Cover of The Ugly Place, by Laura Deal, illustrated by Emma Pedersen. I live in Iqaluit, Nunavut; currently, in a small satellite community, down a winding dirt road, called Apex. There aren’t a lot of roads in Iqaluit, in comparison to southern Canada, but I’d drive from one end of town to the other to visit one place in particular--that place on the beach that would later inspire my story. Let me just share with you that there’s something really special about this northern community--the land of the Nunavut Inuit. A strong sense of community surrounds us here, but that alone doesn’t always leave us invulnerable to more personal feelings of isolation. Almost daily, I walked my big sheepdog, Lottie. Just the two of us taking in the smells of the shoreline. On some visits, I’d sit in the vehicle alone and breathe, sip a hot drink, and sort out some thoughts. Sometimes, I cried if I needed to. I’d look out over the bay which seemed so still and quiet, even when the wind was so strong my vehicle would shake and rock from side to side. I’d go there, even if I had to lean into the rain as we walked (and re-walked) the length of the beach, knowing for certain it would take time to dry out my socks and mitts and one large stinky dog when I returned home. Most often, I’d go to collect sea glass (which I truly enjoy) until my pockets were full to the brim! The seasons eventually changed and the sand would then be covered over with snow, creating completely new scenery. In rain, snow, wind, and sun, and even hours after the sun had set, I would visit there. It was a moment I would take for me, and I always felt better for having gone there. It was my ugly place. Lottie. What I’d hoped to share by writing my story The Ugly Place (which, as I’ve said, is actually a very real place for me--a place I love, still), is that I understand how life can make us feel anxious and uneasy. It can challenge us until sometimes we feel like there’s seemingly no space left for our person. Children are no exception; they feel frustration, disappointment, confusion, and uncertainty just as much as the rest of us--maybe more so, since I like to think adults have learned a little more about the world around us over time.
A message that I think is worth sharing is that when life is hard and feels ugly, there’s a calm in nature reserved for all of us. It’s grounding. It spreads in all directions, especially here in the north. There’s always a little piece of earth that gives you just what you need, even if it takes a while to notice it. Lottie (RIP my good friend and ever loyal companion), those elements, the sound of the wind and waves, the beauty of the frozen sea ice, the crunch of the snow as my boots punched through on every other step, the northern lights above, the sun and wind on my face, and every piece of frosted glass I found on my summer walks (to my surprise) made up some sort of perfect and beautiful combination that got me through some really challenging times. So, I wrote The Ugly Place to encourage others (children and adults alike) to take some time to look for the same. That ugly place of mine was full of beauty and, no matter what I held in my heart or in my head at the time, that fact was always undeniable. There are three large jars of mostly green, turquoise, white, and brown glass that I have kept for years now at my home. I haven’t collected sea glass again since. It is now my complete collection, and a reminder to myself to get outside and just take it all in, whatever the natural environment has to offer. Sometimes it can be kind of magical. Laura Deal was born and raised in a small farming town in Nova Scotia. As a young adult, drawn to adventure, she climbed aboard an airplane for the first time ever and moved to Iqaluit, Nunavut. Laura immediately found appreciation for the culture, beauty of the land, and simplicity of northern life. Since 2005, she has rooted herself in the Canadian Arctic and started a family. Laura wrote her first book, How Nivi Got Her Names for her daughter, Niviaq, who was adopted through Inuit custom adoption. Her latest book (October 2022) is My Ittu, illustrated by Thamires Paredes. The trees are putting on their fall colours, and Canada is getting ready to celebrate I READ CANADIAN DAY on Wednesday, November 2nd––a national event that celebrates the breadth, diversity and abundance of Canadian books for young readers, and Canada’s authors and illustrators.
