Lisa Dalrymple's Blog

Beware That Girl – Teresa Toten

Young Adult Fiction / 14 and up  (Doubleday Canada, 2017)

It’s been a while since I gushed about a book but Beware That Girl by Teresa Toten is one of the best things I’ve read all summer. It gripped me with a double set of finely manicured nails and not once did it let me go–keeping me up late as I tried to stay one step ahead of Kate who tried to stay one step ahead of Olivia, who were both racing against far more diabolical forces at play. (Even now after I’ve turned the final page, I’m still up, my mind still working to unravel every twisted detail of the plot.)

Beware That Girl is being compared to Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and I can see why. I loved Gone Girl but I prefer Toten’s narrative style in Beware That Girl. The regular shift in the alternating viewpoints kept the story more immediate to me, the danger much more imminent. I was scrambling in real time to assess what was actually going on.

There is much more that I could say, but I won’t. The less you know about Beware That Girl before you read it, the better it is for the book to have you right where it wants you.

The Labyrinth

Today I found a magical place.

It’s Sunday, May 8th. Mother’s Day. But my children are not out here on tour with me and so I decided to go out alone and explore my host city of Kamloops, British Columbia.

I was told to walk the path by the river and there I would find the labyrinth. It was suggested that the labyrinth is quite special. And so I walked the quiet trail, snapping pictures of goslings to text to my youngest and a picture of the water running high in the Thompson River.

I stood beneath the Red Bridge and was taken

with the beauty of its wooden trusses

–their age and their strength.

But then I came across the labyrinth, a pattern of simple interlocking bricks weaving a circular design on the ground. Still, the plaque told me that “Profound insights and understanding often come upon those who walk slowly with patience and trust.” What did I have to lose?

I walked into the labyrinth and followed the first curve. I was going to be taken right around the circle and this was going to take some time. At the second turn, I realized that there were going to be many more turns before this journey was done. I had to be getting back but by now I was committed. Nothing would make me stray from the path and walk across the lines of the labyrinth. I would have to see it through.

As I rounded another bend, a boy arrived on his bike. He was about my daughter’s age and I wondered if she’d received my text pictures. His mother called something to him but I didn’t hear her words. They rode on and a calm came over me, a confidence that taking this journey alone was okay. After a final turn, I came to the centre. I was meant to pause in quiet “to feel and reflect.” But I had also been told to clap my hands and so I brought my palms together. The immediate echo bounced back in a strange peep. I did it again and then turned to look for my children, already saying, “Hey, listen to this!” But they weren’t there.

In that moment, I knew that a part of everything I do, even on my own and for myself, has been done with my children in my mind. And I’m sure it always will be.

I started my journey back out of the circle feeling somehow more alone and yet less alone at the same time. Yes, the labyrinth was quite special to me.

Wanders and Wonders

A wise and funny writer of books for children once told me that, while being an author in Canada might not be the way to make a fortune, it will possibly afford opportunities to travel. Fortunately, when I was 10 years old, filling notebooks with mystery stories and wild descriptions of worlds, I don’t recall thinking I was starting down this path because I wanted to be rich. I was writing because I loved creating stories and connecting with others through my words.

But my friend was right. Already as an author, I’ve had opportunities to see parts of Canada I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. I’ve been to Newfoundland and to New Brunswick each a couple of times and, this summer, I’ve been invited to Nova Scotia. But I have never been out west–until tomorrow.

Tomorrow my adventure begins with the TD Canadian Children’s Book Week. From May 7th-May14th, I will be one of 29 travelling authors, illustrators and storytellers sent to a different province or territory in Canada to connect with young readers. I will be touring the Interior of British Columbia, visiting Kamloops, Chase, Logan Lake and Kelowna. Never having been to BC–or anywhere west of Thunder Bay–I have added on a slight diversion of my own. I’m leaving a couple of days early in order to head out to Vancouver Island and explore Victoria as well.

I’ll miss those at home fiercely while I’m gone but I do love my wanderings. I’m wondering what’s waiting for me on the other side of Canada.

Looking Forward

As we sit here today with a new year upon us, I’m excited by the promise of 2016 and yet I can’t help but feel nostalgic for 2015 and the adventures it held.

January 2015 arrived on a wave of excitement with the release of my first non-fiction book. Be the Change in the World (Crabtree Publishing) is a title near to my heart, all the more so as I’ve been hearing from young readers about how they’ve been empowered to make their own changes in the world. Over the past year, I’ve written three further non-fiction titles with Crabtree: Explore with James Cook, Explore with Francisco Pizarro, and Cultural Traditions in South Korea (due out in early 2016.)

