (illustrated by Julie Morstad, Simply Read Books, 2010), a six year old girl must set out from her family farmhouse and walk a long way to the highway bus stop.  She must go down a hill,  in between the barbed wires of a fence and through a stand of trees — all, of course, in the darkness.  A very scary prospect indeed, for one so young!  So what does the little girl do?  She sings, sings away the dark.

The girl’s journey is narrated in verse, in loose quatrains, with end rhymes every second and fourth line.   So the journey reads a bit like a song itself, accompanied also by some very fine illustration by artist Julie Morstad.  By the time the little girl meets the bus, she has overcome her fears and is “so happy when [she sees] two headlights blaze into view.”   For any child who must negotiate dark mornings as is so often the case in rural communities in northern Canada, Singing Away the Dark is certainly a good solution to the problem.

This week Poetry Friday is hosted by Laura at Writing the World for Kids.

For me, it was a case of love at first sight, the first time I came across Bronwyn Bancroft‘s artwork. So in this Books at Bedtime post I’m going to highlight three titles all by different authors but illustrated by Bronwyn. The first two fit neatly into our current Water in Multicultural Children’s Books theme; and the third provides an accent to it with its Alice Springs desert setting – no, not a lot of water there…

First up is Big Rain Coming, written by Katrina Germein (Clarion Books, 1999). The text is snappy and there’s plenty of expansive detail in the illustrations to pore over with a child. Everyone, but everyone is waiting for the rain to come, from Old Stephen, to the kids; from the dogs to the frogs. The clouds gather, and still they wait, right through each day of the week, until finally, on Saturday, it rains. It won’t be long till the child you share this book with knows the words by heart and is jubilantly shouting out the last couple of pages before you get a look in! My favorite illustration: the children swimming in the blue/green billabong, surrounded by tall pink flowers – gorgeous!

Next is Malu Kangaroo: How the First Children Learnt to Surf written by Judith Morecroft (Little Hare, 2007), which again is a finely tuned synthesis of word and image. Malu the Kangaroo boldly tells the people, “I will show you how to play with the ocean.” And then he shapes and polishes a piece of wood into a surf-board. As he tells them how it will feel to surf, Bronwyn’s illustrations underscore the joyous lyricism of Malu Kangaroo’s words, with birds soaring and dipping into the surf, fish flying, and dolphins leaping. The patterns and swirls that have their roots in aboriginal art, coupled with Bronwyn’s characteristic bright pallette are simply (yes I am going to use that words agian!) gorgeous. My favorite illustration: the birds that ‘sweep and fly’, breaking up the horizontal bands of sand, surf and sky.

And lastly, Ready to Dream written by Donna Jo Napoli and Elena Furrow (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2009). Young artist Ally’s Mamma is taking her to Australia for the first time. At Alice Springs, Ally meets Pauline, an artist who, with just a few gentle words each time, teaches Ally to get closer in her art to the animals and nature she sees and experiences on her excursions. In their last meeting they draw together in the sandy earth, and Ally’s reaction shows that, in Pauline’s culminating words, she is “ready to dream”. There is much for young people to ponder in this gentle story that will appeal especially to budding artists – and there’s no doubt that they could be trying their hand at something in Bronwyn’s style as a result. My favourite illustration: Ally throwing high the stone on which she has painted a kangaroo, so that it can hop free.

Rachna Gilmore, illustrated by Pulak Biswas,
The Flute
Tradewind Books, 2011.

Ages 5-8

“Long ago and far away” begins this beautifully written story from the pen of award-winning writer Rachna Gilmore, transporting her young readers to the realms and codes of magic that may be familiar to them in fairy-tales.  The hope that, in the vein of fairy-tale, whatever bad things happen along the way, all will come well in the end, will help them to empathise all the more with the young Chandra’s trials and tribulations.

A terrible flood carries away little Chandra’s parents, after they have put her in a tree to keep her safe and given her the flute her mother loved to play.   When the waters recede, her aunt and uncle reluctantly take her in but treat her cruelly and even throw the flute into the river (the aunt’s malignant smile in the illustration here will chill the heart of any reader).  Without it, Chandra feels more alone than ever but stoically carries out her gruelling daily chores through the harsh winter and scorching summer.  Then one day, she hears a flute filling the air with music of hope, comfort and love – and food magically appears before her.  When her aunt and uncle find out, their only thoughts are for themselves; and when the monsoon arrives, they force her to stay in the river rather than joining them on the safe high ground.  This potentially cataclysmic act of cruelty is actually the catalyst for change that Chandra needs for her happily-ever-after.  Her hopes, as well as the hope of young readers who have been willing for a happy ending, are fulfilled.

Accompanying Gilmore’s narrative are Pulak Biswas’ stunning illustrations.  Using only blocks of primary color, texture and detail are created through the overlying black.  The varying moods of the familiar river and the clouds bringing the monsoon, or the gentle wave of musical notes creeping in at the top of the page all convey the atmosphere of the story.  The illustrations root the story solidly in the Indian setting alluded to in the text, such as the monsoon and Chandra herself, named after the moon.