Seems like a good moment to offer some books by Canadian creators, eh! Our Fall / I Read Canadian giveaway includes books released in August, September and October (and a few book from before that as well). The giveaway includes:
* = Canadian addresses only. All other books available for U.S. addresses as well. To enter our launch giveaway, simply: - follow @picturebookseh on Twitter (and please follow a bunch of these terrific Canadian picture book creators too !) - like and re-tweet our launch giveaway Twitter post (for an extra entry, tag someone who loves picture books!) - Winners (chosen at random) will be announced here on our website as well as on Twitter on I READ CANADIAN DAY, Wednesday, November 2nd, at 9 am EST. Today, illustrator Dawn Lo and author Karen Krossing chat about their upcoming picture book ONE TINY BUBBLE, available soon from Owlkids Books. This non-fiction picture book is about our Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA – the microscopic organism that every life-form now on Earth can be traced back to. Karen: Hi, Dawn! I’ve loved creating this book with you, and I’m excited to chat about it. So, I’ll start us off. When I was writing this manuscript, I knew I was setting an illustrator up for a challenge – one you certainly handled well. How did you manage to bring a one-celled organism to life? Dawn: Thank you, Karen. Working on this book has been so challenging and satisfying. This is my first non-fiction book. I’d never heard of LUCA before reading the manuscript. There was also this challenge of how to introduce LUCA when we don’t have visual references. Besides my own research, the Owlkids team and you were so helpful during the process with providing extra resources from experts on the topic. I am happy with how LUCA turned out – a blob with squiggles and dots inside – also very animated and bright (hopefully). I am interested to know when and how did you learn about LUCA and what sparked the creation of this picture book? Karen: Your illustrations of LUCA capture the joy and hope of its story! I’d never heard of LUCA either until I watched a documentary that mentioned it. I was instantly fascinated by the story of the single cell that lived 3.5 billion years ago and sparked all life currently on Earth, and I knew LUCA needed to star in a picture book. I grabbed my notebook and began writing notes. LUCA’s story is heartwarming and miraculous. I love how it celebrates our diversity and shows our interconnection, and how it shows the mighty power in small things. What are some of your favourite spreads in ONE TINY BUBBLE? Dawn: Always nice to hear how a picture book was birthed into life. I wanted to join the project after reading the manuscript. Even though this is a non-fiction book, the text provides a lot of room to explore the narrative. That’s why I have so many favourite spreads. Spread 7 was lovely just because of the fun design, where I also got to paint the details in LUCA up close. Spread 11 was also one of my favourites, the first spread where humans/characters are introduced. (Humans are very fun to paint!) The transition from close-up paintings of LUCA to illustrating characters and dotting in the details was also extra fun! Did you grow up reading lots of picture books? What inspires you to write mainly for children? What is SUN IN MY TUMMY about? SUN IN MY TUMMY is about mindfulness, energy, the growth of plants, and the magic of the sun! What I like most about this book is that it teaches children about a complicated concept like photosynthesis in a very approachable way. The story focuses on a conversation about a homecooked breakfast between a mother and daughter, and how her oatmeal all began with the sun. The nourishment from her breakfast is the perfect start to this little girl’s day! What did you like the most about illustrating this story? I really enjoyed showing the progression of the sun. The sun was obviously a main idea in the book, and I wanted its brightness to reach a climax. The story begins with the sunrise at the break of dawn, and I experimented a lot in the preliminary stages with pops of light in darkness. I had so much fun showing this contrast and progression, and in turn, I also enjoyed showing the progression of the little girl waking up. You can see from these paintings that there was a lot of exploration and drafts before I settled on the final illustrations and colour scheme. In the fall I am beginning the process of a new book that will also allow me to play with darkness and light and I’m very excited about that opportunity. How did you develop the main character in this book? Character development is something that takes a while because I experiment a lot and it’s hard to know when to stop. When I began working on SUN IN MY TUMMY, the main character was actually a little boy. As I drew him with oversized glasses, big ears, and curly