Picture Book Reviews from Inhabit Media

It was my niece's third birthday recently and I wanted to get her something special.  My sister told me that she was really getting into longer more involved stories like The Balloon Tree by Phoebe Gilman.  She also really enjoys A Promise Is A Promise by Robert Munsch.  I wanted to get her something that I didn't think she would get from anyone else.  I found out about this Canadian publishing company based in Iqaluit while at the OLA Super Conference.  I saw the vendor booth on the trade show, but Akilak's Adventure was also mentioned at the talk about Diverse Books.

I went to Chapters and it was kind of a pain to find these books since they are filed in different sections of 3 - 5 year old storytime books, but I persevered and the results were totally worth it!  Although I was tempted to get The Owl and the Lemming, I didn't think my niece would like that one as much.  The books that I eventually chose were The Caterpillar Woman and Akilak's Adventure.

This is a really interesting story about a girl who gives her jacket to a strange woman and takes on the appearance of a caterpillar.  When hunters come to her tent, she helps them and one of them takes her as his wife.  Eventually, she becomes her beautiful self again and her husband becomes young and handsome in this fairy tale ending.  There are a lot of words that are a little difficult to pronounce, but there is an Inuktitut pronunciation guide in the back.  In addition to the wonderful story, the pictures are done in very muted colours and have a very smooth texture, similar to watercolours.  My niece actually preferred this book and after we read it once, we read it several more times that evening until my voice started to get all croaky.

This is a fun story about Akilak who sets out on an adventure to her uncle's camp in order to get more food for her grandmother.  I thought this was going to take on a Red Riding Hood kind of twist, but it didn't.  It is a girl who goes on a physical journey, but also embarks on a journey of self-discovery.  I really liked the illustrations in this book as they struck me as being similar to Martchenko's drawings in Munsch's books.  Although I read this book to my niece, she preferred the other, at least at the time.

I really am looking forward to other books with which this publishing house will produce and am definitely keeping on eye on them for unique wonderful stories that are Canadian.

Review: The Invisible Library

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is amazing! I really enjoyed it once I got going. Irene is a librarian for the Invisible Library. The Invisible Library basically is a hub at the center of of L-space (Pratchett fans will get this) which allows librarians into alternate universes to collect unique pieces of literature and where time does not pass.
Irene is a librarian who is sent on a standard mission of search and retrieval. However, this time, she has a student with her named Kai. The librarian who meets them, Dominic Aubrey, gives them the information they need to retrieve the book, clothes, etc. However, things soon go down the drain as Irene and Kai get caught up in the politics of this world and then find out that Alberic, the one librarian who betrayed the Invisible Library, is also in the world and determined to get his hands on the text. Events reach a climax as all the different factions in this world who are determined to get their hands on this book clash.

This book is a good mash-up of sci-fi (steampunk), fantasy (magic, vampires, fae, werewolves) and action/adventure.  Fans of steampunk, specifically Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, will enjoy this.  Librarians and archivists will also love this book as it involves trans-dimensional travel in order to save books.  Overall, I would say that the book isn't terribly gritty except in a few parts where it becomes violent and the descriptions get gory.