In a world where young people have great awareness of natural disasters and difficulties around the world, The Flute is a very special book that combines a timeless quality with a particular relevance to today’s children.

Marjorie Coughlan
February 2012

Meg Medina, illustrated by Claudio Muñoz,
Tía Isa Wants a Car
Candlewick Press, 2011.

Ages 5-7

Nowadays, many of us take owning a car for granted and we think nothing of the fact that a good number of families have two, even three cars. Recently awarded a spot on the Amelia Bloomer Prize List for portraying a strong female protagonist, Meg Medina’s children’s book, Tía Isa Wants A Car, shows readers how dreams can come true if you set your mind to something and have a whole lot of perseverance and determination.

Dedicated to the memory of her own family’s first car, a “light-blue Wildcat that stalled everywhere and was awful to park on crowded streets,” Medina’s book tells the story of how a young girl and her aunt, Tía Isa, manage to save enough money to buy a “shiny green car” that will “take us to the beach!” With the funds from taking odd jobs around the neighborhood and her aunt’s work at a local bakery, the girl and Tía Isa save up enough (while also putting aside money for family out of the country) to ultimately end up with their dream car, a symbol of freedom literally as well as metaphorically. Tía Isa be able to take her family to the beach and not have to wait for the bus, but she has also defied a cultural norm: one where the women are obedient and demure. After purchasing the car, Tía Isa is no longer seen as a “[r]rrridículo” sister who prepares meals; rather she has taken on the role of a strong contributing family member who can act independently, yet still manage to support other family members who are far away.

The pictures by Claudio Muñoz, an award-winning illustrator whose work has appeared in The Economist, The Financial Times, and several children’s books, has created a visually pleasing accompaniment to Medina’s words. He has created his own descriptions of the characters through his illustrations, choosing to depict Tía Isa and her strong personality in bold, brightly patterned dresses, whereas mention of the loved ones living outside of the country are depicted in a more toned down palette of colors.

Tía Isa Wants a Car is a heart-warming story that brings together culture, the importance of family, and the rewards of hard work. Children will delight in the sprinkling of Spanish words throughout and they will take away the knowledge that nothing is impossible if you have the belief and drive to make your dreams a reality.

Keilin Huang
February 2012

David’s Trip to Paraguay: The Land of Amazing Colours by Miriam Rudolph (CMU Press, 2011) is a recently published children’s book that tells the story of young David who recounts a long and arduous journey from a small southern Manitoba farm to the Chaco region of Paraguay in 1927.   A bilingual book — text is in German and in English –  the book is also colorfully illustrated with Rudolph’s vibrant images, cleverly ‘stitched’ as it were, by all the various modes of transport David takes to get to his final destination.  My daughter enjoyed connecting each illustrated page to the previous one by finding the travel image — whether railroad, or boat — unique to both.  In the front of the book, the entire set of travel images are united in a long band showing the journey.

How did David come to take this trip?  In 1927, a group of Mennonites in southern Manitoba, disheartened by the province’s ruling against the presence of German schools in certain immigrant communities like theirs, left Canada for the remote Chaco area in Paraguay.  David’s parents were of these Mennonites.  This long trip left a deep impression on a young boy, and later David would recount his memories of this trip to his grandchildren, one of them, being the author and illustrator of this book, Miriam Rudolph.

My daughter and I enjoyed reading this colorful book together, and maybe, some day she can read it with her Oma in German!

Edited by Radhika Menon and Sandhya Rao, illustrated by Nirupama Sekhar,
Water Stories from Around the World
Tulika, 2010.

Ages 5-11

An international assortment of water stories converge in this beautifully presented anthology, with tales from India, Botswana, Spain, Nigeria, China and Greece, as well as the Australian Aboriginal and Native American traditions, and “The Green Man”, a “story from many myths”.  This was the first one I turned to, since I’ve always been curious about him – and I loved the way the story was narrated wholly as a reported experience within the context of the here and now, making the Green Man relevant to contemporary children as a metaphor for looking after our water, whether or not we believe the story to be true.

Each of the nine storytellers represented here has a very distinctive voice but the one thing they all have in common is that they grip the reader right from the first sentence. And among the stories themselves, there’s something for everyone: magic, retribution, monsters, dragons, giants, deities, misunderstandings, humor, pride… Within so much variety, the only the thing they all have in common is water.  Perhaps my favourite story is “House of Sun and Moon”, where water herself is personified.  Water gathering up “all her children” in her skirts – and that means “oceans, seas, glaciers, rivers, streams, brooks, lakes, ponds and puddles” – plus everything plant and animal that lives in them, is just the kind of image to capture readers’ imaginations. Another story, “A Well is Born”, set in India, brings the book right up to date.  Told in verse, it reveals how the observation of a farmer saves the day for an engineer drilling for water.  Even so, the origins of the ballad go back to a traditional myth from the Ivory Coast.

