Travel Fiction Research Articles

Personal Time and Transmigration Time Travel

Lewis argued that although paradoxes such as the famous Grandfather Paradox can be solved, only a limited set of time travel fiction is consistent. In this paper, I discuss how to extend a Lewisian approach to a class of time travel fiction not considered by Lewis: transmigration or mental time travel fiction. To this end, Lewis’s definition of personal time needs refining, and this is the primary focus of my paper. I discuss some alternative refinements of Lewis’s definition: a Solely Mental definition and a Causal definition. I end by also applying these definitions to cases of reverse aging.

Time Travel, Audiovisual Narratives and TV Fiction: The Bootstrap Paradox in BBC’s Doctor Who

The purpose of this work is to explore the narrative mechanisms that operate in audiovisual stories about time travel, and more specifically in those that address the so-called onthological paradox (also known as bootstrap paradox or causal loop), taking as a case study the British BBC TV series Doctor Who (1963-2020), and especially its modern era, which began in 2005.Onthological paradoxes (those where an infinite cause-effect loop is created, and therefore it is impossible to establish a point of origin of certain events) break, by their own conception, the classical structure of the story by denying the classical notion of ‘ first plot point’. Thus, many of these narratives are forced to seek alternative formulas of temporal architecture based on simultaneity, order distortion or circularity. All these solutions can be traced in many chapters of Doctor Who, particularly in those that fall under the creative direction of Steven Moffat, who in his period as screenwriter (2005-2010) and showrunner (2010-2017) used the concept of ‘time ‘as the main driving force behind his narratives.

Book Review: Air Travel Fiction and Film: Cloud People by Erica Durante

Book Review: <i>Air Travel Fiction and Film: Cloud People</i> by Erica Durante

Literatura y medicina: Teoría y praxis (1800–1930) ed. by Jorge Avilés Diz y José Manuel Goñi Pérez

Reviewed by: Literatura y medicina: Teoría y praxis (1800–1930) ed. by Jorge Avilés Diz y José Manuel Goñi Pérez John Margenot Avilés Diz, Jorge, y José Manuel Goñi Pérez, editores. Literatura y medicina: Teoría y praxis (1800–1930). Vol. 1, Ediciones de la Torre, 2019. Pp. 302 pp. ISBN 978-8-47960-830-9. This engaging collection of ten interdisciplinary essays by specialists of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century thinkers, writers, and artists provides a wealth of information on the ways in which scientific breakthroughs in the medical world—particularly those related to infectious diseases, mental illness and hygiene—shape the cultural production of the period. The editors argue in their introduction that artistic creation—theatre, novel, short story, essay, travel fiction and painting—serves as a forum to express fundamental concerns, fears and uncertainties related to continuous, and often controversial, discoveries in medicine. Avilés Diz and Goñi Pérez argue that the arts, particularly literature, function as the ideal medium to debate matters such as the conflict between past and present, tradition versus evolution and the historically uneasy relationship between science and religion. While various essays deal with easily recognized figures—Clarín, Galdós, and Larra—others focus on the work of lesser-known journalists, writers and doctors—Rosario de Acuña, Manuel de Tolosa Latour and Sabino Arana, to name a few—thus underscoring the editors’ contention that developments in medicine throughout the nineteenth century have a widespread impact on the arts. In the opening study, “‘¿Qué le duele?’ Representaciones de la medicina en la pintura del siglo XIX,” Esther Sánchez-Couto scrutinizes how medical developments—vaccinations, the creation of asylums, experimental laboratories and the introduction of autopsies—as well as the “professionalization” of the doctor, appear throughout the paintings of Goya, Sorolla, Borrás Abellá and Simonet Lombardo, among others. She shows how numerous scientific developments compel these artists to capture this new reality in original and concrete fashion. Monserrat Escartín Gual’s “La relación de Larra con la medicina y la enfermedad” adeptly explores the writer’s contact with the medical world as seen through terminology in his newspaper articles and his frequent bouts with depression. Most importantly, the fragmentation of Larra’s personality into Fígaro highlights attempts to alleviate his depression through the use of the word. As such, writing is not simply a profession but a therapeutic necessity for Larra. José Avilés Diz’s thoughtful essay, “¿Simila similibus curentur? Teatro y homeopatía en la España del siglo XIX,” explores the intense and often acrimonious nineteenth-century debate surrounding homeopathy and allopathy. He argues that theater serves as a forum for scientific discussion as well as an [End Page 120] indicator of social opinion on the value of homeopathy as a medical system especially when compared to traditional medicine. Works discussed include Juan Peral y Richart’s Una cura por homeopatía, Calixto Boldún’s Simila similibus curantur, o un clavo saca a otro clavo and Luis Martínez’s Homeopáticamente, among others. Solange Hibbs-Lissorgues focuses on hygiene in “‘La higiene es una religión humana . . . ’: regeneración, salud e higiene en España en el siglo XIX,” with emphasis on the work of Rosario de Acuña who tirelessly labored to eradicate irregularities in hygiene throughout the country, especially its rural areas. This activist and writer battled continuously against the religious fanaticism and superstition that impeded scientific development. From another perspective, José Manuel Goñi Pérez scrutinizes how doctors used travel fiction to convey medical ideas and to dissert on the state of medicine in Spain. In “Medicina, instrucción y regeneración: los relatos de viaje de Calatraveño y Valladares (1898) y Tolosa Latour (1908),” Goñi Pérez argues that the hybridism which characterizes the travel genre permits both writers to straddle the line between diversion and socio-scientific information. Margot Versteeg’s fine study, “No Place for Us: Stigmatization and Exclusion in ‘Duo de la tos’ by Leopoldo Alas (Clarín),” probes the author’s metaphorical critique of the nation-state’s inability to create an all...

