CM Volume 1 Number 8

Volume 1 Number 8

August 4, 1995

Table of Contents

Book Reviews

Around the World in Eighteen Plays:
Folk-tale Scripts for the Classroom.
Claire Northrop
Review by Patricia Fry
Grades K - 6 / Ages 5 - 11.

Bats about Baseball.
Jean Little and Claire Mackay.
Review by A. Edwardsson.
Grades 2 - 4 / Ages 7 - 10.

Mine for Keeps.
Jean Little.
Review by Joan Payzant.
Grades 3 - 6 / Ages 8 -12

Twin Cities: Alberni - Port Alberni.
Jan Peterson.
Review by Joan Payzant.
Grades 9 - 13 / Ages 14 - Adult.

Video Review

Great Northern Forest.
Review by Lorrie Andersen.
Grades 7 - 13 / Ages 12 - 18.

Book Review

Around the World in Eighteen Plays:
Folk-tale Scripts for the Classroom.
Claire Northrop.
Winnipeg: Peguis, 1994. 88 pp, paper, b/w illustrations, $14.95.
ISBN 1-895411-72-6

Grades K - 6 / Ages 5 - 11.

Review by Patricia Fry.

Every teacher knows the value of dramatic role-playing to get an idea across to a class, but it's easy to forget that similar benefits occur when the roles are reversed and the students become the actors. Acting out a story not only stimulates children's interest in reading more stories, it also helps them to develop confidence in speaking expressively. That simple lesson is vividly underlined in this excellent resource book aimed at elementary-school teachers.

Author Claire Northrop, a retired teacher who was a storyteller for most of her teaching career, has taken 18 traditional folk tales from around the world and written them as plays for basic-level readers. The traditional stories were chosen for their timeless quality and their importance to every country's literary heritage because Northrop wants to encourage children to appreciate and celebrate cultural diversity. Traditional stories used in this book include Three Sillies, Ti-Jean and the Big White Cate, Pretty Maruska, and Happy Hans.

Each play includes a story synopsis, cast list and suggestions for props and costumes; some also include production notes. In her introduction, Northrop has listed helpful tips for costumes, props and classroom setup; simplicity is the key word here. Scripts can be used for an informal classroom play or for a full performance; Northrop explains how to use them with pre-readers, emergent readers and with fluent readers. Furthermore, all scripts can be photocopied for classroom use so that all cast members have their own copy. Finally, they can be used as a pattern for students to create and write their own plays based on favourite stories.

Highly recommended as a teaching resource for grades K to 6.

Patricia Fry is a teacher-librarian with the Peel Board of Education.

Book Review

Bats about Baseball.
Jean Little and Claire Mackay.
New York: Viking Penguin, 1995. 32pp, cloth, $17.99.
ISBN 6-670-85270-8.

Grades 2 - 4 / Ages 7 - 10.

Review by A. Edwardsson.

excerpt:

Ryder's grandmother was bats about baseball. On his first birthday, she gave him baseball pajamas. When he turned two, she got a Blue Jays pennant for his room. When he turned three, she gave him a baseball cap and 9 baseball cards from her own collection. When he turned four, she gave him a bat and a ball. When he turned five, she gave him a catcher's mitt. And as soon as he learned to read, she bought him a baseball dictionary. She was crazy. Even when she was babysitting him, Ryder's Nana went right on being bats about baseball. Once the baseball season started, it wasn't easy to talk with her about anything else. But Ryder kept trying.

Poor Ryder -- he doesn't meet with much success. While his Nana is fixated on the T.V., he tries to engage her in a discussion of possible careers. In response to each of his questions, Ryder's grandmother makes seemingly unrelated comments about the game she's watching. For example:

``Nana," he said, ``do you think I should be an ornithologist when I grow up?"
``The Jays play the Orioles today," she said. She nestled down in the big chair. Ryder perched beside her.

So the premise of this pun-filled story is that, although she appears to be oblivious to Ryder, his playful Nana is actually listening and reacting to what he says. The authors are two notable Canadian writers, and each has a number of successful children's books to their credit. This collaboration, however, is a disappointment. It might be a hit with mid-elementary baseball fans, but even they may not have the vocabulary to get the all jokes:
``I could be a chiropractor like Uncle Bonaparte," Ryder said.
Nana stretched. ``We need some back to back hits to break out of our slump."