While 2014 took me to Newfoundland, St. Lucia and Grenada, my travels in 2015 were much closer to home. I met readers at schools, libraries and bookstores all over Ontario. The most exciting event was, of course, my participation in the Telling Tales Festival in Rockton, Ontario. In 2010, I took my first tentative steps towards becoming a children’s writer by attending this magical day. I was lucky to meet and to observe many talented Canadian writers, among them Jeremy Tankard, Frieda Wishinsky, Kenneth Oppel and Robert Munsch. This helped me acknowledge that this vocation, too, was a lifelong dream of mine. I cannot express how thrilled and honoured I was when I was invited to participate this year as a presenter. The entire event sparkled for me–including the kick-off and the follow-up during which I was asked to give a presentation to the students at St. George-German School, a prize awarded to one talented student in the Telling Tales Photo App Contest.

In May, I participated in Authors for Indies Day by becoming a “bookseller for a day” at Manticore Books in Orillia. In October, I visited a class of students doing a “storywalk” with Hamilton Public Library. These students were following enlarged pages of Skink on the Brink as part of an interactive, physical activity leading them around their local park. I’m still beaming that HPL picked my skink book for this literacy initiative–even if I’m constantly having to remind myself that it’s a “storywalk,” not a “skinkwalk.”

I am looking forward to 2016. It will be a year of much exciting book-related travel for me. I have been selected to tour British Columbia’s Interior as part of the TD Canadian Children’s Book Week, an event that pairs authors from across Canada with students in another part of our massive country. My next picture book Double Trouble at The Rooms, which is another story about Natalie and her pet polar bear, will also be coming out at this time. There will be a book launch in Ontario and another in St. John’s, Newfoundland. In June, I’m excited to be presenting at WordPlay, the literacy festival for children of all ages, on Nova Scotia’s north shore.

While I sit at this threshold between the year that has passed and the year still to come, I can see that I will have as much nostalgia on the next January 1st, even as I look forward to 2017. My first novel for middle grade readers and a book still in progress is due to be released as an Orca Currents book early in the year.

With all this to anticipate, I step into 2016 grateful for 2015 and all it held while, at the same time, looking very much forward to all there is still to come.

Turning Pages

Recently, Dave Beynon contacted me to tell me about a new show on TV Cogeco called Turning Pages with Roxanne Beale. He asked if Roxanne, the owner of Roxanne’s Reflections Book and Card Shop could interview me for the guest author feature on their very first show. I was excited, honoured – and just a little bit scared out of my mind. Before I could think too much about it, I said ‘yes’ … and then I actually came out of my hiding place in my attic and gave an on-camera interview:

Click the image to start video of my television debut!

 

Rafa was My Robot – Alexandra Dellevoet, ill. Ken Turner

Preschool to Grade 2 (Annick Press, 2014)

Rafa Was My Robot, written by Alexandra Dellevoet, is a kind and honest book about love and loss. Jacob has a robot he adores and Ken Turner’s illustrations show how much Rafa loves Jacob back. The robot’s one-of-a-kind battery is a large red heart the boy holds in his hands. Jacob takes Rafa everywhere–to swim lessons, to school, to other countries and other galaxies. But, eventually, Rafa’s one-of-a-kind battery begins to fail. The doctor can’t fix Rafa and there is nothing Jacob can do. Rafa dies.

The young boy’s grief is respectful and true. “Jacob cried and cried, until he filled the tub with all his sadness. He wondered how he would go on without Rafa.” Dellevoet provides a window to Jacob’s sadness without offering platitudes. We watch as Jacob builds a memorial for Rafa and as he makes a Rafa-shaped pillow. Jacob promises the Rafa pillow that he will meet him in his dreams.

It’s not often in North America that we see a book with this level of honesty about death. My seven-year-old read my copy before me. She took it in stride, declaring it to be “a good book.” It was only upon reading it myself that I realized the book’s theme. My daughter’s reaction surprised me and that caused me to wonder why. I’m glad she had a chance to engage with this story before she needed it. I’m glad other children will have the chance to engage with this book too. We all need it.

Review originally published in Canadian Children’s Book News, Winter 2015.

Intense, Inspiring, Insane!

 
Wow!  Well, that was intense, inspiring and… just a little bit insane. 

Readers pack the National Cricket Stadium

3 Rainforest of Reading literacy festivals,
over 4 days,
in 2 countries,
with well over 6000 students.
Under tarps in the rain,
under sun in 37C heat,
with soaking wet materials and–after my voice deserted me–a bullhorn.
 