Dual Focalization in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels

Dual Focalization in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels Xuan Gong (bio) Traditionally, first-person travel accounts offer the promise of visual 'truth' with a metaphorical equation of the 'I' and the 'eye,' which makes seeing a functional technique serving a moral purpose. A parody of eighteenth-century first-person travel fiction, Gulliver's Travels not only uses the vulnerability of Gulliver's eyes as a guiding metaphor of his intellectual and moral failure, but also emphasizes the framework of travel writing within which Swift grounds his thinking on seeing and its moral implications.1 Central to first-person travel accounts is the traveler's claim that 'I' saw this, and 'I' am telling you the truth. Such a claim suggests the temporal distance between the experiencing self and the narrating self, making the distinction between who saw and who is telling the starting point for this essay. Drawing on Gérard Genette's theory of focalization and William F. Edmiston's refinement of Genette's terms, the first part of the essay contends that Gulliver's Travels deviates from the norms of focalization in eighteenth-century first-person travel fiction by overplaying the experiencing self's role of an eyewitness and downplaying the narrating self's role of a governing consciousness. Our analysis of Swift's manipulation of the dual focalization in the second part of the essay displays that Gulliver's Travels features a gullible Gulliver-character whose viewpoint is always merging with or is even drowned out by other characters' views and a Houyhnhnm-like Gulliver-narrator who observes his experiencing [End Page 1] self indifferently, identifying reality with the ensemble of empirical facts. Parallel to Gulliver-narrator's observation of Gulliver-character runs the English traveler's observation of the Irish Other. As Eugene Hammond points out, Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels while he was dean at St. Patrick's in Dublin and as he "gradually adjusted his geographical perspective," becoming "less and less interested in internal English political issues and more and more interested in internal English–Irish relations" (164). Based on the affinity between Gulliver's Travels and the dean's sermons and tracts which directly address Ireland's colonial predicament, the third part of the essay reveals how the whole novel works as a parody of English colonial travel accounts of Ireland.2 Anticipating the modern doppelgänger, Gulliver-character and Gulliver-narrator convey Swift's warnings, respectively, to the Irish people and to the English ruler. For the former, the warning is that intellectual blindness will deprive them of liberty; for the latter, the warning is that the English government's willful neglect of the Irish people is indeed a great sin in the sight of God. Swift's Parody of Eyewitnessing To distinguish between who sees and who speaks, Genette coins the term focalization and distinguishes three types of focalization: zero, internal, and external. He further suggests that this triadic typology is applicable to first-person narration, with focalization through the narrator as the norm: The only focalization that [the first-person narrator] has to respect is defined in connection with his present information as narrator and not in connection with his past information as hero. He can, if he wants, choose this second form of focalization (focalization through the hero), but he is not all required. (198–99) Seymour Chatman challenges Genette's view by arguing that first-person narrators can only recount rather than see, for they are outside the constructed story world (194). Most narrative theorists, however, take focalization as a function of discourse,3 agreeing that first-person narrators, with their limited perceptual powers, can look back on the past. For Edmiston, a more interesting question is whether Genette's criterion of external/internal [End Page 2] focalization can be applied to first-person narration. As we know, Genette defines the three types of focalization in terms of the narrator's access to the minds of characters, making the knowledge of the narrator the only parameter of focalization. In the case of first-person narration, this criterion causes some confusion: first-person narrators always know more than their experiencing selves, whereas external focalization in Genette's term...

