Let’s Fly!: A Dragon’s Quest in
Saskatoon
Written by Kathie Cram, Illustrated by Kas
Rea
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth
Publishing
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$14.95
ISBN 9-781988-783697
Writer Kathie Cram and
her illustrator Kas Rea have crafted a new book that celebrates Saskatoon
through the adventures of two unlikely - and likeable - new friends, an
inquisitive chickadee and a hopeful baby dinosaur. From the first page I
surmised that the playful language in this book – “a very small bird found a
very strange egg. Suddenly, it jiggled and wiggled and crackled and cracked” –
would appeal to young ears. Cram’s a multi-genre Saskatoon writer who’s
previously published adult fantasy and nonfiction, and she’s now working on a
novel. Rea also lives in Saskatoon, where she’s a Bachelor of Fine Arts student
at the University of Saskatchewan.
Using the tried-and-true children’s text formula of repetition, Cram has her friendly pair meeting other creatures as Red, the dinosaur, searches with Little Bird for the former’s family. The flying dinosaur soars above Saskatoon with the bird on her back, and the two make stops at popular Saskatoon landmarks, like Wanuskewin Heritage Park. The first landing’s bumpy. “‘Sorry. I am new to flying,’” Red tells the terrified Little Bird, who knows the area well and explains that Wanuskewin Heritage Park “‘is a gathering place that tells the story of the land and its first people, who have come here for thousands of years. There are exhibits to explore and trails to travel. There is lots to learn about Indigenous culture, and about the plants and animals who live here.’”
The two address a bison, and, because it possesses pointy horns like the purple-winged green dinosaur, the young dinosaur wonders if the animal is her brother. The pattern’s thus set for the introduction of more single-characteristic sameness between Red and other creatures. Could Red be related to the smoke-blowing “very large, very old steam engine” at the Western Development Museum? To the “flickering flames” in the “long glass cage” at the Remai Modern art museum, or the lizard – a bearded dragon – at the Forestry Farm Park and Zoo? (“‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ growled the lizard … I have rough scales and scratchy claws and a long tail like you. But I don’t have flappy wings and, actually, I’m scared of heights. I am not your grandma.’” Or will Red find her kin at the children’s museum called the Nutrien Wonderhub? Each creature thinks he/she knows of someone else who might be Red’s family member, and each time it’s Little Bird who peeps “‘I know. I know!’” and leads Red to the fresh suggestion with a “‘Come on, Red. Let’s fly!’”
Children anywhere should enjoy having this book read to them – or reading it on their own – but children familiar with Saskatoon will likely connect with it even more so. It would be fun to read the story with one’s children or grandchildren, then, over several days, explore the various destinations described in the book together.
Let’s Fly!: A Dragon’s Quest in Saskatoon has also been produced in a virtual format, read by the author and available on Youtube. A play is forthcoming, too!
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
Ride, Gabe, Ride
Written by Wilfred Burton, Illustrated by
Lucille Scott
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth
Publishing
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$14.95
ISBN 9-781988-783680
Got to love it when a
writer takes a compelling historical event and transforms it into an
illustrated children’s book that will both educate and entertain young readers.
That’s exactly what Saskatchewan Métis
author, storyteller, and fiddler Wilfred Burton has done – along with illustrator,
Lucille Scott – in Ride, Gabe, Ride, a new softcover published by Your
Nickel’s Worth Publishing that tells the story of legendary Métis leader
Gabriel Dumont and a particularly amazing buffalo hunt.
The tale begins with a brief biography, explaining that Dumont (b. 1837) “fought for Métis rights in two resistances,” and “could negotiate in seven languages, was a superb buffalo hunter, and even performed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.” The anecdote that inspired this book is based on “an incredible hunting story” Dumont relayed to Archie Brown, who wrote about it in his 1927 memoir.
There’s much to recommend in this rhyming adaptation. Firstly, there’s adventure: Dumont and “the people of Bois de Fleche” prepare for the dangerous hunt – a blessing from “the black-robed priest” is included – and with horses and Red River carts, they follow Dumont across the prairie landscape and set up camp. When a herd’s spotted near the river, Dumont “thunder[s] toward the stampeding horde of countless buffalo, heart as fast as hoofbeats, into the fleeing flow”. But things don’t go as expected when Dumont dismounts and straddles the buffalo with his knife: “up sprang the bull with Gabe astride and raced off across the land!”.
Eventually, the racing buffalo collapses, and “Gabe jump[s] off the heap of muscle, unsteady but in one piece”. Writer and illustrator have not shied away from portraying even the skinning of the fallen animal: “They carved him up to share with all, their next meal set aside. They dried the meat, then pounded it, and mixed it with chokecherries: pemmican for them to eat and to sell across the prairies.” The story demonstrates that though the Métis worked hard to survive – I noted via the illustrations that the women were very much a part of the operation, too - they also enjoyed many good times after they “marched back to their winter base, where they sang and danced and settled down to a gentler, slower pace.”