Excited readers in Grenada

I’d intended to blog as I went but I could barely find the time to e-mail my husband never mind update the rest of the world. As for my mother, it seems she knew I was alive only thanks to the pictures of me on Facebook surrounded by said 6000 students.
But would I do it again?  

Kids from Derniere Riviere Combined School connecting with Stewie the Skink.

Of course, I would. For the kids, the energy and the love of books.
For Cyron, whose mother I met while walking around the plantation on which we were staying. When I mentioned the number of lizards flitting across our path, she told me that her son had just read a book about a lizard for school. In a country where many schools don’t have libraries and where most students don’t have access to books, I was surprised. She went on to tell me a story I recognized about a lizard with a blue tail who grows sad as his tail grows grey… It dawned on me far too slowly (please keep in mind that my brain had been addled by heat and exhaustion) that she was talking about MY BOOK! This was, without doubt, the moment when I was most thrilled and most honoured to have been included in a festival that puts picture books in the hands of young readers who otherwise would not have them, and that children in another part of the world, who have so few books to read, may have read and connected with mine.
Of course, Suzanne and I left a copy of Skink on the Brink for Cyron–and Joyce Grant and Jan Dolby left a copy of Gabby for him too. In return, Cyron sent a thank you card to us the next day. 

Beautiful drawings of Gabby and Stewie the Skink

I do wish there had been more moments like this. More moments to truly connect with each of those 6000+ young readers. It wasn’t always possible. At times, we connected through smiles and shared laughter as each and every group asked me how lizards in Canada can talk or as we sheltered together under a teacher’s umbrella while I signed their Passports to Reading.
But there were other connections made too. And I get the feeling that these were very special connections, those kinds of connections that will last a lifetime.
My travelling companions were among the most generous, good-natured people I have had the honour ofknowing–never mind living with for 8 days.
Jan Dolby, Suzanne Del Rizzo, the marvellous MacLeod family, Kari-Lynn Winters, Rebecca Bender and Joyce Grant

There were the fellow authors and illustrators: 
Suzanne Del Rizzo, of course;
Joyce Grant & Jan Dolby (creators of Gabby );
Rebecca Bender (creator of Don’t Laugh at Giraffe );
Kari-Lynn Winters (author of Gift Days );
Eric Walters & Eugenie Fernandes (creators of );
and Anita Walters, Eric’s wife and honorary author, given that she travelled everywhere with us, experienced all that we experienced and shared in the camaraderie and the bonding. 
I now consider each of these people a friend with whom I have shared a treasured experience.
There were the students from St. John’s-Kilmarnock School who came and offered ceaseless assistance! We could not have prepped such quantities of plasticine, nor have run such high-energy, engaging craft and puzzle stations without them. 

Our student helpers on our free day at the end


The fearless Carey Gallagher!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
And, of course, their patient, tireless–and fearless–leader, Carey Gallagher, with whom I bonded primarily over our shared travel sickness as the coach rocked and roiled through mountainous jungles.  
 

The MacLeods without whom, all would have been lost!

There were members of the MacLeod family. Each and every thing that needed doing, they did–through torrential downpour or scorching heat (sometimes at the same time) and with smiles on their faces. 

Marlaina with old friends from last year

 
And, of course, Sonya White, Richard Clewes, and their enthusiastic daughter and student ambassador, Marlaina. 
I am so fortunate to have had this experience, to have shared and received so much, including so many memories that will remain with me always!
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Getting Ready for Festival Day in Grenada

Our hosts told us to pack ear plugs. But, I find the night-time singing of the tree frogs relaxing. The repeated onslaught of rain that crashes down the hillside behind our little cottage, slams into the tin roof above my head, and then stops without warning is another story. And so now I am awake, lying in the dark, anticipating tomorrow and listening to the tree frogs.

Event Centre Posters

Tomorrow is the Rainforest of Reading festival here in St. George’s, Grenada. Tomorrow we will meet the 2500 Grade 3 and 4 students on this beautiful island. Tomorrow each of the authors and illustrators who have travelled here from Canada will give twenty 15-minute presentations in centres set up around the nation’s massive cricket stadium. Sonya White and Richard Clewes, our hosts at OneWorld Schoolhouse, have already demonstrated their resourcefulness and ability to negotiate the challenges of organizing an event of this magnitude by locating this venue after our original home fell through at the last minute.