Sea Voyage Tales in Conversation with the Jonah Story

The article examines rabbinic and Christian, Syriac and Greek, narratives of miraculous rescue on a storm-tossed sea from a comparative perspective. Taking note of the narrators’ engagement in an ongoing intertextual dialogue with the biblical story of prophet Jonah, the authors highlight the new emphases introduced by late antique storytellers. The function of the adventures on the high seas as a means of establishing the protagonists’ religious identity and, consequently, strengthening the identity of the projected audience is shown to be shared by Jewish and Christian sources. Moreover, the article investigates the role assigned to the Other in Jewish and Christian travel fiction. The results may point to different attitudes toward the Other entrenched in the two cultures.

Slush Mountain by B. R. Lie

Lie, Bjørn R. Slush Mountain. Vancouver: Simply Read Books, 2016. Print. It’s a clear, crisp morning on Slush Mountain. There’s not a cloud in the sky and the fresh snow shines in the sunlight.This basic yet delightfully illustrated book tells the simple pleasures of a day in the village and the slopes of Slush Mountain, located somewhere in the Norwegian mountains. Previously published in Norwegian under the title Slapsefjell, author-illustrator and graphic artist Bjørn Rune Lie gives us a day in the life of a busy resort town from the perspective of locals and visitors alike.Beginning in the morning, we start out on the Nordic tracks with cross-country skiers. But there are also white knuckle slopes and moguls for those interested in a little more speed. Throughout the day we visit Frostbite Fish Pond, watch loggers in the Sluggerdale Forest, travel up along the Gutsy Pines Gondola and the Chilly Winds Chairlift and take part in the exhilarating Slush Mountain Rally, replete with vintage snowmobiles. There are loads of eccentric characters with names like Bruce “the Spruce” Crampon, “Snow Blind” Jefferson and Michael Mittens, who much to my kids’ delight, spots a rare three-headed giant hummingbird while seated in the outdoor privy. The day is finished off in a cozy cabin while a family plays a board game while drinking hot chocolate.While there is no real plot, the nostalgic, retro-inspired illustrations are fun to look at and have lots of detail to engage even the youngest readers. Humans and animals alike are enjoying themselves on the slopes, the rally, and the hotel dance. My children noted that the skiers were not wearing helmets but understood that the bygone era in the artwork represented a different time in terms of alpine safety. This is a fun, sweet book that would be a nice gift for snow-loving kids and perfect for an elementary school library.Recommended: 3 stars out of 4 Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

Unnatural narratives in contemporary Chinese time travel fiction: patterns, values, and interpretive options

The first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed an upsurge and a flourishing of time travel fiction in China, which is physically, logically, and/or humanly impossible. The boom of this new narrative genre has been fueled in no small part by the so-called “postmodernist turn” coupled with the “historiographical turn”, to the degree that it is no longer possible to read it along the lines of traditional narrative theory. With contemporary Chinese time travel fiction as its central concern, this article pursues four major goals: (1) to uncover its dominant unnatural patterns and means of time travel, (2) to reveal its unnaturalness from such perspectives as metalepsis, prolepsis, self-contradictory narration, and multiperson narration, (3) to examine its consequences and values of being unnatural, and (4) to offer a way of naturalizing it by suggesting the intersection of unnatural narratology with ethical narratology.

