The Essential Role of School Librarians

Recently, the Lester B. Pearson School Board of Montreal decided to eliminate the jobs of all school librarians in their employ because of governement budget cuts. I was asked to give a statement about this at a recent board meeting:

We send our children to school to learn to read, to write, to expand their minds, to give them a chance to lead successful happy lives. A primary school is a small milieu where for the first time, young children are exposed to the vast world outside of their homes.

It is a place where they will learn skills that, for the most part, they will use throughout their lives. So how can a school open the doors wide enough to introduce children to original thoughts, other lives, different cultures and knowledge?

As an author and illustrator of over sixty children's books over the last thirty years, I have had the pleasure of traveling all across Canada, from Vancouver to St, John's, and from Inuvik to Chissasibi, as well as crisscrossing the United States, giving workshops, presentations and readings to thousands of students in librairies and schools : huge inner-city schools, rural schools, remote island schools, first nation schools, alternative schools, private and public schools.

What has struck me in the hundreds of schools I have visited is the influence that a school library and a school librarian have on the children I meet. I can tell as soon as I start interacting with them that the children are more engaged, more articulate, they ask questions, their minds race to make connections. They share something precious: a love of reading, a curiosity, an open mind and a boundless imagination. And the reason is that they have access to a wide collection of books, classics and contemporary, and they have someone who can suggest, lead, persuade and inspire them to expand their minds with books.

That is the role of the school librarian.

In opposition to this, the schools that I have visited where school libraries are inexistant or very poor, where books are outdated and in sad physical shape, where the library is used as a place to put unruly students, and run by well-meaning volunteer parents or overworked teachers. In these schools, I meet children who know how to read, but since they are not in contact with a variety of books about an infinity of subjects that would expand their minds, they are more passive and less engaged.  Some lucky and passionate readers in these schools might have a chance of becoming life-long readers if books are read in their homes, or if they have access to a public library. But the others, the children from low-income and less educated families, the reluctant readers, the slow readers, the bored readers, the new immigrants to our country will be functionally literate, but reading will not be an integral and important part of their lives. And a lot of doors will remain closed to them.

That is why I find it so shocking that we would not support the important role of the school librarian, as well as a school library in every single school. That, as a society, we would not demand that our young children be offered  a rich choice of reading materials that will enlighten their choices, instill a sense of belonging to a community, accept difference and expand their vision of the world.

This is what school librarians bring to a school:

They have the up-to-date knowledge of what books will interest, stimulate and persuade children to expand their reading habits.

They make a choice of which books to buy on an often reduced budget. They prepare and catalogue the books.   

They keep a modern, well stocked, well organized library where they suggest and recommend books that will ignite and inspire young scientists, romantics, adventurers, athletes, artists, science-fiction fans, drama queens, budding computer experts and daydreamers.

They give enthusiastic readings to classes that visit the library. Have you ever seen a school librarian reading a book to a class? It’s pretty awesome. Stories come alive. Strange voices ring out. Kids are mesmerized.

School librarians organize book clubs, book weeks, book fairs and reading marathons, creating an excitement and a buzz about reading and books.

School librarians organize and coordinate author visits, meeting with students to read, study and discuss the author's books ahead of the reading.

School librarians help, advise and collaborate with teachers as well as students with their research projects, directing them to books, materials and websites where the best information can be found.

Above all, school librarians are passionate about their goal, which is to get all children hooked on reading.

School librarians are irreplaceable and essential to a modern-day school.

— Marie-Louise Gay

David Homel and Marie-Louise Gay: How to talk to kids about war

One of our memorable family trips that was just waiting to be turned into a book took us to the coast of Croatia, a landscape of countless islands linked by improvised ferries. The country is peaceful and beautiful today, but the scars of recent ethnic conflict are just beneath the surface.

This new book held a special challenge for us as writers and parents who travel with their kids. Our Traveling Circus takes place in a country recently torn apart by the civil war that followed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. How do you fit that into a novel for young readers? How do we as parents and writers explain events to our kids? How would Charlie and Max, the two brothers on a trip with their parents, figure out what happened in this place, and how would it affect them?