I commend the book’s designer in using bold but not distracting colours behind the pages that include text, and colourful, full-bleed illustrations on the opposing pages. We see Hudson’s Bay blanket-inspired jackets, moccasins, flour sacks, and red-striped Métis sashes. There’s a crow on nearly every page (fun for kids to spot them).
On four of the twenty-eight pages a stanza of text is italicized, and these lines could be put to a simple melody and sung for extra enjoyment. The book concludes with a glossary where we learn more about Métis culture, and the Michif words for “wife/woman” (lii faam), “old person” or Elder (li vyeu), and children (lii zaanfaan).
If you’re looking for a children’s book that celebrates Métis heritage and the Métis hero, Gabriel Dumont, you’ve found it.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
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The Day I Discovered a Dinosaur Bone?!
(Adventures of the Barnyard Boys)
Written by M Larson, Illustrated by R
Ghosh
Published by M Larson Books
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$12.99
ISBN 978-1-9992683-0-5
Many children of a certain age go through a “dinosaur phase” – a period when they’re passionate about the magnificent creatures that roamed the earth 70 million years ago. I remember taking my own children to Drumheller’s Tyrell Museum when they were young. In Saskatchewan, dinosaur afficionados can visit the T.rex Discovery Centre in Eastend or The Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina to learn about all-things-dinosaur, and meet Scotty, the life-sized Tyrannosaurus rex models. They could also pick up a copy of Melanie Larson’s latest illustrated children’s book, The Day I Discovered a Dinosaur Bone?! (Adventures of the Barnyard Boys), and tag along with brothers Finn, Owen and Dez as they search for – and find – something interesting in the Saskatchewan hillsides.
After watching their “favourite dinosaur movie,” six-year-old Finn and his brothers are inspired to unearth fossils too. “I bet we have a short-necked plesiosaur right in our own backyard!” Finn says. The boys go to work, but unfortunately their digging only results in the discovery of “an old, broken toy truck”. Undaunted, the trio also search the beach – no luck there - then their grandparents’ ranch, where Finn digs up a “bone” that is “so big that it would not fit inside [the] van!” The family decides to take the discovery – strapped to the van’s roof – to the dinosaur museum. What has Finn found? (No spoilers!)
As with her earlier title, The Day I Lost My Bear in Cypress Hills, Larson again includes many “Fun facts” in this cheery book. Among other interesting trivia, readers learn about dinosaur discoveries near Herschel, Ponteix, and Carrot River, SK, and that “In 1874, the first dinosaur fossil was found in Grasslands National Park” by geologist George Dawson. Children will also have fun locating the twelve bird, animal and insect images at the end of the book within the previous pages. Did you know that “the official word for dinosaur poop” is coprolite? Me neither!
The story’s filled with dinosaur names
- always fun to say - like Triceratops, Mosasaurus, Troodon and Ankylosaurus. I
enjoyed the humour in the book, as well. When the museum’s paleontologist tells
the boy’s that what they’ve found may be “more than 65 million years old,” Finn
says: “It’s as old as Grandpa!”
There’s book-to-book continuity regarding the playful illustrations, which feature lots of colour, big-eyed characters, and a few details that demonstrate the prairie flora and fauna, ie: prairie lilies. I appreciated the bold, easy-to-read black font against white pages, and the book’s quality production will hold up well against small hands and smudges.
Larson lives in Simmie, south of Swift Current, and works as an Environmental Consultant. Another of her five titles is Count Them! 50 Tractor Troubles, and I expect we’ll continue to see her brand - fun, educational stories featuring these three adventurous brothers and their family – in future books, as well. This tale’s sure to bring joy to any budding little archeologists in your life. For more information, visit the author’s website at mlarsonbooks.com.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
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Bee a Friend
Written by Kerry Sather, Illustrated by
David Mark
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth
Publishing
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$19.95
ISBN 9-781988-783673
Saskatchewan’s seen a
veritable hive of activity in children’s book publishing this summer – I’ve reviewed
four titles - and one fun-filled book that’s joined the shelves is the illustrated
hardcover Bee A Friend, penned by Kerry Sather and illustrated by David
Mark, both of Nokomis. Ten years ago Sather released the award-winning Bee
Yourself, which focused on self-esteem, and this new release “investigates
the meaning of friendship” through a successful confluence of simple words and stylish
illustrations.
