The Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2022 Sheila Barry Best Canadian Picturebook of the Year Award:
The winning book will be announced on September 5, 2022. The creators of that book will be speakers at a live or virtual event later this fall.
- We Dream Medicine Dreams, by Lisa Boivin, Published by Highwater Press.
- The Big Bad Wolf in My House, by Valérie Fontaine and Nathalie Dion and translated by Shelley Tanaka, Published by Groundwood.
- Journey around the Sun: The Story of Halley’s Comet, by James Gladstone and illustrated by Yaara Eshet, Published by Owlkids Books.
- Aquanaut, by Jill Heinertha and illustrated by Jaime Kim, Published by Tundra
- Time Is a Flower, by Julie Morstad, Published by Tundra.
- Anonymouse, by Vikki VanSickle with pictures by Anna Pirolli, Published by Tundra.
Brief descriptions of each book:
We Dream Medicine Dreams, by Lisa Boivin. Published by Highwater Press.
We Dream Medicine Dreams is an invitation into the spiritual world of the Dene people. The many degrees of intimacy between child and adult are sweetly illustrated and paralleled through Indigenous stories and portrayals of bears, hawks, wolves, and caribou that are surrounded and cared for by their animal, human, and non-human kin. The child’s voice delivers an elegy that is reflective of the sensory experience of death amidst the ethereal world of dreaming. The bright, textured artwork of flora and fauna superimposes the natural and supernatural upon a clinical hospital environment, casting an overall sentiment of acceptance and growth. Each full page spread provides a visual cue to pause and absorb the book’s richness and consider how one might translate traditional wisdom into the modern world. As the girl cycles back to her Grandpa’s original teachings, readers are comforted in understanding the infinite ways that ancestors live on.
The Big Bad Wolf in My House, by Valérie Fontaine and Nathalie Dion, And translated by Shelley Tanaka. Published by Groundwood.
The difficult subject of domestic abuse is handled delicately but with intention in The Big Bad Wolf in My House. Through a familiar narrative, Valérie Fontaine (and translator, Shelley Tanaka) capture the terror and invasiveness of an unwelcome presence within the home. The body language and diminutive features of the young girl and her mother, coupled with a spacious landscape of muted colours, draw out feelings of isolation and the tangible distance between characters. The eventual escape from this prison comes in a flash, driven by the resolve of a mother and the strength she is finally able to gather. The other house, however, is not without shadows – expertly depicted by Nathalie Dion in the concluding pages. The kitchen “full of people” alludes to the grim statistics of how many victims exist and that there is still darkness ahead to confront but, for now, there is hope.
Journey around the Sun: The Story of Halley’s Comet, by James Gladstone and illustrated by Yaara Eshet. Published by Owlkids Books
In 1758, a comet speeding past our skies was named after Edward Halley, who had predicted its return fifty years earlier based on careful calculations and research. But Halley’s Comet has been with us for millennia, and James Gladstone and Yaara Eshet’s book beautifully illustrates the life and perspective of this mysterious rock as it orbits the sun. A bushy star, a flaming sword slicing through the cosmos—Gladstone’s text pairs both brief, delightful descriptions of the comet’s journey with more detailed historical notes. Eshet’s illustrations give intricate spreads and panels of the comet’s character as it has been understood through the ages. From prehistoric cave sketches to a possible future of watching the comet through the windows of a spacecraft, Gladstone and Eshet’s book gives a touching sense of perspective and scale as it demonstrates humanity’s connection to the broader universe.
Aquanaut, by Jill Heinerth and illustrated by Jaime Kim. Published by Tundra.
With so many possibilities available to share the story of underwater explorer, Jill Heinerth, and her remarkable expeditions, the picture book format was a captivating choice. Readers journey through Heinerth’s dreams and uncertainties into a world that few of us have ever seen up close. Rather than approaching the subject as an explicit autobiography or informational text, The Aquanaut leans into the wonder of the deep sea through sparse yet precise first-person language that lends well to multiple interpretations. The story is paced with full-page landscapes and each turn of the page is a delightful surprise. Jaime Kim’s stunning artwork enhances the narrative through her skillful use of shape, value, and alternating colour palettes of blue and yellow. This book celebrates the realization of childhood desires from a surreal new perspective and also women in specialty STEM fields.
Time Is a Flower, by Julie Morstad. Published by Tundra.
Julie Morstad’s Time is a flower is a deep yet playful reflection on our relationship with time through a child’s point of view. With great insight and sensibility, Morstad depicts instants of everyday life that reveal time’s many subtleties, from the eagerness of waiting for a tooth to fall, to the disappointment of a destroyed sandcastle, buried by a fast, unexpected wave.
The sparse poetic text contrasts with the vibrant, lively illustrations that mostly cover the full extension of each double spread. Bright splashes of fluorescent pink, hues of purple and green coexist with large areas of white, establishing a visual rhythm of expansion and contraction that somehow also resembles the nature of time: sometimes slow and frozen, others fast and dynamic. Every double spread is a new metaphor, an invitation to interpret, capture or explain the passage of time, through relatable and thought-provoking situations. As in her many previous books, Morstad proves to be a skillful storyteller, questioning the concept of time while proposing creative answers through the brilliant interplay of words and images. Time is a flower is an exemplary picturebook, both a work of literature and a work of art.
Anonymouse. by Vikki VanSickle with pictures by Anna Pirolli. Published by Tundra.
Can a tiny, unknown street artist mouse change a big city? Of course, he can. As he transforms his town’s forgotten nooks–roofs, abandoned buildings, garbage bins, and sewers–into vibrant graffiti masterpieces, the other animals are also inspired to look at their surroundings in a new light, realizing everyone can be an artist. And that art is definitely for everyone.
Author Vikki VanSickle and illustrator Anna Pirolli’s Anonymouse is a brilliantly crafted picturebook that takes advantage of the interplay between words and images to surprise and delight. Fluorescent pink graffiti seems to jump out of each page in Pirolli’s almost monochromatic settings, enhancing the visual effect while filling the many gaps cleverly left by VanSickle in her short yet short, somewhat mysterious text. The resulting narrative is a playful, refreshing and thought-provoking story that highlights the power of street art at its best (thank you, Banksy!) and the joy of discovering the world can be one’s canvas.