They would do what any of us would. They compare their new surroundings to what they know from back home. On my street, Charlie says, people speak different languages and have different religions and look different, but they don’t fight. So what happened here? He will get his answers before the book comes to an end, and return home richer for it.

The other thing Charlie does is get a guide. Several guides, actually: his parents’ old friends Fred and Gordana and their grandson Libero, and their friends, the completely bald Bobo and his wife Silvia, who looks like a movie star. These people, part of the traveling circus, are a mixture of origins and backgrounds. They experienced the war, and have stories to share with Charlie and his brother.

But Charlie really begins to find things out when he heads off on his own adventures – with Max trailing behind, as always. On one of the islands they visit, a place where cars have yet to set foot, Charlie and Max come upon a frightening hermit with a few secrets that have to do with the war.

In The Traveling Circus, we mixed drama and humor in the right measure. When the kids discover a village that is half destroyed, half intact, and entirely deserted, they really see what a civil war means. But there is plenty of laughter as they confront fish thieves and ferry pilots who seem to be sailing with their eyes closed. Not to mention the time they almost get thrown into prison for sneaking across a border without their passports (Charlie was only taking Max behind the closest bush for a pee).

The Traveling Circus will take readers of our three previous books in this series to a place that few people see from the inside. We hope our Circus will inspire them to imagine other lives in other places, and widen their view of the world today.

2015 Calendar / Calendrier 2015

It was a lovely challenge to design and illustrate a calendar for la Librairie Monet, a great bookstore in Montreal that prints a calendar every year, illustrated by an illustrator of children's books, to give as a promotional gift to their customers, teachers, librairians and distributors. The challenge is the size: 12 inches wide by 34 inches high, but also how to illustrate books, the pleasure of reading, literacy etc with a fresh, original take? Not so easy when thousands of illustrators have depicted these ideas. Here is my calendar for 2015:

Un beau défi que d'illustrer un calendrier  pour la librairie Monet, une belle librairie dynamique à Montréal qui publie chaque année un grand calendrier illustré par un illustrateur de livre pour enfants pour donner en cadeau et en promotion à leurs clients, aux enseignants, aux bibliothècaires et aux distributeurs. Le défi c'est la taille: 12 pouces x 34pouces mais surtout c'est la question: comment créer une image qui parle de lecture, de livres, du plaisir de lire etc d'une manière originale? Pas si facile quand des milliers d'illustrateurs ont crée des images sur ces sujets. Voici mon calendrier 2015:

Happy New Year!

            Read, share and enjoy books in 2015!

              BONNE ET HEUREUSE ANNÉE!

            Partagez le plaisir de lire en 2015!

Le Jardin De Babel

Où avais-je la tête ?!?

C'est ce qui m'est venu à l'esprit la semaine dernière lorsque j'ai assisté à une répétition du Jardin de Babel. Répétition qui m'a tour à tour ravie et étonnée.

Mais dans quel monde bizarre m'étais-je plongée, il y a quinze ans, lorsque j'ai écrit l'histoire de Babel, dans laquelle évoluaient ces personnages à la fois invraisemblables et loufoques … qui venaient certainement d'une autre planète ?

Probablement de la planète où je passe une partie de mon temps à échafauder des histoires et des images qui se retrouvent dans mes albums ou dans mes pièces de théâtre.

Le Théâtre de l'oeil a dépoussiéré les marionnettes, les décors et les costumes qui dormaient au fond des boîtes depuis 1999, afin de rejouer le Jardin de Babel. À ma grande surprise, la poussière est vite retombée, les couleurs sont aussi vives et fraîches qu'avant, les marionnettes ont toujours la bougeotte et le texte reste absurde, surréaliste et plein d'humour. La musique résonne, la magie opère et nous sommes entraînés malgré nous dans ces aventures incroyables.

Voici Babel, jeune jardinier naïf et curieux, qui se trouve confronté à un monde sens dessus dessous. Il y rencontre Marcelle, un mouton volant qui passe sa journée à brouter les nuages, et un roi nain à la barbe bleue au bord du désespoir, ou encore un poisson polisson qui raffole des jeux de mots et qui nage dans la mer sous le jardin de Babel. Il fait la connaissance d'une princesse ensorcelée et invisible et d'un lapin aux oreilles en feuillage de carotte… toute une galerie de personnages qui l'entraînent dans une aventure abracadabrante.