Gerbil, Uncurled by A. Hughes

Hughes, Alison. Gerbil, Uncurled. Illus. Suzanne Del Rizzo. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry &amp; Whiteside, 2015. Print.Gerbil, Uncurled is the latest in Fitzhenry &amp; Whiteside’s ‘Tell-Me-More! Storybook’ series and the 2nd title to use award-winning children’s book illustrator Suzanne Del Rizzo’s unique plasticine dimensional illustrations, the 1st being Skink on the Brink. The ‘Tell-Me-More! Storybook’ series is a set of fictional picture books that tell a tale about our natural world and include additional activities and brief informational text.This is award-winning writer Alison Hughes’ first foray into picture book territory, and she succeeds. The storyline is sweet: Little Gerbil is trying her very best to fit in with her gerbil family by following the Gerbil Mottos. The Gerbil Mottos are the basic life rules that her extended family follow daily, and include keeping one’s whiskers clean and ‘celery tops come to those who wait,’ among others. Little Gerbil is having a hard time with a specific motto, though; ‘curl up nose to toes’ while sleeping, as she finds it too restrictive and enjoys sleeping stretched out. Little Gerbil confides in wise Grandpa Gerbil who is ‘five whole years old’ and while he is sensitive to her predicament, she still can’t sleep curled up nose to toes though she certainly tries. But our Little Gerbil is brave, and in her willingness to stand up for herself and question the world, others are able to question the mottos, too.This delightful and visually appealing book encourages young readers to be themselves, ask questions and respond positively to suggestions if it can make you happier. The factual information about gerbils and other rodents as well as the instructions on making a clay gerbil are great endings to the book.Recommended: 3 stars out of 4Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

Stay Where You Are and Then Leave by J. Boyne

Boyne, John. Stay Where You Are and Then Leave. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2014. Print.John Boyce, multiple award winning author of children’s and adult books including The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas delivers another emotional yet tender tale for younger readers set during wartime.Alfie Summerfield had always remembered the day the fighting started. It was July 28, 1914, and it was his 5th birthday. It was also around the time he learned that his father would be headed to fight, having volunteered in hopes of making it easier on the family. More than four years had passed since that day, and nine-year-old Alfie thought about it and his dad Georgie all the time. The letters that his father regularly sent stopped arriving, and Alfie fears he is dead although his mother insists he is still alive. Not much is said about Georgie, though Alfie is led to believe he is on a long and secret war mission and his mom Margie cries a lot when she thinks he cannot hear her.Alfie’s life revolves around his hard-working mother Margie, skipping school, his Granny and the friends he had made in the row houses along Damley Road including Kalena and her father Mr. Janáček. After the army relocated Kalena and her father to the Isle of Man as ‘persons of special interest’ Alfie discovers that they left behind a shoe shine box. Insistent on helping his worn out mother and not keen on attending school, Alfie secretly takes a job as a shoe shine boy where one day he makes a startling discovery: his father’s name on a stack of his customer’s hospital papers, relating to a military hospital just a train ride away.What follows is Alfie’s journey to learn the truth about his father’s whereabouts. His steadfast determination to keep his family together is touching and heartfelt. This would be an excellent book to use in a classroom in relation to World War One or to be read together at bedtime so that young readers have a chance to ask questions.Highly recommended: 4 stars out of 4Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

The Fictitious World Traveller: The Swede on Timor and the Noble Savage Imagery

Travel writing soared in the Western world in the early-modern era with the widening geographical knowledge. This was accompanied by a genre of travel fiction. The present study analyses a short Swedish novella from 1815, Swensken på Timor (The Swede on Timor), “translated” by Christina Cronhjelm from a purported English account. It is a romantic tale of a Swedish sailor who is shipwrecked and is adopted by an indigenous group on the Southeast Asian island Timor, marrying a local woman and converting to Islam. The novella is remarkable for the positive portrayal of indigenous society and to some extent Islam. The article discusses the literary tropes influencing the account, and the partly accurate ethnographic and historical details.