hair I realized he began to look a little too stylized. I eventually settled on this little girl, although the pajamas and large glasses stayed consistent. I wanted to give her a unique haircut and a cute smile. You can see from my sketches and paintings how she progressed and came to be! How did you decide on the layout of this story? There was a lot of detail I needed to highlight in the illustrations to show photosynthesis in a clear way, yet at the same time I wanted there to be a relationship between mother and daughter. In the thumbnail stages is where I was able to deeply think through each page and make sure that there was a natural flow to the story and that everything important was included. Here is a page of my thumbnail sketches, you can see they are quite small and not overly detailed. Thumbnail sketches are a way to map out the story without getting into too much detail or colour. What are your favourite illustrations? I really like the page where the little girl is introduced and waking up in her bed. I had fun including all the details in her messy room. I also like the page where we see a cow swimming in her oatmeal bowl. I’ve read this story to a few classes and that page always gets some giggles! Andrea Blinick's first picture book, OUTSIDE, YOU NOTICE (2021, Pajama Press) earned a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and the 2021 Northern Lights Book Award for the Nature category. Andrea's most recent picture book, SUN IN MY TUMMY, published by Pajama Press, was released in April 2022 and has also received starred reviews from School Library Journal and Quill & Quire. andrewblinick.weebly.com Two wombats, two wallabies, a koala and a tiger snake humorously squeeze into one burrow and reveal important truths about environmental disasters and the importance of welcoming refugees. I have just published my first picture book, Room for More. It was inspired by true reports of Australian wildlife sheltering in wombat burrows during the devastating bushfires there in 2019. In my story, two wombats provide safe harbour for a collection of animals – a wallaby and her joey, a koala, even a venomous tiger snake. But while one wombat, Dig, is welcoming and generous to their bush neighbours, the other wombat, Scratch, is not happy to be sharing the burrow. Scratch is afraid there’s not enough space and it might even put them in danger. Scratch would really rather not share. Illustration by Maggie Zeng from Room for More I spend the Canadian winter months in Australia and during my recent stay, the area of northern New South Wales where we live, experienced unprecedented flooding. The extreme weather event happened frighteningly fast so a vast majority of people didn’t have a chance to evacuate. Overnight, tens of thousands of people became climate refugees with their homes, cars – everything – underwater. Many were lucky to escape with their pets and their lives, some waiting for hours on rooftops for rescue. Tragically, some did not survive.
Within hours, the surrounding communities galvanized into relief mode; town halls became donation hubs for clothing, shoes and bedding. Hotels, motels and homes became emergency accommodation. Restaurants, cafes and grocery stores donated and prepared meals. It was heartwarming to see such a groundswell of goodwill, but for every person pitching in, there was another who looked away. I couldn’t help but feel Room for More was playing out around me in real time. I was seeing examples of my two wombats everywhere. One helping, one not. Global warming and climate change are playing out in Australia in a deadly cycle of bushfires and floods. We are seeing this reality in western Canada and elsewhere in the world as well. Environmental refugees of course are not the only humans in need. The world has no shortage of humanitarian crises from war and poverty to political and religious persecution. I’m often asked what message I would like to convey in my stories. In Room for More, it’s an easy answer because it is expressed on my dedication page: To all who open their hearts, homes and borders to those in need. And may we all remember to be the generous wombat. Michelle Kadarusman is a multi-award-winning author of middle grade novels including Music for Tigers, The Theory of Hummingbirds and Governor General’s Award nominated title, Girl of the Southern Sea. Born in Melbourne, Australia, she has also lived throughout her father’s homeland of Indonesia. Toronto has been her home base since 2000. Michelle currently divides her time between Toronto and Byron Bay in Australia. Room For More: https://pajamapress.ca/book/room_for_more/ Entrevue avec Célia Molinari Sebastià, illustratrice du livre Le Pique-Nique Après La Pluie6/8/2022
Célia Molinari Sebastià Q1 : Bonjour Célia, parle-nous un peu du livre, qu’est-ce qui t’a motivé à illustrer Le pique-nique après la pluie ?