Où avais-je la tête lorsque j'ai créé ce monde fantaisiste ? Plongée dans l'écriture d'une histoire qui captiverait l'imaginaire des enfants, pour qui la frontière entre l'imaginaire et la réalité est mince comme un fil de soie, un monde dans lequel les enfants pourraient vivre des aventures rocambolesques et palpitantes. En regardant évoluer Babel et ses compagnons d'aventure, j'ai retrouvé la joie que j'ai éprouvée, il y a quinze ans, à écrire cette pièce.

Le jardin de Babel sera joué sur la scène de la Maison Théâtre à Montréal, du 24 septembre au 12 octobre 2014

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BABEL'S GARDEN

What was I thinking? What planet was I living on?

This is what came to mind when I saw the rehearsal of Le jardin de Babel last week, where the puppets I created 15 years ago, evolved and waltzed, flew and swam in the absurd, surrealistic world where imagination is king.

The story of Babel, a young gardener, naive and curious, is confronted one morning by his familiar world turned upside down. There, amongst others, he meets Marcelle, a flying sheep wearing red high heels, grazing every cloud in sight. As well, he spies Signor Rapini, an italian fisherman, fishing in Babel's very own vegetable garden where he is also astounded to see a talking fish popping out between two carrots. Add to that a ferocious crab, an invisible princess in distress and a desperate blue-bearded dwarf king and you have the ingredients of a fantastic adventure where the conventions of logic fly out the window.

I am thrilled that the Théâtre de l'Oeil has decided to recreate my story of love and friendship and acceptance of the unconventional. And that the magic still resonates in Babel's Garden.

Le jardin de Babel will be played at the Maison Théâtre in Montreal, from September 24th to October 12th 2014.

Only in French.

Behind the scenes and between the pages of Any Questions?

At last! I am holding in my hands the fresh-off-the-press copy of my new book, Any Questions? It has been a long time since the seed of the idea for the story started growing, spreading its roots and stretching its branches to the sky.

Five years! A lot of things can happen in five years. Small trees grow, children start to read,  grandparents grow old, people stay in one safe place or explore the world while others have no choice. Books are written, songs are sung and new species of animals are discovered.

Five years of exploring a story I wanted to tell. Following paths that got lost in a labyrinth of confusion or petered out into a dead-end. Five years of searching for the true voice or voices, of looking for colors, textures and rhythm, words, puns and rhymes. Creating  a cast of characters, from polar bears to pterodactyls, elephants to snails, giants and beasts and dozens and dozens of children brimming with questions.

Five years spent gathering materials, ideas and inspiration to create a story about how to create a story, with words and pictures, based on the wide experience I have had in meeting with children, reading to and with them, drawing and creating stories in schools and librairies and especially answering their endless questions.

I wanted my story to be playful, magical and surprising. I  didn't want it to be a book that tells children how to write, but rather to discover that there are many ways of writing and telling stories.

I wanted children (and adults) to realize that they will be moved to be more creative when they are facing the unknown in that uncertain, scary, exciting mindspace between the time you know you have a story to tell, but before you have found a way to tell it.

I hid details and clues throughout the book, sometimes in plain sight, other times more subtly. For example, take a look at the title page, an illustration of an artist's studio...

Pore over the tiny sketches that reveal some of the images that you will discover further on in the book (singing dinosaurs, trees running for their lives, caterpillars, snails, cat's pawprints). With these images you start to understand the creative process, random images that float into your creative radar and weave themselves into the story.

I also invited some of my favorite characters from my other books to take part in Any Questions? I gave them bit parts or cameo roles: Try to find Stella and Sam, Roslyn Rutabaga or Caramba and Portia.

I want this book to have many voices: the Narrator's voice, the Children and Animal voices, the Second Narrator's voice in the story-within-a-story. I also wanted to vary the visual design from black and white storyboards…

to full color spreads with another layer of action behind the scenes, to the visual creative process in The Shy Young Giant story where color and collage progressively invade the images.

