Library Matters: Bob Heidbreder

Hello out there. It's #IMWAYR time again, when readers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to in the past week. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. Whatever you are looking forward to in your next great read, these are fabulous places to start your search.

I have almost finished all the characters for my Olivier Dunrea quilt. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to create the red stripes for Gideon's friend Otto (the octopus). Should I sew them, embroider them or invest in some fabric pens and colour them in? It will get figured out eventually. After a short reading break I plan to start on the rest of the little animals and plants. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by what I've taken on, but then I remember that it all gets accomplished bit by bit.

Aside from sewing, I worked on a book review for Naomi Klein and Rebecca Stefoff's book about climate change. It was challenging. I haven't taken that many notes while reading since I was at university. At the same time as I was reading and writing about it, I was reading Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. I also had Crossing Home Ground by David Pitt-Brooke, a title about habitat loss in my part of the world, on the go. It was all pretty grim.

Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian Author and or Illustrator.

Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book.

BLOG POSTS LAST WEEK

How to Change Everything: The Young Human's Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other by by Naomi Klein & Rebecca Stefoff

#IReadCanadian: Books For All Ages

PICTURE BOOKS

4 stars

In My Anaana's Amautik by Nadia Sammurtok & Lenny Lishchenko (Illustrator) 🍁

This is told from the perspective of a child being carried in an amautik - a pouch at the back of their Inuit mother's parka. Connections are made from the experience of being inside it to the rest of their arctic environment. The beauty of the land is captured in both Sammurtok's words and Lishchenko's illustrations.

POETRY

4 stars

Our Corner Store by Robert Heidbreder & Chelsea O'Byrne (Illustrations) 🍁

This sequel to Rooster Summer, is another novel in verse based on the memories of the author's childhood. It tells the story of two siblings, their friends, and their relationship to the owners of the corner store in their neighbourhood. The rollicking poetry is full of the energy of childhood. Heidbreder captures the sounds and smells of a time gone by in these delightful poems. O'Byrne's illustrations add to these memories. The collection reminded me of being sent to the store to pick up grocery orders my mother phoned in. Imagine sending a four year old a block and a half to the store now!

NON FICTION

5 stars

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

I was nine in 1962 when this beautifully written book was published. Rachel Carson sounded the alarm about the devastation wrought by our attempt to control insects, weeds and other 'pests' by spraying toxic chemicals I might have read this book in my youth, but if I did, I have forgotten it. I do remember a conversation with my father about the local consequences of spraying DDT. Here in our orchard/vineyard community in the Okanagan Valley, not only were the birds silenced, the mouse population went out of control and began to destroy fruit trees. The local rattlesnakes, their primary predators, had also been decimated by the poison.

Carson shows us the consequences of an extractivist worldview where humans see themselves as masters of the planet. She takes the reader through episode after episode of the destruction of the natural world and shows how we harm ourselves as a consequence. Most profoundly, we see that any positive results are temporary at best. Because of the chemical's wholesale wreaking of armageddon to ecosystems, they ended up making matters worse. She finishes the book with alternative, and much more cost effective and efficient ways of dealing with the pests in our lives. These are the methods we use in our local garden today.
I couldn't help but make a connection between the subterfuge of chemical companies then and similar tactics used by the chemical & fossil fuel industries today.

3.5 stars

Crossing Home Ground: A Grassland Odyssey through Southern Interior British Columbia by David Pitt-Brooke 🍁

In search of pristine bunchgrass meadows, Pitt-Brooke set off to walk from Kereomas and Osoyoos in the southernmost part of the Okanagan Valley here in British Columbia, to Williams Lake in the Cariboo region of the province. Along the way he reminisces about his past and ruminates on the history of the different areas.

DISCWORLD NOVELS

5 stars

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

I've read this one before and am happy to have read it again in the context of the rest of the series. It's one of a handful of best novels from the Discworld collection. It's also one of the few suitable for younger readers (aged 10 and older.) It's a twisted fairytale based on the Pied Piper of Hamelin theme. A group of rats, having eaten some kind of strange food, become sentient and start to talk and think like humans. Maurice, a cat, ended up in the same situation after eating one of them. They band together with Keith, a young flute player. The group travel from community to community fleecing the inhabitants after tricking them into believing they have a rat infestation and being saved by Keith, their Pied Piper.

Things change when they arrive in a new town where the village Rat Catchers have their own nefarious swindle going on. As nasty as they are, they are not the worse surprise for the group. A manipulative evil being gets inside and controls the mind of anyone who gets close to it.
This book is hilarious, heartwarming, and gruesome.

CURRENTLY

The Pratchett novel I'm listening to is Night Watch. Otherwise, I am between books right.

UP NEXT

I plan to read Twins by Varian Johnson, When You Trap A Tiger by Tae Keller and Measuring Up by Lily La Motte. I'll be reading and writing a review for a Netgalley title, The Incredible Nellie Bly by Luciana Cimino. I'm hoping to find time to start reading The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. I've got an audiobook, On Fire: The Burning Case for A Green New Deal by Naomi Klein checked, but I'm not sure I can handle reading it in tandem with Elizabeth Kolbert's book.