Les souvenirs les plus précis de mon enfance sont liés aux albums que j’avais chez mes parents. Adulte, j’ai alimenté cette passion en continuant de me procurer des livres jeunesse. J'ai une bibliothèque pleine à la maison, pour moi ce sont de véritables bijoux d’illustration. Alors en illustrer un, c’était tout un rêve ! La découverte du texte de Corinne a été un véritable coup de cœur. Celui-ci fait travailler l’imaginaire du lecteur, porte un message important et se déroule en pleine nature : c’était tout pour me convaincre ! Q2 : À ce propos, la nature porte une place importante dans ton travail, peux-tu nous expliquer pourquoi ? La nature est le modèle de toutes les créations : dans ses formes, ses couleurs, c’est une inspiration sans fin. Dans mon parcours, représenter la nature a fait partie d’un processus de guérison : l’illustrer dans sa beauté me permettait de me focaliser sur des représentations harmonieuses, qui me faisaient du bien. Au fur et à mesure, mon intérêt pour la flore s’est accentué et j’ai décidé de quitter mon travail de bureau pour aller l’étudier et devenir horticultrice. Depuis, comme je suis constamment entourée de plantes, c’est comme si mon inspiration était omniprésente ! D’autre part, sensibiliser les enfants (et adultes !) aux enjeux environnementaux actuels, cela passe par leur apprendre à observer la nature, s’identifier à elle, l’aimer. Cela peut passer par bien des supports, et l’illustration en fait partie. J’espère donc offrir un lien entre le spectateur et la nature qui l’entoure. Q3 : Quel bilan retiens-tu de ce premier livre jeunesse ? Que j’ai hâte d’en faire un deuxième ! Illustrer un livre c’est des heures de travail, beaucoup de plaisir mais aussi de remises en question. Persévérer et finalement avoir le livre imprimé entre les mains a été une de mes plus grandes fiertés. J’espère de tout coeur renouveler cette expérience ! Célia Molinari Sebastià est une illustratrice basée à Montréal. Le pique-nique après la pluie est son premier album jeunesse. Site web : https://www.celiamolinari.com/ Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/pnzni/?hl=fr Before the launch of my new book City Streets are for People, illustrated by Emma FitzGerald, (Groundwood Books), I was trying to think about where the idea for the book came from, and I realized that as a lifelong cyclist, I’ve been thinking about it forever. In fact, I sometimes think of my life through the bikes I’ve had. There was the banana seat bike with handlebar streamers and hokey spokeys that clicked and clacked as the wheels turned around; the many Raleighs and 10 speeds that took me around our neighbourhood and to high school; the big heavy purple bicycle built for two my parents owned that I would commandeer to take friends for a ride. I also think of the red mountain bike I bought with my own money and carted back and forth to university and across the country a few times until it was eventually stolen by the henchmen of notorious Toronto bike thief, Igor. I’ll never forget seeing my boyfriend, now husband, chasing the thief down our street dressed only in a leather jacket and underwear. And then there was the blue-and-white beater with white wall tires I got to replace the stolen bike, and the heavy, sturdy blue workhorse (see below) I used for years with a child’s bike seat on the back, stuffing my sons in even as they got too big and refused to be stuffed. Before that, I often brought them along on that bike as I participated in Critical Mass, a monthly city ride in which cyclists gather and take over the streets. It’s a joyful, fun, celebratory event. Once a year, people do it nude!
But the thing I really love about Critical Mass is one of the mottos: We’re not blocking traffic, we are traffic. It’s a statement, to me, about how we need to shift our thinking about what is normal on our streets. I believe that bikes and pedestrians and scooters and wheelchairs, not to mention public transit options, have as much a right, perhaps even more, to be on the streets as any single occupancy vehicle. City Streets are for People was born from this recognition. It’s a book that asks kids to imagine a city where they feel safe, where the air is clean and there is space to connect with others and the city around them. It offers inspiration from cities and citizens around the world—from electric trains to shared scooters and cargo bikes, from solar-powered buses to electric trams that hang 12 m over the street. It also offers ideas for how readers can claim their city streets for themselves and their communities. After all, City Streets are for People! www.andreacurtiskids.ca Follow me on social @andreapcurtis Summer is almost here, so to celebrate, Picture Books, Eh! is having a Start of Summer Giveaway by some of our Canadian creators releasing books in April, May, June and July (and a few book from before that as well). The giveaway includes:
* = Canadian addresses only. All other books available for U.S. addresses as well. To enter our launch giveaway, simply: - follow @picturebookseh on Twitter (and please follow a bunch of these terrific Canadian picture book creators too !) - like and re-tweet our launch giveaway Twitter post (for an extra entry, tag someone who loves picture books!) - Winners (chosen at random) will be announced here on our website as well as on Twitter on the first official day of summer, Tuesday June 21, at 9 am EST.
