Wednesday July 23, 2008
Latest Columns 
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Published: Saturday, July 19, 2008 12:00 AM Page D12
HOW I LEARNED GEOGRAPHYBy Uri Shulevitz, Farrar, Strausand Giroux, unpaginated, $19.50, ages 4 to 8Uri Shulevitz has drawn on his own childhood during the Second World War in this marvellous picture book, which begins hauntingly with the words, ''When war devastated the land, buildings crumbled to dust. Everything we had was lost, and we fled empty-handed.''
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Published: Saturday, July 5, 2008 12:00 AM Page D12
CANADA IN COLOURSBy Per-Henrik Gurth, Kids Can, 24 pages, $14.95, ages 2 to 4Per-Henrik Gurth's skills as a graphic designer are on display here in a sequence of vibrant illustrations in which the defining element of a black pen is used to good effect. Canada and colours go hand in hand in double-page spreads, with minimal text, the first of which is, ''White snow blankets the ground.''
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Published: Saturday, June 21, 2008 12:00 AM Page D12
BUTTERCUP'S LOVELY DAYBy Carolyn Beck, illustrated by Andrea Beck, Orca, 32 pages, $19.95, ages 4 to 8Bovine, bucolic, beauteous are adjectives that come to mind upon meeting Buttercup, heroine of the Beck sisters' flight of fancy, and an enthusiast to her very marrow. ''I love this day,'' she announces as she munches flowers and surveys the green meadows and tree-dotted hills above, around and below her. She waxes on, poetically; not only does she love the day, she also loves, ''the grass at my knees,/ the buzz of the bees,/ the fluzz of the flies,/ switching my tail/ and making pies.''
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Published: Saturday, May 31, 2008 12:00 AM Page D11
A POCKET CAN HAVEA TREASURE IN IT By Kathy Stinson, illustratedby Deirdre Betteridge, Annick,32 pages, $18.95; ages 2 to 5This lovely circular tale begins and ends with a horse but gallops off in several other directions before its work is done. In the beginning, ''A barn can have ... a horse in it'' leads to - on the next page - ''And a house can have a ''me' in it.'' Which in turn leads to the statement that a bowl can have berry in it. These perfectly logical non sequiturs nicely reflect the stream of consciousness, the assertions and questions of the very young of, say, three or fours years of age, and their fascination with things within things.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Published: Saturday, May 17, 2008 12:00 AM Page D12
TWEEDLE DEE DEEBy Charlotte Voake, Candlewick, 28 pages, $18.50, ages 2 to 5Green, a lovely spring green, is the dominant colour in Charlotte Voake's new book. Her insouciant watercolour-and-ink drawings, mostly of English oak leaves, or so it appears, accompany the text, which is a sort of cumulative round derived from the traditional folk song The Green Leaves Grew Around.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Published: Saturday, May 3, 2008 12:00 AM Page D12
EVERYWHERE THE COW SAYS ''MOO!'' By Ellen Slutsky Weinstein, illustrated by Kenneth Andersson, Boyds Mills Press, 32 pages, $16.50, ages up to 3Dogs, frogs, ducks and roosters express themselves differently in different languages. In English a dog says, ''Bow-wow;'' in Spanish it - the dog in question is a caricature of dog, a large-mouthed, small-bodied, short-legged white dog with black spots - says, ''Goo -ow; in French the dog says, ''Wah-wah;'' ''But everywhere, the cow says, ''Moo!''
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Published: Saturday, April 19, 2008 12:00 AM Page D16
YELLOW MOON, APPLE MOONBy Pamela Porter, illustrated by Matt James, Groundwood, 32 pages, $17.95, ages 0 to 3This book for bedtime begins with the lines, ''Yellow Moon, Apple Moon/ Time to sleep. See you soon,'' and continues in that rhyming vein until, 30-odd pages later, the small creature in the red sleepers is tucked into bed and fast asleep. Through the bedroom window, an almost animate yellow moon in an indigo sky watches over the sleeping child.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Published: Saturday, April 5, 2008 12:00 AM Page D12
ONE WATERMELON SEEDBy Celia Barker Lottridge, illustrated by Karen Patkau, Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 32 pages, $17.95, ages 2 to 5First published in 1986, this new, delicious edition with its brightly coloured digital illustrations belongs in the first rank of books of its genre: the counting book.
Mutts and mothers, Michelangelo and Matt
Published: Saturday, March 22, 2008 12:00 AM Page D10
NIWECHIHAW / I HELPWritten and illustrated by Caitlin Dale Nicholson, with Leona Morin-Neilson, translated by Leona Morin-Neilson, Groundwood, 24 pages, $17.95, ages 2 to 5''Spare'' and ''beautiful'' would be just two words to describe the almost monosyllabic text, a duet in Cree and English, and the numinous full-page acrylic paintings that illustrate this book. The latter seem to glow, especially the woodland scenes of a grandmother and grandson amid the autumn foliage.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Published: Saturday, March 8, 2008 12:00 AM Page D12
TOILET TALESBy Andrea Wayne von Konigslow, Annick, 32 pages, $19.95, ages 1 to 3Making the transition from diapers to toilets is one of childhood's major undertakings, and von Konigslow's classic work, recently reissued with new illustrations, may help toddlers make the move.
