If...

If... opens doors to so many ideas and possibilities. Picture books open these doors on many levels for those who are willing to read more than just the text. Here are some ifs to get your going!

Leslie McGuirk's If Rocks Could Sing is an extraordinary alphabet book, the result of years worth of beachcombing to find just the right rock to do the job. Photographs of amazing rocks in the shapes of letters and numbers beg me to open my eyes to look on the ground to see what I may have been missing. Apparently, it took the longest to find a rock that looks like a "K"! McGuirk's patience paid off but she reminds us in a note at the end of the book called Rock Talk "For many years I waited for the letter K to appear. There was nothing I could do to make it show up. I understood that nature has its own timing, and my job was to be aware and expectant."

If... by Sarah Perry, published in 1995 is a timeless book of surreal images and preposterous thoughts that compel us to consider the impossible. Reminicent of Rob Gonsalves' illustrations in his Imagine a Day, Imagine a Night and Imagine a Place books, Perry's simple text and illustrations provoke our imagination. For example, "if frogs ate rainbows..., if mice were hair..., if ugly were beautiful..." what then?

Jim Averbeck's Except If tells it like it is! "An egg is just an egg except if, after hatching, it becomes something else." Mind stretching ideas push readers to think of the possibilities. Simple, bold illustrations make it happen.

Finally, What If? by Laura Vaccaro Seeger asks us to consider one situation and a variety of possible outcomes. WHAT IF a boy found a beach ball and kicked it into the ocean? WHAT IF two seals found it and began to play? WHAT IF a third seal appeared on the beach looking for a friend? In this spare and deceptively simple book, Laura Vaccaro Seeger shows us the same story with three different outcomes, each highlighting the possibility in possibilities.Youngest children will enjoy this visit to the beach and the chance to guess what happens when different choices are made.

The presses kept rolling while I was away!

It's been a month since my last blog entry and lots has happened in the publishing world! I'd like to highlight a couple of titles that will appeal to a variety of audiences.

My Tattooed Dad by Daniel Nesquens

Synopsis: A young boy describes what life is like when his dad comes home -- how he fries up chicken samosas for dinner, how he makes jokes and fools around, and how he carries him off to bed when he is sleepy. His dad also tells wonderful stories of his adventures in far-off lands, often inspired by his many exotic tattoos. His letters to his son are full of great stories about the past -- what the first date with the boy's mother was like and how he saved the boy's life twice, once when he was stolen from his baby basket by a dog and once when he flew out the car window. But as his mother says, his dad has ants in his pants, which means he's often not around. Still, life rolls along with one fantastical tale after another, in good times and bad. This extraordinary father's gift is the life of the imagination, which is always with his son, even when he is not.

Comments: The illustrations in the book are reminiscent of fantastical tattoos. The artist created pencil drawings that were scanned and then coloured digitally for an incredibly rich affect. As quoted from Kirkus' reviews: alternating tattoo-style vignettes of animals, hearts, skulls and the like framed in baroque flourishes with wildly fanciful full-page cartoons, pop surrealist Magicomora provides urbane visual counterparts to the stories’ increasingly freewheeling flights.

Also from Groundwood Books comes the story of Mexican Mennonite migrant workers, many living in Southwestern Ontario, aptly named Migrant by Maxine Trottier.

Synopsis: Each spring Anna leaves her home in Mexico and travels north with her family where they will work on farms harvesting fruits and vegetables. Sometimes she feels like a bird, flying north in the spring and south in the fall. Sometimes she feels like a jack rabbit living in an abandoned burrow, as her family moves into an empty house near the fields. But most of all she wonders what it would be like to stay in one place.

Comment:
Without a heavy message, this sensitive offering captures a small child’s experience of constant upheaval as she flies like a feather in the wind. A long final
note fills in more facts about Anna’s unique migrant group of Germans. (Hazel Rochman, Booklist)

Finally, a comment about a past post. Lemony Snickett, aka Daniel Handler, is performing with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony this upcoming weekend. Among other stories he will be featuring his work titled The Composer is Dead (see post from January 27, 2011) or for more information visit http://kwsymphony.ca/media/releases/10-11Int3Release.pdf