Habsburg bewegt: Topografien der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie ed. by Miklós Fenyves et al. (review)

Reviewed by: Habsburg bewegt: Topografien der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie ed. by Miklós Fenyves et al. Susanne Kelley Miklós Fenyves, Amália Kerekes, Bálint Kovács, and Magdolna Orosz, eds., Habsburg bewegt: Topografien der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie. Budapester Studien zur Literaturwissenschaft. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013. 293 pp. Habsburg bewegt is the seventeenth volume in the series Budapester Studien zur Literaturwissenschaft, edited by Magdolna Orosz and published by Peter Lang since 2001. The book is a product of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, with not only the four editors but also more than half of the authors associated with the institution at the time they were published in this volume. It is the German-published book that resulted from the research project “Räume der Identität: Kulturelle Topografien der deutschsprachigen Kultur der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie” (the other book publication is in Hungarian). This volume comprises of sixteen articles grouped into the four sections “Raumbilder,” “Exotik,” “Filmtourismus,” and “Utopien.” A definite strength of this volume is the variety of thematic and methodological approaches to the overarching theme. The book exemplifies the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary approach to a research project, particularly when the broad focus is a geographic and cultural space or moment to be explored from multiple angles. The sixteen articles illuminate the topic of cultural production in and about Austria-Hungary through the lens of spatial perceptions in many different genres. The authors’ analyses include the topics of urban planning and the fictional and nonfictional representation of urban centers; the genres of travel texts, including travel fiction, travelogues, and travel guides; as well as biographical texts, operetta, and film (documentary, travel, adventure, and horror). The first section on spatial representations focuses on travel texts in a broad definition of the genre. The section that focuses on “the exotic” includes articles that illuminate the contexts of nonheterogeneous [End Page 122] spaces. The third article grouping is the only one categorized by genre, containing three articles on films. The last group of three articles is determined as depictions of utopias. Unfortunately, this organization of the articles does not best serve the strengths of the book as a whole. Some of the articles, in fact, offer much more interesting research contributions than the emphasis communicated by the title or section heading. In contrast to other anthologies with contributions by academics scattered around a country or world, much of Habsburg bewegt offers research produced in a significantly small productive space (faculty and graduate students in Budapest), thereby offering a unique and concentrated perspective on the geographic, cultural, as well as historical space of Austria-Hungary. In fact, the articles that do not include a connection with today’s Hungary are the exception. By publishing a German-language volume on the research produced in the “Räume der Identität” project, the book’s editors contribute to the research body on Austria-Hungary, which is a uniquely focused research perspective. Hungary, in particular Budapest, represents an enriching subtopic in the volume as it is the underlying focus of a number of included articles, which combine to create an interdisciplinary discussion of the city space. The reader learns about Budapest’s city marketing in a comparative analysis of the “Stadtwäldchen” and the Vienna Prater around 1900, the image of Budapest’s 7th district through the writings and person of the psychologist Ferenc Mérei, as well as a post- 1915 utopian alternative in which Budapest takes on a world-important role. Another underlying theme of the volume is the challenging of genre concepts through the analysis of works that expand the limits of their traditional definitions. A number of articles in the volume explore tropes of tourism and travel in connection with the genres of their representation, among them analyses of war tourism and the film genres of the travel and road movie. By placing Hungary and Budapest at the center of this research volume on Habsburg, the editors also imply a challenge to Vienna as the geographically and culturally most interesting research location and subject of the era and location. Authors included in this volume who are less commonly found in German- and English-language research on Habsburg...

