A Day of Feelings/A Day of Shapes and Coloursby Ashley VercammenPublished by Home Style TeachersReview by Sally Meadows$15.00 ISBN 9798776175084, ISBN 9781998218004 Looking for colourful and educational books to add to your classroom, school, or home library? Check out Ashley Vercammen’s A Day of Feelings and A Day of Shapes and Colours. Ashley may have grown up in a tiny rural hamlet, but that hasn’t stopped her from thinking big! She has a degree in International Studies from the University of Saskatchewan and has taught English to children around the world. Ashley has drawn from those experiences, along with her work with children with developmental disabilities, to create easy-to-read early reader books that focus on compassion, acceptance, and community. A Day of Feelings is a wonderful resource for teaching about emotions and how to share one’s feelings with others in a socially appropriate way. Her inclusion of multicultural children in her illustrations and the conversational tone of the book particularly benefits students with English as an additional language, as well as children, such as those on the autism spectrum, who learn best from the simplicity and directness of social stories.  Ashley has included interactive activities in the book’s last few pages that give readers…

Lost Treasure on the Circle Star Ranchby Jackie Cameron, Illustrated by Wendi NordellPublished by Your Nickel’s Worth PublishingReview by Sally Meadows$19.95 ISBN 9781778690013 In Lost Treasure on the Circle Star Ranch, nine-year-old Ben stumbles across yet another mystery as readers get a glimpse of life on his family’s ranch on the Canadian prairies. The story draws the reader in immediately with a vivid visual of two horses gallopping across the prairies, their riders-Ben and his sister Sarah-shouting about a grass fire. Ben’s family springs into action. The appearance of a stranger in a blue truck who helps put out the fire raises Ben’s curiosity. When he learns from a Hutterite neighbour that there had been another grass fire years ago near an abandoned cabin on his family’s rented land, and that the fire might have been connected to a thief using the cabin as a hideout, Ben’s imagination goes into overdrive. Could the stolen money and jewellery still be at the cabin? And could the mysterious man in the blue truck, who Ben spots again later at the rodeo, be on the hunt for the lost treasure? Swift Current author Jackie Cameron effectively weaves details about life on a ranch-the danger…

Prairie Seasonsby Amber AntymniukPublished by Blow Creative ArtsReview by Sally Meadows$23.00 ISBN 9781999546236 Amber Antymniuk’s newest children’s picture book, Prairie Seasons, is a child’s-perspective love song to life on the prairies throughout the year. With its glorious sing-song rhythm, this book begs to be read out loud, and will be enjoyed not only by the young children it is written for, but also by the adults who read to them. Amber is both writer and illustrator of Prairie Seasons. She has done an admirable job of creating a lyrical narrative that appeals to all of our senses. As a songwriter and former teacher, I personally am drawn to children’s books that rhyme, and Amber has done a wonderful job of creating phrases with movement and flow. Some of her phrasings are quite lovely (“tucking the earth in as summer fades”) and detailed in a way that is fresh and new (“Some days are so frigid that ice forms within our nostrils”). Amber’s illustrations have a lovely soft appeal that perfectly complement her words. Watercolour and ink are her media of choice, and her attention to detail effectively showcases her ability as an artist to capture elements of the flora and fauna, prairie…

The Underdog Ducklingby Sally MeadowsPublished by Your Nickle’s Worth PublishingReview by Amanda Zimmerman$14.95 ISBN 978-1-988783-30-7 How do you get through a time in your life when everything seems upside down? Is it possible to overcome adversity and grow through the challenges? Sally Meadows, a former scientist and educator from Saskatoon, brings us an answer in her powerful and heartwarming story of a little boy facing his mother’s illness. When she is moved into the hospital and his dad is devoting his time to keeping up the farm, Quinn moves to the big city with his grandfather. He has a hard time settling in at his new school and it is only at a nearby pond where he finds an escape. When he witnesses the bad treatment of a duckling by the other birds on the water, Quinn feels a special kinship with The Underdog Duckling. “Why don’t the other ducks like the duckling? And why weren’t its parents taking care of it?” It is through this animal’s trials that Quinn learns how resilient he can be when things are all going wrong. Sally Meadows instantly grabs her readers with the affirming line “Never stop being you” and follows with a…

The Two Trees Written by Sally Meadows, Illustrated by Trudi Olfert Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $14.95 ISBN 978-1-927756-43-0 I love receiving new books to review, but sometimes I can’t get to them immediately. Before I had a chance to dive into The Two Trees, a children’s book by Saskatoon writer\illustrator team Sally Meadows and Trudi Olfert, my visiting friend, Flo, picked the book off my kitchen counter and read it. “What did you think?” I asked. “Loved it,” Flo said. “It brought tears to my eyes.” Any children’s story that can move an adult to tears is one I don’t want to wait another moment to read. I took the softcover book to my deck and in the few minutes it took to engage with the sensitively-written and pastel-illustrated story – about the relationship between two brothers, and the younger’s difficulty with the elder’s inability to socially interact “normally” both at home and school – I too, experienced the proverbial lump-in-throat that signifies an emotional connection’s been made. “Wow,” I said, “what a strong metaphor for ‘otherness’”. “I know,” Flo said. “And that word at the end, ‘almost’ … that’s what got me.”…