If it happened here
as it happened there. . .
If it happened now
as it happened then. . .

Who would have seen the miracle?
Who would have brought gifts?
Who would have taken them in?

This poem is at the beginning of Canadian artist William Kurelek‘s A Northern Nativity (Tundra Books, 1976).  An old book to be sure, but a bit of a Canadian classic, especially if you happen to be an admirer of Kurelek’s work.  A Northern Nativity explores the notion of what a nativity would look like if Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus were to have been in Canada in the years of the Great Depression.  Various diverse locations such as an igloo on the far northern tundra to the inside of a prairie grain elevator to a fishing cabin perched on rocky outcropping on the sea become a place for the holy family seeking shelter.  The story is relayed of how during a cold December in the 1930′s in Alberta, twelve year old William had a series of Christmas dreams in which he envisioned the holy family in need as many were in those hard times.  And always in his mind were the questions: If it happened there, why not here?  If it happened then, why not now?  And so is the Nativity experienced and re-experienced by William and the reader throughout this book’s text and images.  If you don’t have the wherewithal to get the book in hand on time for Christmas, you can watch this video of Kurelek’s images in the book set to Chris DeBurgh’s When Winter Comes.

This post will be the last PaperTigers post of 2011 and we wish all our readers a happy holiday season and best wishes for a New Year.  Corinne will be back with her calendar on January 1.   Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Doraine Bennet of Dori Reads.

Canada’s Governor General’s Awards are given annually to books published in Canada.  There are two awards given for children’s literature for French and English — one in illustration, and one for text.  This year’s winners in the text category are Christopher Moore for From Then to Now: A Short History of the World (Tundra Books) and Martin Fournier for Les aventures de Radisson – 1. L’enfer ne brûle pas (Les éditions du Septentrion).  In the illustration category, the winners are Cybele Young for Ten Birds (Kids Can) and Caroline Merola for Lili et les poilus (Dominique et Compagnie, a division of Éditions Héritage.)   Congratulations winners!  Check out the Canada Council website for full information on all the winners.  And oh, by the way, congratulations to the awards themselves — this is their 75th anniversary of awarding excellence in Canadian literature.

Joanne Schwartz, illustrated by Laura Beingessner,
Our Corner Grocery Store
Tundra Books, 2009.

Ages 5-8

In Our Corner Grocery Store, Joanne Schwartz’s tribute to neighborhood and family, a little girl spends Saturdays with her Italian-American grandparents, who run the store referred to in the book’s title. We spend the day at the store with Anna Maria, as her Nonno and Nonna manage to fit looking after their grandchild into the many chores and relationships that their business brings. Anna Maria helps out, too, making the rows of vegetables neat and displaying the breads in their bins.

It’s not all work, though; the child also finds time to make chalk drawings on the sidewalk with her friend Charlie. After the lunch rush, Nonno makes her a special sandwich. “I bite into it and crumbs scatter over my shirt. The creamy cheese and salty meat taste fresh and delicious.” When Nonna puts together stuffed mushroom caps for dinner, young readers learn how to make the dish along with Anna Maria.

Laura Beingessner’s delicate illustrations document the waves of customers who come and go, the charming little store itself, even the steps in Nonna’s recipe. The tone of the text and pictures provides mesmerizing, relaxing encouragement to slow down and appreciate each simple task. There are no crises or plot complications in this sweet picture book. The pace is slow, the relationships are warm, and life is simple—not necessarily easy, but still, simpler than the lives of most families these days.

For parents reading to very young children, the book offers many opportunities to identify grocery items pictured individually, as well as to talk about the scenes and the people in the full page illustrations. The text is also a good challenge for precocious young readers to try out on their own.

Our Corner Grocery Store may read like a report from another world, or at least another era, for overscheduled, urban, twenty-first century parents and children. Perhaps spending a little time in such a tranquil world will bring some of its almost forgotten pleasures to precisely the harried kids and adults who need them most.

Charlotte Richardson
March 2011

A few days ago, in the wake of the earthquake disaster in Japan, I heard about a family acquaintance in Canada whose elderly grandmother in Yamagata had a very bad stroke.   Yamagata is in northern Japan and some of the services to that area were disrupted, exacerbating the situation for anyone needing medical care.   What did this family acquaintance do?  Well, she and her mother packed up their bags immediately and booked a flight to Japan to be with their loved one even amidst all the furor and panic around the nuclear power plant situation in Fukushima.  Hearing this story, I had an epiphany.  Love does not flee, it goes to whom it must attend, at all cost and without fear.