How Do Dinosaurs Say I’M MAD? by J. Yolen

Yolen, Jane. How Do Dinosaurs Say I’M MAD? Illus. Mark Teague. New York: Scholastic-The Blue Sky Press, 2013. Print.This book about misbehaving dinosaurs is one of the most recent from the How Do Dinosaurs… series (of over 20 titles) power-duo of Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. Multiple award winning author Yolen and illustrator Teague have created a how-to manual of sorts to help the littlest people, as well as adults, learn to control our tempers.The dinosaurs in this story, who will be very familiar to fans of this series, are feeling angry due to many reasons; the Barapasaurus is upset about something he cannot have (his sister’s tricycle); the Afrovenator has been asked to sit still but he is having none of that; and the Lystosaurus does not want to go for a nap. They react with tantrums and terrible dino behavior that many young readers may see reflected in themselves: banging of toys, stomping, throwing things, and pouting.The bad behaviours are then tempered with calming techniques; counting to 10, breathing calmly, cleaning up, saying sorry and giving hugs. Of course the outcome is not always so easily achieved with real children! Mark Teague’s illustrations are very expressive, so much so that my 5-year-old was upset by the menacing and angry looks that the parents directed towards their dinosaur children in most of the images. Luckily of course by the end of the book both parent and child have resolved the issues. While the familiarity of the characters in this book may be a draw for some readers, it can also create a sense of formulaic repetition for adults. Recommended for public and school libraries.Recommended: 3 stars of out 4 Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

I Love You, Nose! I Love You, Toes! by L. Davick

Davick, Linda. I Love You, Nose! I Love You, Toes! New York: Simon &amp; Schuster-Beach Lane Books, 2013. Print.Graphic artist, illustrator and animator Linda Davick, whose colourful images have appeared in several seasonal counting series books such as the New York Times bestselling 10 Trick-or-Treaters, has penned her first book for children aimed at celebrating the unique qualities we all have. Starting from our head right down to our toes, the simply drawn children, with fun disproportionately-scaled features and descriptions to portray many kids, show off their various body parts. The book is essentially a whimsical love poem to our bodies that children will find entertaining, both in the prose and the illustrations. Take this stanza as an example:I love you, nose, though there’s no doubt that when you sneeze some stuff comes out.The images are great, too: a little girl covering her nose to the smell of her baby sibling’s diaper, a child thinking about smelling pepper (spoiler alert: she sneezes), a stinky sock and fragrant flowers; young children will enjoy the interplay of words and images, especially about body parts and functions that are generally not discussed:I love the parts my friends don’t see: the parts that poop, the parts that pee.Ending with a sleepy boy drifting off to sleep, this would be a fun book to read with young children at night as part of a bedtime routine or even as part of an early-years story time, though the latter would certainly create a memorable experience for the students! Highly recommended: 4 stars of out 4 Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

Work: An Occupational ABC by K. Hatanaka

Hatanaka, Kellen. Work: An Occupational ABC. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2014. Print.At first glance, you may look at this book and think it just like the myriad of other ABC books for young children and preschoolers, but you would be delightfully wrong! Yes, of course, each letter from A to Z is represented and indeed each letter is accompanied by an image that characterizes the letter. But that is where the similarities end. Toronto-based designer, illustrator and artist Kellen Hatanaka, who can now also call himself a first time author, has created a beautiful and unexpected piece of art for the youngest readers and it is as much a delight to read as it is to behold. With creamy paper and softly-coloured images, created digitally after first creating ‘hand-drawn patterns and images’, it is reminiscent of a small person’s version of a coffee table book, if said coffee table were in a nursery.It starts out simple enough, with A for Aviator and a full page spread with a boldly-coloured A as well as mountain tops that echo the A’s shape. The next page, however, alerts the reader to the fun in store – B is for Butcher, shown chasing after a group of raccoons who have absconded with a string of sausages. Yes, there are occupations like Grocer and Tailor but there are also the Ice Cream Vendor, K-9 Officer and the Wedding Singer! What’s wonderful to note are the many alternative occupations, some that you may have not have heard of, and that there is a nice mix of women, men, and cultures taking part. For the curious reader, there is a section of funny ‘Want Ads’ which provides a short description of the occupation.This would make a wonderful new baby gift and is an excellent addition to a home or public library.Highly recommended: 4 stars out of 4 Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

