The cover of The Secret of the Village Fool displays Renné Benoit's gentle style of illustration and invites the reader into an inspiring and powerful tale. But it also shows the anxiety and uneasiness of Milek and Munio, two young boys in their village in Poland during WWII. Their neighbour, Anton,
"If we’re lucky, art can help us through our wolfishness."* And it does, indeed, help Virginia get through her wolfishness. As does her sister, Vanessa. And the painting of Bloomsberry. What's this? A children's book about Virginia Woolf? But we all know how THAT story ends. And, yet,
"Not far from here, I have seen a house held up by the hands of trees. This is its story." So states the title page of this illustrated work with prose by Ted Kooser (who has won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry) and images by Jon Klassen.
The story begins in spring, with the trees greening, but the talk is all of pumpkins. It's too soon to plant pumpkins, Grandpa says, because they need real heat. "And bees. Pumpkins need bees." For many young readers, this will be new -- and startling -- information. "We'll
On the surface, Nalo Hopkinson's YA novel is about the chaos which ensues after a volcano emerges dramatically in Lake Ontario. Simon & Schuster, 2012 It also, however, takes on the chaotic elements of the reader's society: the sexism, ableism, homophobia and racism that characterizes the everyday world
