Author: Cindy

Title: Flight of the singing Pilot #13
Author: Erica David (Adapted)
Date:September 30, 2008
Genre: Kids

This is by Nick Jr. The Backyardigans series. My son loves The Backyardigans. He was so happy to discover this as his bed time read last night.

The book is about Pilot Uniqua as she takes to the skies to deliver singing telegrams! She only wants to make people smile. She delivers the telegrams to a grumpy pirate, Captain Moody, a grouchy Maharani Queen, Tasha, and the Abominable Snowman.

She runs away after each telegram. She thinks no one likes them until she finds out that they really go like them and have a singing telegram for her.

Title: The Boy from the Sun
Author: Duncan Weller
Date: Febuary 2007
Genre: Childrens

I have been trying to pick up more childrens books from either local or Canadian authors. Duncan Weller I discovered is not only Canadian but he is a local author.

The Boy from the Sun is a magical tale. It starts out as an ordinary day. As three children sit on the sidewalk on the way home from school. The children were all sad. Then a little body with a yellow shining head floats down beside them. Asking them why they are sad. With no answer the little boy makes a beautiful bird appear along with many more magical things. The children follow the boy as he takes them on a journey to the Sun.

The drawings are very simple black and white. The boy with the yellow shining head introduces all kinds of things that are colorful to the world to the children.

This story won the 2007 Governor General’s Award and the 2008 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Picture Book Award. In 2009 The Boy from the Sun will be an animated short film.

Title: The December Man
Author: Colleen Murphy
Date: 2007
Genre: Play

I am still trying to figure out why I reserved this from the library. I have no memory of requesting neither does my husband. I figured there must be a reason so I read the short book.

If you are unfamiliar with the events that happened on Dec. 6, 1989, a crazed gunman Marc Lepine massacred 14 female engineering students at Montreal’s École Polytechnique. I hate even mentioning his name! He shouldn’t get any more fame and that the women he killed should be more known.

The story is about a fictional student, a man who was in the room with mass murderer Marc Lépine and survived. Before he opened fire on them, Lepine freed the male students in the class.

She tells the story backwards, beginning where her main character, Jean, ends up 15 years later. Jean (Rylan Wilkie) is a shy boy from a working class family. His mother Kathleen (Nancy Beatty) cleans houses for wealthy families and his father Benoit (Brian Dooley) is a factory worker.

In the first scene Benoit and Kathleen are committing suicide. Each subsequent scene moves closer to that fateful day when Jean escapes the massacre and to the climax of the play. Jean and his parents are understandably elated he has been spared but the audience can’t share in their happiness because we already know this moment of joy will turn to unbearable grief.

Her play, The December Man, won the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award for drama. looks at the story of a fictional student, a man who was in the room with mass murderer Marc Lépine and survived.