Enough said!

I hope you enjoy reading, exploring and sharing Any Questions?

By the way, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I might just have some answers...

Ask me a question of your own!

Stella, Star of the Stage

I am so thrilled that the Mermaid Theatre Company is producing Stella, Queen of the Snow as a puppet play. Mermaid Theatre has incredible experience with creating shows based on well-loved children's books.

They use the complete text of the book and create the puppets, landscapes, and costumes based on the illustrations. It's like the characters of the stories walked and skipped and ran right out of the books onto the stage. I can't wait to see Stella romping through a snowy landscape, building a snowman, skating, throwing snowballs, or sliding down a hill, with Sam and Fred in tow.

I spent last Mother's Day in Studio Inverse with Dominique Bassel, the sound engineer, and Steven Naylor, who will create the music and narrative track, and Jim Morrow, the artistic director, recording the story in English and French. I am used to reading to children and hearing their delightful reactions punctuating the story as I read. This was a completely different experience. I read Stella, Queen of the Snow over and over again into a huge mike, wearing earphones, alone in a sound-proof room.  But I am very happy that Stella and Sam will be speaking through my voice.

I am curious, though. How will they make the snow fall? What will the music sound like? We'll find out soon...

The show is premiering at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Halifax on June 21st and will be touring in Canada and the US in the fall and winter. Have a look at this great video of the Mermaid artists creating the puppets, as well as the sets, before going into rehearsals...

Illustrating for Children’s Eyes

Every spring for the last ten years, a wonderful festival called Les petits bonheurs (Small Joys) has bloomed in Montreal, the city of never-ending festivals. I have illustrated the posters for this festival and it has been an interesting challenge to create an image year after year with the same general theme: a festival of arts and culture for the very youngest of our children  while reinventing an image that by its style and content is instantly recognizable but different each time.

It is impossible to illustrate all the events, of course: music, song, dance, performances, puppet plays, theater, readings, workshops, all geared to children as young as 18 months to twelve years old. So each year what I have tried to do is create an illustration that evokes joy, excitement, humor and a sense of discovery. I want the ambiance to captivate and delight children and draw them into exploring the image in its tiniest details, while letting their imaginations soar.

I realized that to do this I had to go through the same creative process as when I write and illustrate my books – in other words, to tell a story, but one that evolves in one image instead of many.

If you look closely at the posters from 2008 to 2014, you will notice that from one child swinging on a trapeze trailing in her wake stars, musical notes and a flying rabbit, I multiplied the number of children each year as if I was illustrating the “story” of the festival and its success, while adding new whimsical details as well as repeating the familiar icons that conveyed the events of past years.

It was as if I was adding a chapter each year to the “story” of Les petits bonheurs. At one point, the festival team, that had fallen in love with the little girl in the red dress from the first poster, asked if I could bring her back. So she reappeared in the third poster and if you look closely you will find her popping up here and there.

The tiny characters I created have traveled by boat on mermaid-inhabited seas, paraded a pink elephant around cardboard castles, opened exploding surprise boxes, formed human pyramids and flown through a five-mooned sky where cats travel in teacups alongside schools of fish.

This year I was inspired by our long awaited spring and created the Garden of Small Joys where each child, clown, acrobat or cat performs inside a blooming flower.

Illustrer pour le plaisir des yeux d’enfants

Depuis plusieurs années, j’illustre les affiches du Festival des petits bonheurs, un festival des arts et de la culture pour les tout-petits qui a lieu dans le quartier Hochelaga Maisonneuve à Montréal.

C’est tout un défi de créer année après année une image qui annonce le même évènement tout en se renouvellant et en respectant le thème. Impossible, évidemment, d’illustrer tous les évènements qui se produisent durant ce festival: music, danse, performance, magie, théâtre de marionnettes, lectures et ateliers autant pour les enfants de 18 mois que ceux de 11-12 ans. J’ai donc choisi de créer une ambiance joyeuse, ludique, fantaisiste, parsemée de petits détails et clins d’oeil complices qui captiveront les enfants. J’ai essayé d’inventer un monde fantasque, habité par un nombre croissant de personnages: enfants, clowns, sirènes, acrobates, éléphants roses, chats, lapins et poissons volants.

