Go wild!

The summer berry season has been amazing this year. In June - sweet strawberries. In July - raspberries, both red and golden. And August - blueberries! And oh, those wild ones are the best. Wild blueberries can be difficult to track down. It seems one needs to travel north to find them. And they have such a short season. They're also rather pricey but well worth the once-in-a-while treat as they have a completely different taste, texture and scent from cultivated blueberries. Fresh, fragrant and, yes, wild.

And, there's a perfect read to go with these delicious, almost frost-skinned, teeny-tiny berries - Wild Berries written and illustrated by Julie Flett and published by Simply Read Books. The book is a lovely tale of tradition - a story of a grandmother and a grandchild and their search for wild blueberries. The illustrations are earthy, graphic - and the expressions and postures of the characters (both human and animal) convey so much with such seemingly simple shapes, colours and lines. And oh, that gorgeous globe of persimmon sun. The circle of life. What goes around comes around. Yes. Tradition. Customs. Habits. Patterns one can count on. 

I was introduced to the work of Julie Flett through an instructor of mine, Kerry Clare, while at The School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto. Kerry taught last October's The Art of Blogging course. And she posted an engaging interview with Julie on the 49th Shelf website in the fall of 2014.