Bata is “child” in Tagalog.  The Bata Project (in conjunction with Synergeia) is a fundraising initiative begun by Winnipegger Glenda Ollero to help underprivileged Filipino children go to school.   For $12, you can fund one child’s education for a year.  Check out their website (and Synergeia’s too) for more information on this children’s educational initiative in the Philippines.   If you’re a Winnipegger, check out their events and consider purchasing one of their colorful pins made by Filipino artisans.  For more on children’s books in the Philippines, check out our past PT issue on the country.

No, this post is not about recipes.  You’ll not find “Alligator Pie” in any Canadian cookbook, that’s for sure,  but you will find scores of Canadian kids familiar with the poem and book of the same title.  Alligator Pie written by Dennis Lee in 1974 (original edition illustrated by Frank Newfeld) is a Canadian poetry classic. Children just love this zany poem’s rhymes.

Alligator pie, alligator pie,

If I don’t get some I think I’m gonna die.

Give away the green grass, give away the sky,

But don’t give away my alligator pie.

Many a child, including my own, has gone to a Lee reading to shout out with glee the end word rhymes to this famous poem.  Indeed, Mr. Lee encourages it.  “I never realized how soon a child can take part in “doing poems.”  A two year old will join in, if you pause at the rhyme-word and let him complete it.  Usually it will be the familiar rhyme, but if you’re making up new verses you’ll be surprised what he thinks of.  Try starting a verse “Alligator juice … ”

Lee’s intent was to create a book of rhymes for children that departed from the old English nursery rhymes he grew up with.  He wanted rhymes for children in the context they lived in as Canadians.  But not without being playful, of course!  My children love Lee’s wordplay with Canadian place names — for instance, this one on our home town.

Someday I’ll go to Winnipeg

To win a peg-leg pig.

But will a peg-leg winner win

The piglet’s ill got wig?

Is there poetry about your town or the place you live?  Is there a way to make word play with its name that will make your kids laugh out loud and think about where they live in a new and lively word-conscious way? Do tell!

Winter can pack a wallop where I live in Canada.  Because it can be so severe, stories are often about survival.  The people who immigrate here learn to adjust to winter in often unique ways that contain traces of their origins and yet orient them to this climate.  In Thor, by W.D. Valgardson (illus. Ange Zhang,) we see an Icelandic Canadian boy go out with his grandfather who is a fisherman on Lake Winnipeg, to fetch fish from his nets.  It is the dead of winter.  “The snow was at the top of the fences, as high as the windows.  The snow was so cold it crunched under their feet like dried bread under Grandmother’s rolling pin.  Their breath made white clouds.”  Thor must wear two sets of clothing and a bushy, fur-lined hat with earflaps before they set out in his grandfather’s Bombardier.  While outside, Thor and his grandfather notice some snowmobilers driving recklessly over thin ice.  One of them falls in.  It is up to Thor to to rescue him.  Will he be able to do it?

In The Big Storm by Rhea Tregebov (illus. Maryann Kovalski,) we meet a Jewish girl named Jeanette and her cat, Kitty Doyle.   It is winter in north end Winnipeg.  On the day of a snow storm, Jeanette forgets about Kitty Doyle who comes to pick her up from school every day.  After school, Jeanette plays in the snow and goes over to her friend Polly’s for latkes.  At Polly’s, she suddenly remembers that Kitty has been waiting for her all this time.   She hurries out only to find Kitty huddled under the snow in an alleyway.  Is Jeanette too late?  Will Kitty Doyle survive?

Thor and The Big Storm are stories about winter where I live.   What about where you live?  What is winter like for you and your children?