PICTURE BOOK - Me and you and the Red Canoe by Jean E. Pendziwol

Illustrated by Phil

2017 Groundwood Books, House of Anansi Press, Toronto

HC $18.95

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.83 - 82 ratings

My rating:  5

Endpapers:  Solid Red

Illustrations are acrylic on wood paneling!  Very cool

1^st line/s:
"I woke before the sun was up,
before the moon closed its eyes,
before the stars twinkled out,
when the whole world was just thinking
about the new day,
and everything was
purple and magical."

My comments:  Although I'm not a fisherperson - and it doesn't interest me at all - and this book is about going out onto a lake fishing, I still consider the book a work of art, both in words and illustration.  It's written in verse form, and would be a wonderful sample of free verse to share with a tween or teen.  Gorgeous writing.  The illustrations are really, really beautiful, there's no white, and even the page of text has a background paint-y collage that's lovely. I love that the illustrator is "Phil."  No surname.  Both author and illustrator are Canadians. Highly recommended.

Goodreads:  In the stillness of a summer dawn, two siblings leave their campsite with fishing rods, tackle and bait, and push a red canoe into the lake. A perfect morning on the water unfolds, with thrilling glimpses of wildlife along the way.
          The narrator describes the experience vividly. Trailing a lure through the blue-green depths, the siblings paddle around a point, spotting a moose in the shallows, a beaver swimming towards its home and an eagle returning to its nest. Suddenly there is a sharp tug and the rod bends to meet the water. A few heart-stopping moments later, the pair pull a silvery trout from the water, then paddle back to the campsite to fry up a delicious breakfast.
          The poetic text is accompanied by stunningly beautiful paintings rendered on wood panels that give a nostalgic feeling to the story.

61. Gray Ghost - William G. Tapply

Stoney Calhoun #2
For: Adult
St. Martins Minotaur, March 2007
257 pgs.
Rating: 4

Set in the Maine woods and on Casco Bay (Portland), my second encounter with Stoney Calhoun was just as good as my first. With all memory wiped out by a lightning strike seven years before, Stoney has no desire to find out about his past. He's built a house in the woods on Bitch Creek, has his faithful dog, Ralph, and fishes whenever he wants. He's a fishing guide now. He has the knowledge he acquired previously, but nothing else. He's visited late at night by a nameless man who keeps asking him what he's remembered (nothing), but has no knowledge of his past life.

This mystery is about two murders. The first is a body burned beyond recognition on an abandoned island in Casco Bay. The second is a fishing client, whom he finds shot to death on his front porch when he arrives home one afternoon. His friend, Sheriff Dickman, insists that Stoney become his deputy because he appreciates Stoney's sixth sense, intuition, insight, into questionable matters. A fast moving story.

I went online to see if Tapply's written a third mystery with Stoney Calhoun as protagonist. To my great dismay, I discovered that Tapply died of leukemia on July 27th. He was 69. He's written a slew of Brady Coyne mysteries, and is quite well known as a fisherman and mystery writer in the New England area. I DID discover that his third Stoney Calhoun, Dark Tiger, will be published at the end of this month.

How to Catch a Fish - John Frank

POETRY
Illustrator: Peter Sylvada
2007
Ages 4-8
2/25 B&N
Rating: 4
Endpapers: sage blue

Flowing rhyming poetry tells the story of different ways that people fish in many places around the world - Tobago; Columbia River, Washington; Gap of Dunloe, Irlenad; Baffin Island; Nagara River, Japan; Montauk Point, New York; Okavango River, Namibia; New Caledonia; Ishi Pishi Falls, California; Fraser Canyon, British Columbia; Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia; Kona, Hawaii; and northwest Florida. It ends:

We slack our reels to free some line,
and as I mull which rig to tie,
a knowing wink escapes his eye;
I made my choice of hook and weight,
we fasten them, we set our bait,
then raise our rods, set loose our lines
above the ocean, way up high,
the two of us, my dad and I...
And that is how to catch a fish.

Ice Fishing, Baffin Island, Nunavut:

We chop a hole in the Arctic ice,
and crouched in layers of skins and fur
to shun the frigid weather - b-rrr-rr-
we bait our hooks and lower our lines
and jig them, up and down, to stir
the fish below - but if they're near,
we'll sometime use a well-aimed spear.

Fishwheel, Fraser Canyon, British Columbia:

Propelled by currents swift and strong,
our fishwheel rotates round and round,
its soft metallic hollow sound
as rhythmic as a beaten drum,
three giant baskets scooping up
the sockeye, steelhead, coho, chum
and dropping them inside a pen ---
then circling back for more again.

Illustrations: hazy oil paintings with the remainder of the page a block of white from top to bottom containing the poem.