En fait, j’ai choisi de raconter une histoire utilisant le même processus créatif que lorsque j’écris et j’illustre mes livres jeunesse.

C’est l’histoire des enfants qui fréquentent joyeusement année après année le festival Les petits bonheurs.

Happy New Year! Bonne Année! Feliz Año Nuevo!

My very best wishes to all of you, and here's hoping that in 2014 you will rediscover the wonder of the world around you with a child's eyes.

This is why in my first drawing of 2014, I wanted to depict the joyfulness of winter as perceived by small children. How they are astonished and delighted by the first snowfall. Fat fluffy flakes brushing their cold pink cheeks, transforming the world into a luminous and magical icescape. How they are lovingly wrapped up by their parents in layers of colorful sweaters, tuques, scarves and tied-on mittens and sent out to build snowmen or small igloos, to slide down enormous hills or skate on a frozen pond while listening to frogs snoring under the ice...

A busy year of books and plays and art and readings...

The coming year looks as busy as last year even if I had promised myself to take on less work. In January, I will do a residency at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier followed by literary events throughout the winter and into spring: The Outaouais Book Fair, the Quebec City Book Fair, the Toronto Public Library's Book Bash, The Blue Metropolis Festival in Montreal and the Congrès de mots et de craie in Sherbrooke.

Two of my books will be published in the fall: Any Questions? a madcap story-within-a-story where some kids and an author/illustrator (guess who?) write the adventures of a shy young giant together, and  Sam! A Little Treasury, a collection of the three Sam books with an introduction by Stella (in her own hand!). Two plays will also be produced in the fall: The Mermaid Theater from Nova Scotia will be producing a puppet play based on Stella, Queen of the Snow and one of my older puppet plays will be revived in Montreal.

Meanwhile, and in between these various activities, I will be writing and illustrating a new book. Ouf!

Signed prints of my artwork, featuring Stella, Sam and Caramba!

Many of you often ask if I sell my original drawings. As a matter of fact I don't, because they are fragile and sensitive to light, which is why I have donated most of my original artwork to the Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa and The Osborne Collection of Early Children's books at the Toronto Public Library. This way, the artwork is stored in a safe place, but is also available for viewing by students and researchers and anyone interested in children's picturebook art. However, now I have decided to offer signed and numbered high-quality prints of some of my art. You can take a look at the new store on this site.

Happy 2014!

Bonne Année!

Je vous souhaite une année 2014 heureuse et lumineuse qui vous inspirera à découvrir le monde avec vos yeux d'enfant. C'est pourquoi j'ai choisi d'illustrer cette joyeuse bande d'enfants émerveillés et ravis par la magie de l'hiver. Les gros flocons blancs qui chatouillent leurs joues rosies par le froid transforment le paysage en un monde lumineux et enchanté. Ces enfants emballés dans leurs lainages, tuques, mitaines et foulards multicolores virevoltent sur la patinoire et façonneront  bonhommes de neige, igloos ou châteaux de glace. L'hiver, vu par les enfants, est un pur plaisir..

Une année grouillante de lectures, d'évènements littéraires et artistiques, de théâtre et de livres...

Malgré toutes mes résolutions de travailler un peu moins, l'année 2014 sera fort occupée. En janvier, je serai artiste en résidence au Vermont College of Art and Design à Montpelier au Vermont. Au cours de l'hiver je serai invitée d'honneur au Salon du livre de l'Outaouais; je ferai des lectures et animations au Salon du livre de Québec et au Book Bash de la bibliothèque publique de Toronto; je serai la porte-parole pour le volet littérature-jeunesse au Festival Metropolis Bleu et je donnerai deux conférences au Congrès de mots et de craie à Sherbrooke.