Dedicated to the author’s grandchildren and other “little friends,” this rhyming, will-you-be-my-friend? tale features green-dominant illustrations with cartoon-style creatures – the narrator is a gregarious bumblebee – and four lines of text on each page. There’s also a tiny, witty fly flitting across the pages: its cryptic lines – ie: “This is too much!” – deliver an amusing commentary on the Bee’s persistent search for new pals in the garden once “The snow has melted and spring is here”.
The expressive bee’s first potential friend is a red ant, comically portrayed in an army helmet. (The fly’s two bits: “Sir, yes, sir!”) The bumblebee considers how “These army buddies dig deep to build their home. They always work together, they’re never alone.” A caterpillar’s the next contender; then a “dull grey slimy thing, catching a little breeze on the rock where he clings;” a “slithering snake;” a “chubby” mole (in jeans and suspenders, of course!); a “big fat cat;” a “silly old dog;” and a bespeckled and smiling human gardener. As with many children’s books, there’s a refrain in this story: “I am a bumblebee … would you like to be friends with me?” which even toddlers can say along with the reader.
I studied the illustrations and I found that rural Saskatchewan life is well-represented via objects including grain bins, a wind turbine, a water barrel, a pitchfork, hills of potatoes, and a barbed wire fence. The famed prairie sky is portrayed in tri-colour blues and the occasional cumulous cloud, and even the daisies and trees appear cheerful in this feel-good story.
Illustrator David Mark moved to Nokomis from Winnipeg, “where he spent countless hours as a kid drawing pictures and dreaming of building a drafting table under the stairs,” and perhaps one of the reasons the words and illustrations “marry” so well here is because Mark and Sather are close friends. (In my trade publishing experience, often illustrators are contracted directly by the publisher and the writer doesn’t know them … I didn’t even see a sketch before my own two children’s books were published.)
Sather’s biography states that “She is always thinking up the next journey a little bee might take readers on,” so I expect we’ll be following Bee’s story in the future.
Once again, Heather Nickel – the force behind Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing – has designed and produced a quality book that feels good in the hands and delights ears and eyes. The message: even though we have differences, we can still be friends, and the search for new friends is downright fun.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
__________
I Will Never Break
By Jesse A. Murray
Published by Off the Field Publishing
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$14.99
ISBN 9-781775-194637
As a writing instructor, mentor, and literary contest judge, I’ve spent countless hours reading the introspective work of novice writers and have found there are a few common themes, ie: failed romance, uncertainty about one’s purpose in life, and alienation. Putting pen to page is an act of bravery in and of itself; sharing one’s personal thoughts, fears, and dreams with others in a self-published collection is top-shelf courageous, and – with a heavy concentration on the above themes - that’s exactly what writer and secondary school teacher Jesse A. Murray has done.
In I Will Never Break, Murray’s debut poetry book – he previously published two baseball-themed novels – the Saskatchewan-based writer has collected poems written on “scraps of paper” and in journals between 2007 and 2010 and bound them in a book with a gorgeous cover: a winter tree in silhouette against a blue-grey sky. Note: Murray was between the ages of 18 and 22 when these poems were written, and this is not a typical, contemporary poetry collection. “This poetry collection was collected unchanged and displayed in chronological order, and as a result, a natural story unfolds,” he states on his website (jesseamurray.com).
There is much diversity in the structure of the poems, ie: quatrains, prose poems, stanza-less, couplets, but all are centred on the page and almost every one rhymes. “It’s amazing to me that I actually have enough material to fill a poetry collection, without me actually realizing how much I actually wrote at that time,” he writes in the introduction. He adds that more poetry collections are forthcoming.
Murray’s indeed been prolific: at 161 pages, this is a hefty poetry collection. Some of the poems offer blanket encouragement to readers – “Be who you are and live for today,/Never give up and do it exactly your way./Believe in yourself and live entirely in the moment,/Hold on to every second, it’s yours, you own it” - while others examine the poet’s personal fears (including fear of death and not leaving a legacy) and desires, reflect a faith in God, and illustrate a season of unhappiness with titles like “One Single Tear,” “Followed the Tears I Cried,” and “A Struggle”. He writes: “I never let others in, no matter how hard they tried,/The fact is no one could survive, such a rough ride.”
What frequently shines through the poems is Murray’s passion for writing. In his piece “Writing (A Part of My Life),” he begins: “My whole life I’ve been writing, word after word,/And now I don’t want to be forgotten,/I want to be heard.” Another poem, “Author of My Life,” also addresses this compulsion: “The pen is my mind,/and the page is my life./Whatever happens for me,/It all depends on what I write.”
FOMO is a trendy acronym. It means Fear of Missing Out, and though Murray writes “I’m afraid of missing out on so much,/Because I was afraid to try,” what he’s certainly not missed is the opportunity to honestly express both the darkness and light within himself.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
