Welcome to Litsy!

I'm enjoying reading this wordless trilogy backwards. This is book 2 in the series. On this adventure, the kids go exploring and run into the king and see him get kidnapped. They use their magic crayons (Purple and the Harold Crayon anyone?) to not only escape the bad guys but to reunite with the king. Excellent illustrations.

The Wanderer, by Peter van den Ende, illustrator (2020)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A wordless graphic novel that follows a paper boat on its adventures at sea.

Review: The illustrations in this are absolutely stunning, which is a good thing considering they carry the whole weight of the story. I was hoping it would be a bit more than it was, but it‘s beautiful nonetheless

“I look up to the birds that seem to be following us. They are migrating just like us. And their journey, like ours, is very long, but they don‘t have to cross any borders.”

This book would be great to talk about the prominent social topic of immigration. This could be a window into what immigrants might face in order to live a life they deserve. It could also be a mirror for students who are immigrants or whose families immigrated.

This is a picture book and was published in 2016. This book takes readers through the emotional journey of immigration through illustrations that take up the entire page. The use of colors conveys emotions like fear, anxiety, hope, and change. Hope is expressed with brighter colors, while fear is expressed through a black background with small cut-outs for the words. Visual metaphors for freedom are also used, such as birds.

Harold & Maureen are an older retired couple in England. When he hears that his old coworker and friend is dying, he decides to walk hundreds of miles to visit her in hospice. That simple premise leads to unexpected friendships & quiet processing of painful past moments. It's not a book with big plot twists, but instead is an introspective novel about how our choices & the people around us shape our world. It was lovely to spend time with Harold.

3.5⭐️ It was a well told story that was very cute to read. My issue was that there wasn‘t a way of really knowing where one was, whether one was in the more contemporary storyline or the flashback. Overall a pretty solid story. #2025 #bookclub #canadian #fiction #wwii #greatdepression

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This author is a wonderful storyteller. A journey of love through the eyes of a china rabbit

122/362

Etta and Otto and Russell and James, by Emma Hooper (2015 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: An 82-year-old Saskatchewan woman living with dementia embarks on a long-desired trip to see the ocean, leaving her ailing husband alone with his memories.

Review: This novel felt to me like it wasn‘t sure whether it wanted to be a modern fairy tale or something more down to earth. Its themes of dreams deferred and duty, and depiction of prairie are great.⬇️

In 1910-12, the author Ejnar and a boat mechanic Iver sledge along the west coast of #Greenland looking for notes from previous Danes whose exploration ended in their 3 deaths. Ejnar and Iver brave the coast for well more than a year trying to get back to their ship. They are good partners for this task who have one spat in all this time, over an imaginary girl. It‘s a brutal survival story with an excellent epilogue about how the author ⬇️