FernFolio » imagination

Mattland by Hazel Hutchins, Gail Herbert and Dusan Petricic

fernfolio — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:32:05 +0000

When Matt’s parent move again, this time to a new house in a new subdivision, Matt finds himself with no one – and nothing – to play with. Standing on bare ground littered with scraps of construction materials, Matt sees a stick and feels like breaking it, or hitting something with it, but when he picks it up it feels comfortable in his hand. So Matt draws a line with the stick, one that quickly fills with water, and so is born Snake River, the first feature of a young boy’s imaginary world.
Using rocks and puddles and mounds of earth, as well as the building scraps, Matt creates rivers and lakes, mountains and hills, farms and cities, roads and railway lines. He does it all with the help of the outsider, a girl who appears and offers him first a popsicle stick, and then all of the small treasures that she can find, berry containers, pine cones, metal keys, and broken bits of tile.
Then the rain begins and threatens Mattland until help comes unexpectedly, saving the children’s creation and forming the basis on new friendships.
Mattland is written by Hazel Hutchins and Gail Herbert in words and phrases that slip comfortably from the tongue to create images that evoke the best of childhood. The illustrations, by Dusan Petricic, are wonderful; his use of perspective and colour underscore the central messages of friend making and the imagination.
FernFolio Editor

Making Grizzle Grow by Rachna Gilmore and Leslie Elizabeth Watts

fernfolio — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 22:07:49 +0000

When Emily’s dad breaks his promise to come outside and build snow animals in the backyard, she’s sad and angry. She stomps outside determined to build something all by herself. Something big. A dinosaur! She’s pretty happy with Grizzle, the Diphosaurus she makes, but, leaning out the window, dad calls Grizzle “cute and little”. With that Emily decides she’s going to help Grizzle grow!
Pizzas, roast turkey, spare ribs, hamburgers, Grizzle grows from a Diphosaurus to a Megasaurus to an Allosaurus to a T Rex! And, before Emily knows it, she’s got more dinosaur than she can handle!
Making Grizzle Grow is a terrific picture storybook about the power of anger and the imagination!
FernFolio Editor

Jeffrey and the Sloth by Kari-Lynn Winters and Ben Hodson

fernfolio — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:45:41 +0000

Jeffrey has to write a story for homework and cannot think of anything to write about. So he begins to doodle on the page and soon as drawn a long-armed sloth who slips off the page and into his bedroom. While Jeffrey tries to concentrate on his story, the sloth informs him that he’s a lousy writer, because he doesn’t have any ideas, and suggests he ought to spend his time more profitably, namely by drawing things for the sloth’s comfort. The sloth is soon ensconced in a comfortable armchair with a puffy pillow, but when he demands a blanket, Jeffrey refuses to draw it. Instead, the boy starts writing about the sloth and discovers, to his amazement, that the sloth is compelled to do whatever Jeffrey writes!
Jeffrey and the Sloth is an interesting story about what fuels our imagination, and how that imagination can create characters and events that seem as real as the people and places around us.
FernFolio Editor

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

fernfolio — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 13:55:47 +0000

Eleven year-old Jess Aaron’s life is a hard one. The family farm can’t support them, so he and his four sisters and parents struggle to make ends meet on what his father can earn working in construction. They are a poor family in a community of poor families; money is tight and there is rarely any left over for anything beyond the bare necessities. Jess, an artist and a dreamer, is expected to help out at home with the milking and with chopping wood for the stove. His parents cannot understand his preoccupation with drawing and are irritated, at times, by the fact that he draws “the way some people drink whiskey”. Jess’ life at school is no better; he has few friends among his classmates, and cannot imagine how he is going to survive another eight years.
The arrival of Leslie Burke in Jess’ life changes everything. The daughter of well-educated, freethinking hippy writers, whom she calls Bill and Judy, Leslie dresses and talks and acts in ways that at first shock and then attract Jess. When he defends her against their schoolmates, Jess and Leslie begin to be friends, but their friendship really blossoms after they find Terabithia, a stretch of land in the woods that they reach by swinging across a creek on an old length of rope. Leslie decides that she and Jess will be king and queen of Terabithia. Drawing upon her favourite books and stories, she opens for him the world of the imagination. Through Leslie, Jess realises that he is not alone in his need to feed his heart and mind and spirit. In Leslie, Jess finds the other half of his soul.
When tragedy strikes, Jess must re-evaluate all that he is and all that his friendship with Leslie has taught him. He discovers within him the strength and courage and purpose to take her lessons and make them his own.
It has been many years since I last read Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia. I am struck, again, by the power and beauty of this story. It is one to be read and discussed and wept over.
FernFolio Editor

Sarah and the Magic Science Project by Hazel Hutchins

fernfolio — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:32:05 +0000

When Sarah and her best friend Ben observe the rotten Derek Henshaw getting turned into a frog right in the middle of the cornerstore while trying to shoplift, Sarah figures she has found a great topic for her science project. “Magic: Fact or Fiction,” she announces to Mr. Wyanth, the science teacher, who is a great believer in the scientific method and who despairs of Sarah ever carrying out a project that includes observations, hypothesis, experiment and conclusion.
But Anastasia Morningstar, the young woman who works in that cornerstore and who seems to have turned Derek Henshaw into a frog, defies scientific study or explanation. Anna is more than willing to help Sarah with her project, but somehow magic doesn’t work around Mr. Wynath. And Anna has her own troubles; her boss at the cornerstore has let her go after complaints of harassment from Derek’s father, and the beautiful butterfly on her porch seems to be dying.
This is a lovely story about magic and the power of the imagination.
FernFolio Editor