Jessie the Doo-Doo Dog and the Visitors from Outer Spaceby Bill and Jocelyn HutchinsonPublished by Your Nickel’s Worth PublishingReview by Michelle Shaw$14.95 ISBN 9781778690006 Dogs, poop, flying saucers and “a tail that’s out of this world”. This is a chapter book that children will adore. The story is told from the perspective of Jessie, a Maltipoo who lives with her bigger cousins Katcha and Krissy, and their human mom and dad. Jessie’s sister, Jo-Jo, also lives close by and comes for frequent sleepovers. One night, on one of their regular walks around the neighbourhood, the dogs come across an incredible sight: a flying saucer! And inside are two small creatures who “looked a lot like Jo-Jo and me—except they had green fur and a pair of matching antennas sticking out of their heads. Space dogs?!” The space dogs have a serious problem. They have run out of fuel for their space craft…and a very special type of fuel is needed. The dogs and their human dad come up with a plan that involves enlisting the help of as many animals as they can find including the rabbits, the squirrels, the gophers, the geese and the beavers. The moose end up…

Falls Into Placeby Jesse A. MurrayPublished by Off the Field PublishingReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$14.99 ISBN 9-781777-591328 Saskatoon writer and teacher Jesse A. Murray recently released his sixth book, the poetry collection Falls Into Place. While many writers toil several years over a single book, this prolific writer has self-published five poetry collections between 2020 and 2022—this could be a record! As the title suggests, his poems just seem to “fall into place,” and this proved especially true during the global pandemic. “When the pandemic hit, my life changed. My writing changed. I had to work from home … I started to go through all of my piles of writing that I hadn’t looked at in years,” he states, and says that most of the poems in this book were written “before bed”. Transitions also included a new job, a marriage, and impending fatherhood. I’m familiar with Murray’s work via two of his other poetry collections—I Will Never Break and Not Here To Stay—and find many similarities here. Physically, they’re large poetry collections, and the oft-rhyming poems tend toward introspection—and, specifically, not quite measuring up to the yardstick the narrator’s set for himself. The first several poems hint at a…

A Silly Willy Christmasby Brenda RedmanPublished by Your Nickel’s Worth PublishingReview by Cindy Wilson$14.95 ISBN 9781988783987 A Silly Willy Christmas is a children’s book written by Brenda Redman and illustrated by Wendi Nordell. Right from the beginning, the title of the book tells you it will be fun to read! The moment I saw the cover, with its bright, vibrant colours, and its little smiling faces, I knew I wanted to open the book and read what was inside. The story is as happy and charming as its cover. A little girl, who Gramma calls Peanut, her baby sister called Muffin, and her Mom and Dad, arrive at Gramma and Papa’s house for Christmas. Gramma greets Peanut with “a million zillion kisses”. When Peanut comments to Gramma on the “million zillion” boots in the closet, the many relatives filling up all the couches and chairs, the family members napping everywhere, enough food in the kitchen to feed all of Saskatchewan, and finally the “million zillion” Christmas stockings on the fireplace, Gramma always has an unexpected and innovative way to fix things. Every time Gramma tells Peanut of her solution to each of the problems caused by a “million zillion” of…

Something Bigby Jenna and Avery Wasylkowski, Illustrated by A.E. MathesonPublished by aemworks PublishingReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$11.95 ISBN 9-78177-980702 Illustrator/publisher A.E. Matheson has done something big. She’s teamed whimsical illustrations and a fanciful conversation lifted from “real-life” (I’m assuming, as the front cover declares the story’s a “conversation” between Jenna and Avery Wasylkowski), and created a delightful—and most unusual!—Christmas-related story that spotlights childhood imagination and belief. I hadn’t even reached the first page of text before I was mesmerized: the book opens with a two-page, full-bleed spread of a green dragon with translucent wings chained to charcoal-coloured boulders. His eyelids are heavy, smoke vapours from wide nostrils, and one of his three grey horns appears like a party hat atop his fringy head. This well-crafted image inspires curiosity: what exactly is this clawed creature? Turn the page, and one enters a completely different scene: a realistic family breakfast with a mother, father and son around a kitchen table. Here, too, I’m slow to flip the page, even though the opening text’s compelling: “So? Any thoughts on what you’re asking Santa for Christmas?” (We don’t know which parent’s asking this question, and this interesting lack of attribution’s another trait that sets…