When my son was in elementary school, I took him to a climate demonstration in downtown Vancouver. We marched and chanted alongside one of my oldest friends, a city transportation planner.
Around us, teens hoisted signs about fossil fools. Dads held toddlers on their shoulders, and moms navigated the crowd with strollers and baby backpacks. A few shop owners cheered from outside their stores, and office workers waved from the windows above. My friend, meanwhile, was checking out the bus routes and telling me how they’d had to adjust their stops for the day. Then she was pointing to new bike lanes. We were downtown in a city that had declared its goal to be the greenest in the world. What if all these people got to build the perfect place? With that thought, Our Green City was born. It began with a few scribbled pages about walking and wheeling through the streets, growing food in garden plots, and celebrating at block parties. The drafts went back and forth to my writing group and to my transportation-planner friend. Add more wildlife, said my writer friends. More energy options, said the planner. Once Kids Can Press accepted the manuscript and introduced illustrator Colleen Larmour to the project, she suggested many more additions. A school! A used furniture shop! Ants and hummingbirds! The final version of Our Green City is a collaboration between many imaginative and enthusiastic friends. And I'm so happy with how it evolved. Because isn’t this how a real green city grows, too? Interview with the creators of THIS IS THE BOAT THAT BEN BUILT: Jen Lynn Bailey and Maggie Zeng3/25/2022
It might surprise you to know that authors and illustrators of picture books don’t often collaborate directly on their stories, and that many of them are only given the green light to communicate after the book is considered complete. This was also the case for author Jen Lynn Bailey and illustrator Maggie Zeng who each worked directly with their editor, Erin Alladin, at Pajama Press, but only officially “met” each other via a Zoom call recently! Today on the blog: a look at some highlights from their conversation, and some additional thoughts for writers and illustrators just breaking in. This Is the Boat That Ben Built’ by Jen Lynn Bailey illustrated by Maggie Zeng © 2022 published by Pajama Press. JEN: It’s so great to finally meet you, Maggie! I was so thrilled when I saw the illustrations in This is the Boat that Ben Built, and I’m so glad we were matched up to work on it together!
I have so many questions… what was your path to publication like? MAGGIE: It’s great to meet you too, Jen! Your story was so fun to illustrate! My path to publication started after graduating Dawson College’s Illustration program in 2020. Pajama Press reached out to me with a manuscript because they had seen my work during the school’s virtual exhibition. This 3D, game-like portfolio showcase was designed by Studio Syro as an innovative substitute to combat the pandemic’s halting of in-person gatherings. Although that first manuscript was eventually dropped, editor Erin Alladin contacted me a few months later with your story, and the rest is history! How about you, Jen? JEN: I started querying this story to publishers in 2013, right after graduating from Vermont College of Fine Arts’ (VCFA) Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program. I got a big list of Canadian publishers and sent it out pretty haphazardly. No luck. I put the manuscript away for a couple of years and worked on other stories, and when I came back to it in 2017, I saw it with fresh eyes and could tell that there were issues with its cumulative elements. So, I worked on it some more, then sent it out again, this time being more targeted in my selection of publishers after reading broadly and studying the kinds of books each one was acquiring. When I heard from an editor at Pajama Press that she was taking it to acquisitions, I was so excited! Unfortunately, it wasn't a great fit at the time, but she said they would keep it on file... and a year later, they reached out and asked if it was still available. I signed the contract in 2020, after they had found the perfect illustrator for the project (that illustrator was you!). Maggie: I’m so glad it was! What inspired you to write the story? |
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