Helping to bring the stories together as a collection are Niruoama Sekhar’s colourful illustrations.  Her style shifts to allow each story some individuality but certain motifs are carried through the whole book. Water splashes energetically in a pleasing variety of pattern and tone; and in those places where she incorporates the white background of the page, there is a batik-like quality to her painting.

Two double-page spreads at the end add to the educative possibilities of this excellently presented book.  Firstly, a “Water Timeline” from 10,000 BC to the present day, with an information box that asks us to ponder the question “Where have we gone wrong?”, faced as we are “with the threat of a world with less and less water”, and it suggests the relevance of creating a timeline of water for our own neighborhoods.  And secondly, a “Water Facts” spread that centers on India and will be of equal interest to readers both within and outside the country.  This is followed by an immensely readable introduction to all the contributors that connects each of them with their parts of the book. Tulika have also created a website to accompany the book, and it’s well worth a visit.

All in all, this is an excellent anthology that is likely to become a firm favourite in homes and schools alike.

Marjorie Coughlan
January 2012

Author Ting-Xing Ye’s mother used to say, “It’s typical! Three Monks, no water!”  whenever she or her brothers and sisters tried to get out of doing something.  Three Monks, No Water (Annick Press, 1997)is the story behind that enigmatic expression – and since reading it, I can see it becoming a useful phrase in our home!

A young Buddhist monk lived alone at the top of a mountain.  Every day he had to fetch water from the foot of the mountain, using a yoke and two buckets.  That provided him with enough water for his personal needs and to water his small vegetable garden.  One day, he was joined by an older monk.  Their attempts to bring water up the mountain together, stringing a single bucket on a pole carried between them, were not very successful; and each felt it was the other’s task to fetch more water, so neither went.  The vegetables in the garden began to die.  Then a third monk arrived, and the situation worsened.  As each monk refused to give way, or compromise his stance in any way, the outlook became bleaker, and certainly none of them was composed enough to meditate or pray.  Then one day, disaster struck… Would they be able to let go of their antagonism and work together to put things right?

Three Monks, No Water is just the kind of fable that will appeal to young children with a strong sense of right and wrong.  The narrative certainly makes no excuses for the monks’ unreasonable behaviour, but leaves plenty of scope for young listeners to react.  Illustrator Harvey Chan’s background of acrylic on gessoed board gives the illustrations an interesting texture for the colored pencil drawings in soft, muted colors; and I love the monks’ facial expressions.  And on every page, like a heavy watermark, a line of calligraphy conveys the expression of the title.  Plus there’s a specially designed seal inside the front and back cover, with a short explanatory note, and together these add a nice extra touch.

This is a great story for conveying the importance of dialogue and reciprocity, giving as well as expecting and taking – and it can be applied to a directly parallel scenario of three individuals, or on a global level, or anywhere in between…

Maya Christina Gonzalez,
I Know the River Loves Me / Yo sé que el río me ama
Children’s Book Press, 2009.

Ages 5-8

A girl visits a very special best friend, the river.  How does she know that the river loves her?  “She [the river] jumps and sings when she sees me”, and “when I look into her face, she’s happy to see me.” are just two of the answers that each turn of the page provides. The girl is filled with a sense of well-being through being able to play in the river, or sit by her and think; the river will continue to be there “waiting for me, singing my name” because it is loved and respected. Gonzalez’ lyrical prose reads like a poem and offers up plenty of food for young readers’ imaginations.

While the depiction of the little girl is instantly recognisable as being in Gonzalez’ style, unusually, she emphasises the flowing and swirling of the river by allowing the white of the page to be seen behind them.  In contrast to the bright blues of the water and greens and pinks of the fish and riverside flora, the girl herself is depicted in soft monochrome.  This does not detract from the solidity of the girl’s presence in the narrative, but it does emphasise the central role of the river.  It is particularly effective when the girl is floating in the river, her long, dark hair seeming to meld into the curves of the flowing water.  At the very end, the girl is seen wearing a blue dress that flows into the river, which, in turn, has absorbed her blacks and grays among its blue.  The concluding words bring the by now familiar refrain, “I know the river loves me,” and this time we also have the counterpoint that creates the balance of harmony, as well as a powerful ending to the narrative: “and I love the river.”

The practical actions involved in reaching this spiritual affinity are not ignored either – so the girl is shown taking her rubbish home.  In a short appendix Gonzalez talks about her love of rivers and encourages her readers to explore rivers for themselves – both the ones that inspired her to create the book and, by extension, the rivers on their own doorsteps.  I Know the River Loves Me is a gentle way to introduce young children to the mutual benefits of showing love and respect to their natural environment.

Marjorie Coughlan
January 2012