World Vision is one of those organizations that understands this notion and acts on it with conviction.  This week I was heartened by reading the blog posts of one of its workers in earthquake and tsunami ravaged northern Japan.  So, today I am focusing my post on one of its initiatives — books for children.   The World Vision Early Readers series are photo-illustrated picture books published by Tundra Books in conjunction with World Vision Canada.  The books are authored by Marla Stewart Konrad, a former World Vision communications professional.  PaperTigers recently did an interview with Marla and reviewed one of the books in the series: I Like to Play.   As mentioned in the interview, all royalties proceeding from the sales of the World Vision Early Reader books go to World Vision to help support their initiatives for children.   Marla’s own long career with the organization has helped cement her beliefs in the efficacy of its work in assisting children all over the world.

Right now, it is families in northern Japan that need the most assistance.  As you can see from its website and blog, World Vision is speedily making its way there as did my family acquaintance to her ailing grandmother in Yamagata.  Isn’t love truly the greatest thing?

This past spring, I participated as a mentor in our local writers guild’s Sheldon Oberman Emerging Writers Mentor Program.  The program was named after Sheldon Oberman, a Winnipeg writer who is well known for his childrens’ books.  Oberman died in 2004 but his legacy lives on in the mentorship program and his wonderful childrens’ books, a few of which I’ll feature in this post.  Although my encounter with Sheldon Oberman was primarily through the legacy of the  mentorship program, my children were familiar with his books, having encountered them at their school.

The White Stone in the Castle Wall illustrated by Les Tait (Tundra Books, 1995) is the story of a poor little boy named John Tommy Fiddich, who with his white stone, considers himself “sometimes lucky, sometimes unlucky.”  Set in turn-of-the-century Toronto, the book is also about the building of one of the city’s most famous landmarks — Casa Loma — and its eccentric owner, Sir Henry Pellat.

The Always Prayer Shawl illustrated by Ted Lewin (Boyd Mills Press, 1994) is about a Jewish boy named Adam.  When Adam is a boy (and it is a time when ‘eggs were got from chickens, heat from chopped wood, and rides in wagons pulled by horses’), he receives a special gift from his grandfather — a prayer shawl.  His grandfather, a rabbi, tells him that although “some things change, some don’t.”  He tells him that one of the things that will not change is his name, Adam, and he gives Adam a prayer shawl.  Adam carries that prayer shawl with him all through his long life until many decades later he is able to give it to his grandson, Adam, when he is an old man.

TV Sal and The Game Show from Outer Space illustrated by Craig Terlson (Red Deer College Press, 1993) is about a girl sucked into a TV by TV station aliens.  This delightful story about TV addiction pokes fun at both parent and child.  I especially relate to Sal’s Mom who suggests to her TV watching daughter, “Would you like to do something different, dear?  Come out with us to look at the fog.”   I’m always nagging my children to get outside more.  It is while Sal’s family is out for a walk that Sal finds herself in that alien TV world and can’t get herself out.

Sheldon Oberman’s books are a delight and pleasure to read.  Hope you can find copies in your bookstore and library!

I vaguely remember the time my Japanese mother became a Canadian citizen.  It was 1974.  I was ten at the time and in elementary school.  I recall her studying for the citizenship test — learning the provinces of Canada, finding out about how parliament worked, reading about the history of Canada’s formation.  She probably knew more about Canada than I did at the time!   I don’t recall ever attending a ceremony, although she tells me she did go to one at a federal government office downtown.

The Day I Became a Canadian Citizen by Jo Bannatyne-Cugnet, illustrated by Song Nan Zhang (Tundra Books, 2008) is the story of how a Chinese girl, Xiao Ling Li, and her family become Canadian citizens.   The ceremony is held on Feb. 15, National Flag Day.  Xiao receives a gift of red shoes from her Aunt T.  Red is an auspicious color for the Chinese as well as being a representative color of Canada, so everyone wears a bit of red to the ceremony.  It is held at Xiao’s school gym in Toronto.

The judge, Dr. Williamson, who presides over the ceremony was himself an immigrant from Scotland twenty years ago, and he happily grants citizenship to Xiao’s family.  Other recipients include the Nguyen family, and two friends of Xiao’s — Sophia and Maria — whose family were refugees from Ethiopia.  At the end of the line of recipients of the citizenship certificate is a woman whom the judge gives an extra big hug to.  Xiao wonders who it is.  The judge remarks afterwards that it is his wife — a new Canadian originally from Greenland!

Being born a Canadian, I don’t know what it feels like to become one.  But reading The Day I Became a Canadian, I got a child’s glimpse of what becoming a citizen must be like — a bit of an adventure in discovering oneself in a new identity yet to be forged.  As Judge Williamson says, “Very few Canadians share a common past, but all of us share a common future.”