So we approach tomorrow knowing there will be more thinking on our feet, but knowing we are in good hands. I’m lying here worried about the rain that comes without warning and how it will impact my centre in the open-air hallway outside gate 117 of the cricket stands. I’m concerned about how to make my 15-minute presentation a worthwhile contribution to this festival and these students. I feel the pressure of a huge responsibility.

National Cricket Stadium

The schools here in Grenada have no libraries and next-to-no books. The public library was closed after hurricane damage in 2004. There are no current plans to re-open it. This festival is the talk of the island’s teachers and students. There is appreciation for the books and the opportunities that it has brought on everybody’s faces. I hope my presentation about a Skink on the Brink, delivered in the hallway outside Gate 117, will make a contribution worthy of all the effort that has gone into bringing me here.

Leaving for the Rainforest

I may have announced a couple of months ago how EXCITED I was–and still am–that Skink on the Brink has been chosen as one of the picture books to be included in the Rainforest of Reading in Grenada and Saint Lucia this year.

OneWorld Schoolhouse is a fantastic not-for-profit organization working to promote childhood literacy in the Caribbean. Last year, they launched the Rainforest of Reading which is similar to the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading. In the Rainforest of Reading, all Grade 3 and 4 children read a selection of nominated picture books and then vote on their favourite. The festival culminates in a series of celebrations (one in Grenada and two in Saint Lucia) during which ALL of the kids come to a day of literacy activities and events. I am beyond thrilled to have been invited to attend and to meet so many young readers in other places!

Now what is the top priority 44lbs?

And so today, officially, marks the first day of my participation. Tomorrow is Festival Preparation Day in St. George’s, Grenada! Tuesday is the first of the three big days!

But, today… today, all I have to do is board a plane–along with fellow creators, Suzanne Del Rizzo, Joyce Grant, Jan Dolby, Eric Walters, Eugenie Fernandes & Rebecca Bender. And I’m hoping they’re somehow a little more prepared than I am right now!

(For a full list of picture books nominated in the Rainforest of Reading, click here.)

One Confession. Two realizations.

I went to a conference this weekend as a total imposter. I’m supposed to be a writer — I was even receiving an award — but I haven’t written a new idea in over a year, or maybe longer (!)

Is that “writers’ block?” I don’t know. I have been writing. But in the absence of fresh inspiration, I’ve been revisiting old ideas, ones that I never managed to form into a fully viable concept or book. I’ve been trying everything to find ways to keep the words flowing when the ideas just aren’t.

And then fellow creators and members of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) voted for me to be one of the winners of the Crystal Kite Member Choice Award for Canada. While I was thrilled/shocked/honoured, at the same time I have to confess that, in some ways, I was petrified. What would people think if they knew that Skink on the Brink (written by me and illustrated by Suzanne Del Rizzo who also accepted her Crystal Kite this weekend) is one of the few good ideas that I’ve had? And that obviously no more are forth-coming.

And yet, I was invited to this conference as an award-winner. And I enjoyed all the fabulous things that come from a good conference. I heard an inspirational keynote by Caroline Pignat, received invaluable market advice from editors and agents and connected with other creators at all stages of their journeys.

But at a conference, it also feels like it’s necessary to be constantly “on” — I know my friends think this is a natural state for me, but it’s not and it is draining. This weekend, I was pushed to talk about my work to real-live-New-York-editors, a creative director and an agent. I stood at a podium and delivered a speech “thanking the academy.” And, just when I was finished, drained, spent, needing to curl up and absorb all the experiences of the weekend (and hide for a couple of days,) I began a 7 hour car drive across southern Ontario to collect my kids.

After about 2 hours of watching the road go by, I finally understood that I need to gift myself some time, to expect nothing creative of myself for a little while, to not worry about that next big idea and if it’s ever going to come. And I drove and I relaxed for the first time in over a year, or maybe longer (!)

I drove until I had to pull over. Right there. Right then-where-was-my-pen-give-me-that-paper-the-words-are-now-the-idea-needs-to-be-written. And now, looking back on what I scribbled on the back of a crumpled conference schedule, it’s still there (!) In the aftermath of a creative outburst, the most important thing is often how you feel in the clear light of day. In this clear light of day, I realize I won’t need to revisit those old ideas; today, I’ll be exploring a new one.

And I’m also wondering if it’s necessary for these events, with all the good they have to offer, to drain us. I’m wondering if they have to in order for them to be left with ample space in our spirits to refill.

Crystal Kite Award for Canada 2014. There is also one with Suzanne Del Rizzo’s name on it, also for our book, Skink on the Brink. And one for Hélène Boudreau and her book, I Dare You Not to Yawn.