Everything Dinosaurs by B. Hoena

Hoena, Blake. Everything Dinosaurs. Illus. Franco Tempesta. Washington: National Geographic Society, 2014. Print.This colourful, glossy and magazine-like title in the National Geographic Kids’ Everything series will please almost any young would-be paleontologist. Written specifically for the 8-12 year old audience, it is chock full of photographs, images, facts, maps and activities expertly compiled by a large team of National Geographic staff. It has boldly designed graphics and as a high-interest non-fiction title, will appeal to reluctant readers.Children will enjoy the appealing images, beautifully created by artist and illustrator Franco Tempesta who specializes in naturalistic illustration, and in particular, realistic images of dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals. Included are “Explorer’s Corners,” information from the field from an expert. In this case, University of Chicago professor Paul Sereno, who in his photograph and cartoon image looks a lot like Indiana Jones! Real photographs of fossilized dino eggs, meteorites, dinosaur theme parks and paleontologists add a touch of authenticity. Especially fun are the infographics and quizzes, on topics ranging from how dinosaur names are chosen, dinosaurs in Hollywood films and the ‘rock stars’ of the paleontological world.As with other titles in the series, Everything Dinosaurs contains a table of contents, diagrams, definitions and an index. This title and the series will appeal to upper middle and upper elementary readers interested in non-fiction. It would be a fine addition to elementary school libraries and public libraries.Recommended: 3 stars out of 4 Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

The Long, Long Line by T. Ohmura

Ohmura, Tomoko. The Long, Long Line. Toronto, ON: OwlKids Books, 2013. Print."Thank you for waiting, and welcome aboard! One at a time, please!" mentions the bird, who is the ride guide on this mysterious ride for which 50 different animals have patiently lined up. As they wait, the bird flies amongst them, offering reassuring words as they guess as to what they may be in line for and play word games to pass the time. The anticipation builds, and finally they start boarding the ride, which turns out to be a very large whale on which the animals ride while the whale performs somersaults, dives and sprays. Children will be delighted by all 50 animals represented on the large gatefold spread in the center of the book, from the smallest frog to the largest elephant.Children will love the small details such as the tail of the next animal in line ‘peeking’ around the corner of the page and the size of the animals increasing as they get closer to the ride giving perspective of size. A list of all 50 animals is included at the back for easy reference when young readers get stumped by a species. While this is indeed a picture book aimed at young children it is no quick read – children will want to hear every word of the animals’ conversations as they wait and will want to count as they go, and likely once all the animals are aboard the whale they will want to confirm there are indeed 50 animals present, perhaps multiple times.The colourful illustrations by the author are cute and engaging and show a wide range of expressions and interplay between the animals. The language felt slightly unnatural but this may be a result of this edition being a translation of the original Japanese work Nanno Gyoretsu? A fun book for public and elementary schools as well as a nice addition to science or math based storytime in lower elementary grades.The Long, Long Line was selected as one of the best children’s books of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews.Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

