Two lovely children’s selections from Running The Goat
Hare B&B Written by Bill Richardson, illustrations by Bill Pechet
$22.95 72 pages with 49 colour illustrations
Running the Goat Books & Broadsides Kimmy & Mike Written by Dave Padden, illustrated by Lily Snowden-fine
$12.95 32 pages with nine full page and 13 small colour illustrations
Running the Goat Books & Broadsides
A reader's first impression of “Hare B&B” is of how beautifully and insightfully integrated the words and pictures are. Even on the cover and the immediate inside pages the illustrations, playfully sketch-y and delicately coloured —– are full of detail and underscore the joyful resilience of the story (its wordplay kicking off with the title). And what a story — it holds excellent life lessons and standards in a lightly “Series of Unfortunate Events” tenor.
To wit: Our heroine hare is Harriet, called Harry, “an only child. Then, unexpectedly, her mother had identical septuplets.” One baby is a lot of work, seven much more so, but Harry steps up for the childcare. As well, she truly loves her siblings “Barry and Perry and Mary and Larry and Jerry and Carrie. Oh, and also Terry.”
One day she takes them all “for a long walk in their large pram.” Unfortunately, while they are gone, tragedy strikes. On their return home, they find the police waiting. “A coyote had come knocking. This coyote was a master of disguise. She was dressed as an encyclopedia salesman. Harry's mother and father, who prized education, let her in.”
What's a hare and her seven brothers and sisters to do? They need some way of supporting themselves. Harry has an idea: they'll convert their family home into a Hare B&B. All the children agree this is a good strategy. They devise a work plan. “Some of Harry's best friends were birds. They advertised by Twitter.”
The publicity campaign works. Guests arrive and enjoy their stay, sharing good reviews. The Hare B&B seems destined for success. Then, one late evening, a knock on the door. Harry answers to find “a homely rabbit” standing there. She claims to be en route “to my sister's wedding.
I'm the maid of honour.”
But Harry senses something is not quite right. Her instincts prove correct and it will take all the hares' ingenuity, and a dollop of generosity, for Harry and company to prevail.
“KIMMY AND MIKE”
“I don't know how far back the tradition of recitation stretches in Newfoundland and Labrador history, but I'd guess four or five hundred years,” Dave Paddon writes in the afterword for “Kimmy and Mike”.
“Music featured prominently in the little bit of time available for rest and recreation. But what if you had no instruments or no one could play? Well, you always had your voice and your imagination, and making up stories about your life, the supernatural, or your neighbours was something available to all.”
Paddon, previously an airline pilot, has been writing his own recitations since 2007 and this is his latest published version.
“It has often been said, and I can't disagree, / That there's no one as tough as our folk of the sea. / But two of the
toughest, if the rights was known, / Were Kimmy and Mike, who lived in Belloram. // Now, one day late last fall, in a moderate gale, / In a 16-foot punt with a doublereefed sail, / They went to go fishing to their usual spot, / With orders from Mom: “Get something for the pot!”
Paddon's skill chimes through in more than the rhyming, although the rhymes are adept and so fun. It's also the spritely, animated reach and scale of the tale.
After trying from Nain to Ireland's Eye to the Funk Island Bank, with nothing to show for their efforts but a few sculpins, they try off France and then Spain and still further afield.
“Next, they ran into a merman named Saul, / Who told them he wanted to visit Nepal. / ‘But they say you can't swim there,' he said, with a sigh, / ‘So I guess I'll just sit here and blubber and cry.' // ‘Don't be so sooky!' Mike said, on a rant, / ‘I'd like to visit the moon but I can't.'”
Snowden-fine's artwork is of a whimsy realism, pegged to the fabulous events regaled on the pages. We see squid, pirates, an iguana, and, of
course, Mom.
The book includes a Glossary: “Thwart: a seat in a boat. (Pronounced “taught”.)”
Incidentally, both these books can be thoroughly enjoyed by adults, but their publication reinforces Running the Goat's commitment to quality children's literature.