The word play between the two seems forced as it stretches for a laugh. Ryder never does get his grandmother's undivided attention, and he obviously doesn't share her love of the game.

Fortunately, most of the occupations Ryder dreams up are accompanied by pictures that can enlighten the reader. Kim LaFave (of Amos's Sweater fame) has provided vibrant illustrations that spread across both pages with lots of humourous detail. The text is clear and contained on the lower half of pages on a white background. All in all, the zany pictures that portray a grandmother who doesn't fit the usual stereotype, and the punch-line ending make this an acceptable, perhaps optional purchase.

A. Edwardsson is in charge of the Children's Department at a branch of the Winnipeg Public Library. She holds a Bachelor of Education degree and a Child Care Worker III certification, and is a member of the Manitoba Branch of the Canadian Author's Association.

Book Review

Mine for Keeps.
Jean Little.
New York: Viking Penguin, 1995. 213 pp, cloth, $17.99.
ISBN 0-670-85967-2.

Grades 3 - 6 / Ages 8 -12

Review by Joan Payzant.

excerpt:

With a jerk, Sal rolled away from her little sister to face the wall, her braces clanking together. A giant sob ached in her throat. As her first tears wet the pillow under her cheek, she took back the wish she had been making so faithfully for such a long time, the wish 'come true' just last night. In spite of the feeling she had had when Mother hugged her in the car, . . . in spite of all the years of waiting and wanting to go home to stay, Sally wanted to go back, back to where she was known and safe and never left alone for a minute. She wanted to go back to school!

``Mine for Keeps" is author Jean Little's first novel, newly republished, twenty-three years after it won the Little Brown Children's Book Award in 1962. It is a sensitive story about ten-year-old Sally Copeland, who suffers from cerebral palsy. As the story opens, Sally is just returning to her family home after living for several years in a special school.

Sally's relationships with her siblings, parents, classmates and teacher are well-described, as she struggles to adapt to her new situation. Her little dog, Susie, unwittingly provides motivation for Sally to stretch her physical abilities to their limits. Even more importantly, the puppy helps solve a difficult situation to cement new friendships for Sally, and to break down the angry attitude of young immigrant Piet, who is having an even harder time than Sally to adjust to his new home. This thoughtfully written story will open readers' eyes to the problems facing children who are either physically handicapped or who have been suddenly thrust into unfamiliar surroundings.

Highly recommended.

Joan Payzant, is a retired teacher/librarian in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Book Review

Twin Cities: Alberni - Port Alberni.
Jan Peterson.
Lantzville, BC:Oolichan Books, 1994. 389pp.
Paper $12.95 ISBN 088982-139-9.
Cloth $34.95. ISBN 088982-140-2.

Grades 9 - 13 / Ages 14 - Adult.

Review by Joan Payzant.

excerpt:

The pilchard run, which began in 1917, created changes in the management and operation of the canneries. Why pilchards began crowding the waters of the west coast and Barkley Sound is still unknown. . . . Before long there was a big demand for canned pilchard. The cannery began selling them as fast as it processed them. . . . Local Indians told of catching pilchards many years before when the fish appeared periodically on the west coast, but they usually stayed for only four years. . . .(In 1933) a flotilla of seine boats and tenders from reduction plants returned empty after an extensive search of the Pacific Coast territory for pilchards. There was no sign of the mysterious fish.

Jan Peterson, author of this second volume of the history of the Alberni twin cities, has done a masterful job of chronicling the many facets of life in the two towns between 1922 and 1967, when they were amalgamated into the new City of Port Alberni. Mrs. Peterson is well-qualified for the task she has undertaken, having been a journalist, a volunteer on the Alberni Valley Museum Advisory Board, a Director of the Alberni District Historical Society, and a life member of the Community Arts Council. She has done enormous research, making use of books, periodicals, diaries, and theses, melding all the material she gleaned into a highly readable account of life in these Vancouver Island communities.

Included in this book are two sections of black and white photographs, a comprehensive index, extensive notes for each of the nine chapters, appendices, and a bibliography.

Peterson's style moves through events rapidly, in chronological sequence. She covers all aspects of life in the two communities, from fishing and lumbering to industrial growth, from the native Indians to the first white settlers, and the influx of Japanese and the European immigrants at the end of World War II. Politics -- local, provincial, and federal -- play important parts in the story. Sports are given good coverage, and so is cultural history. Tragedies -- fires, murders, drownings, and air crashes -- are mentioned. The most spectacular account is of the Alaskan earthquake of 1946 and the resulting tidal wave which devastated both cities. Amazingly, despite the tremendous damage, there were no fatalities.

