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. 

Tell me a story...

I only recently discovered When I Was Small written by Sara O'Leary and illustrated by Julie Morstad, and I have to say, I've found yet another picture book which I've fallen in love with.

The book had me at the cover of petal pink and raspberry red – that combination of colours captivated me from the get-go, as well as the simple book jacket and linen-covered spine - it's almost a bit of a nod to another era in its mood and design. The story is about a little boy named Henry who is wondering what his mother was like when she was little (incredibly little!) and the tales they share about being small together. This book led me to an itsy-bitsy place where I wanted to be that tiny, that small – just for a while.