Deux de mes projets de livres seront publiés à l'automne: Any Questions? Un livre hybride et débridé, entre le livre d'images et la BD, et une anthologie de livres de la collection Sacha avec une introduction écrite par Stella elle-même. Deux pièces de théâtre seront présentées à l'automne: le Mermaid Theatre de la Nouvelle Ecosse commencera une tourneé de sa pièce de marionettes qui est une adaptation de mon livre, Stella, reine des neiges et une de mes pièces de marionettes sera reprise à Montréal. Entretemps et malgré tout, je plancherai sur un tout nouveau livre. Ouf

Des impressions signées et numérotées mettent en vedette Stella, Sacha et Caramba!

Beaucoup d'entre vous me demandent si je vends mes oeuvres originales. La réponse est non, d'une part parce que mes illustrations à l'aquarelle sont très fragiles et très sensibles à la lumière, c'est pourquoi j'ai fait don de la plupart de mes originaux  à la Bibliothèque et archives du Canada et à la Collection Osborne de livres pour enfants de la bibliothèque publique de Toronto. Mes archives sont entreposées de manière sécuritaire mais peuvent aussi être consultées par des étudiants ou chercheurs ou passionnnés de littérature pour enfants. Bref, j'ai décidé d'offrir des impressions de haute qualité, signées et numérotées, de certains de mes originaux. Vous pouvez les retrouver dans le nouveau magasin (cliquer sur 'store' sur la page d'accueil) sur ce site.

On my first day of school

Me, as a little girl.

I was gripping my mother’s hand when we arrived at the door to the kindergarten. My baby sister held on to my mother’s other hand, sobbing loudly and dragging her feet. She had been scared to death by the smiling crossing guard who said hello to her. You would have thought he had bitten her.

 We had walked all the way from the motel where we had been living for a month. We had moved from Montreal to Oakville, Ontario for my father’s new job, but my parents couldn’t find an affordable apartment. So we were living temporarily in a tiny white decrepit cabin, part of the Miracle Motel complex on the outskirts of Oakville. The miracle was that the four of us could live, sleep and eat in one small, unheated room with a kitchenette.  My sister and I slept on the couch, my parents on the foldout bed. All our toys and books were in storage so we mostly played on the stoop with rocks and twigs. We were the sole guests of the motel. The days were long and boring. I missed my friends in Montreal.

So, as you can imagine, I had been waiting impatiently for this first day of school. My mother kept telling me how wonderful it would be: I would make friends, sing songs, draw pictures and read books. There would be new games and new toys. There was a playground where I would play tag, jump rope and play hopscotch with all my new friends. We went shopping for a new dress, new shoes, a pink schoolbag and a Babar lunchbox. I was so excited I could hardly sleep the night before.

We entered the kindergarten room. A big light-filled colorful room with children’s drawings taped all over the walls, shelves of books and mountains of toys. There were children playing, laughing, running. A tall smiling lady came over and talked with my mother, then bent down to talk to me. Meaningless sounds came out of her mouth. I strained to hear. More meaningless sounds. Puzzled, I looked at my mother, who laughed and said, “Voici ton professeur Madame Jennifer. Elle parle anglais.”

My mother had forgotten to mention one small thing: I would be starting school in English. I had never heard a word of English in my life. “Ne t’en fais pas, tu apprendras vite”— Don’t worry, you will learn English very quickly — said my mother as she kissed and hugged me tight. “Je reviens bientôt.” She left, pulling my sobbing sister after her.

I stood by the door. The colors drained out of the room. I felt cold. All the children seemed to stare at me. They knew that I couldn’t speak their language. This wasn’t going to be wonderful at all. I carefully put my new Babar lunchbox on the floor and stiffly turned my back to the class. Through the window I could see my mother walking quickly down the street with my sister in her arms. They got smaller and smaller, then disappeared into the distance.

“How long does it take to learn a new language?” I asked myself. I knew that if I didn’t move I would be invisible. But someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned slowly. A fat girl in a pink dress wearing sparkly blue glasses smiled at me and took my hand. She gently pulled me to the carpet where all the children sat in a circle. I sat down next to her. The children started singing a song in the language I did not understand. After a while I hummed along. The fat girl with the sparkly blue glasses smiled at me.

I hummed louder.

This blog post was originally published on the Groundwood Books and House of Anansi blog. Click here to read posts from my fellow Groundwood authors on their first days of school.