Citizens with historic roles are presented to the reader in an interesting way throughout, including the colourful first woman mayor of Alberni, Mabel S. Anderson; and M.P. A.W. Neill, who was one of those responsible for instituting old age pensions, establishing emergency telegraph services, installing wireless phones at lighthouses and lifeboat stations, and instigating hydrographic surveys. Neill also established the November 11 Remembrance Day. Two other notable people from the Albernis were Wing Hay, noted boxer and athlete, and the first Canadian-born Chinese to volunteer in the Canadian Army, and native Indian artist George Clutesi. Clutesi eventually received the Order of Canada, and after his 1944 exhibit in Victoria's provincial museum, he met Emily Carr, who willed him her canvasses, brushes, and paints.

Many others made the pages of this book, and readers will find a wealth of material about prominent industrialists, educators, and politicians. Despite the rivalry between Port Alberni and Alberni, talks about amalgamation surfaced over and over again during the forty-five-year period covered, but it did not come to pass until the 1967 national centennial.

As a native of eastern Canada, I visited Vancouver Island for the first time in the spring of 1995, and Twin Cities has heightened my desire to see much more of the Island. While reading the book I was struck not only by the differences, but by the similarities between the histories of Canada's west and east coasts. Fish and lumber are important to both regions, and of course they shared notable occasions such as royal visits, the two world wars, and Canada's Centennial in 1967. There are even individuals shared between the coasts: easterners William Duff, MP for Lunenburg, and Angus L. MacDonald, MP and former Premier of Nova Scotia were both involved with fishing and naval concerns on the west coast. And with ships of the young Canadian navy moving freely between west and east coasts it wasn't surprising to find names familiar to me from Royal Canadian Navy circles in Halifax during World War II appear in this book.

Now that amalgamation of east-coast communities of Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford and Sackville is imminent, it will be interesting to see if this union can be accomplished as successfully that of the two Albernis on Vancouver Island.

Recommended.

Joan Payzant is a retired teacher/librarian from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Video Review

Great Northern Forest.
Karvonen Films/National Film Board of Canada, 1994.
VHS, 48 minutes, $26.95. Closed-Captioned.
Distributed by the NFB, P.O. Box 6100, Station Centre-Ville, Montreal, PQ, H3C 3H5
Fax: (514) 496-2573/ Phone: 1-800-267-7710

Grades 7 - 13 / Ages 12 - 18.

Review by Lorrie Andersen.

The Great Northern Forest is a 48-minute production examining the flora, fauna, and majesty of the boreal forest. In spectacular photography, the video follows the activity in the forest through the four seasons. Spruce, fir, pine, aspen, and birch trees grow in this northern region and make a home the beaver, loon, bear, moose, timber wolf, and many other animals and birds. The photography is superb; particularly outstanding are the underwater sequences showing the beaver kits at home with their parents in the beaver lodge.

This beautiful wilderness is depicted through the changing seasons, but the film-maker reminds the viewers at the end of this visual treat that the glorious richness and diversity of this landscape is under threat -- threat from environmental damage as a result of human mining and industrial pursuits. The film-maker devotes no more than three or four minutes to this urgent message, but it's a message that viewers feel keenly nonetheless.

The Great Northern Forest could be compared favourably to another award-winner, the Manitoba production Spirit Sands (Whiteway Films, 1993), which examines the natural history of the glacial-laid sand dunes in a little-known area of Manitoba.

For curricular application in a classroom a 48-minute production is long. A teacher could break the presentation into four segments by season, but the unity of the production would be lost. But Karvonen Films is planning to re-issue the video under selected animal themes -- possibly the beaver, black bear, and the wolf -- which would extend the classroom use to elementary grades studying these topics. These shorter, more specific units would be most welcome.

Winner of the following awards:

Best Musical Score, Best Overall Sound, and Best Editing, Alberta Film and Television Awards.
Canadian Notables 94, Canadian Library Association Conference.
Highly recommended.

A librarian by training, Lorrie Andersen is Collection Development Consultant, Instructional Resources, for Manitoba Education and Training.

Copyright © 1995 the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

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