I Am Canada: Graves of Ice: The Lost Franklin Expedition by J. Wilson

Wilson, John. I Am Canada: Graves of Ice: The Lost Franklin Expedition. Toronto, ON: Scholastic Canada, 2014. Print.Graves of Ice is the most recent title of I Am Canada, a series of historical fiction aimed at 9-12 year old boys and a companion to the very popular and award winning Dear Canada series for girls of the same age. The series, which sets a fictional child or youth within a significant Canadian historical event or period, is designed to inspire “adventure, duty, danger, fear” and it certainly succeeds with its exciting, first person vantage and journalistic style.In Graves of Ice, young George Chambers, approximately 14-years-old, leads a simple but comfortable life with his brothers and sisters in Woolwich, England. His father, a former Royal Navy seaman, enthralls the Chambers boys with tales of high seas battles while in service which in turn plants a seed of adventure in the impressionable George. Succeeding in having his father call in a favour earned while in the service of Sir John Franklin, George sets off as a cabin boy on a voyage of Arctic exploration led by Franklin that departed England in 1845.This volume starts with George recounting the story of how things came to be with only two remaining survivors: George and Commander James Fitzjames. As George becomes weaker, his past and present merging, he recalls the events and moments that led to this– including a run in with a polar bear, possible mutiny, loneliness, frostbite, sickness and his own uncertain fate on what we now know was a doomed expedition.Author John Wilson, author of other titles in the I Am Canada series, has 40+ titles to his name for kids and adults alike and has produced an exciting and well-researched tale with just the right amount of drama that will hold the reader’s attention. Adults will find themselves reading it in one sitting while younger readers will want just one more chapter. The only quibble I had is with the choice of some of the language of the younger characters, which was perhaps historically accurate but seemed too formal for an adolescent and which may seem unrealistic for today’s reader. Younger readers may also need a bit of help with some of the vocabulary, but the high action and excellent writing makes up for these small details. The companion web site includes a discussion guide as well as activities suitable for classroom use.Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night? by B. Sayers

Sayres, Brianna K. Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night? Illus. Christian Slade. New York: Random House, 2012. Print.If the title Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night? seems a tad familiar, well, it probably is. In the same vein as the ultra-popular Good Night, Good Night, Construction Site, Diggers presents the sweet nighttime rituals of diggers, trucks and other heavy machinery. At first I thought this was a simple effort to take advantage of a similar, bestselling title however Sayres’ work does indeed hold its own.In this picture book aimed at ages 3-6, first time picture book author Sayres gives young heavy equipment aficionados a delightful take on the bedtime story. In rhyming couplets and often in a humorous manner, all sorts of trucks, cranes and tractors get ready for rest under the watchful headlamps of their caregivers: “Where do garbage trucks sleep / when they’re done collecting trash? / Do their dads sniff their load and say, / ‘Pee-yew—time to take a bath’?” Sure to get the young ones giggling.The sleepy-eyed dozers and tow trucks eventually give way to an equally sleepy young boy in his cozy bed, with a reminder that the trucks will be waiting for him when he wakes. Save for one naughty truck, winking, under the bed (my five-year-old happily pointed this out).Though the illustrations by former Disney animator Christian Slade are rather cartoon-like and not realistic, they match the text well, are in soothing nighttime colours and allow for the trucks to have droopy eyes and smiling faces. Read in a lyrical fashion, or even as a song, this would be a nice end to any wee truck lover’s day. This would make a nice addition to any public library or as a gift.Reviewer: Debbie Feisst Recommended: 3 stars out of 4Debbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.

Checkers and Dot at the Beach by J. Torres

Torres, J. Checkers and Dot at the Beach. Illus. J. Lum. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2013. Print.The team of Ontario-based author and illustrator (and comics veterans) J. Torres and J. Lum brings young babies the duo of Checkers and Dot. Torres is best known for his Alison Dare graphic novels and other comics while this is graphic designer Lum’s first opportunity at illustrating for a children’s audience.Checkers, a young boy in a checkered shirt and his friend Dot, a little girl in a polka-dotted jumper are introduced as part of a larger series of Checkers and Dot titles, all with a high-contrasted and heavily-designed black and white motif. This high contrast design is said to appeal to young babies and toddlers as well as provide visual stimulation that may lead to increased brain development. The small size and sturdy binding is a plus.In Checkers and Dot on the Farm, the youngest of children are introduced to animal sounds in rhyming prose that will be fun for any parent or caregiver to read aloud. The images are highly stylized and will be mesmerizing to young children and the characters, a little reminiscent of anime, are quite cute. In Checkers and Dot at the Beach the concept of basic counting to 5 is introduced via ocean animals. Both volumes have a slight plot which makes it more palatable to adults.Though toddlers will enjoy re-reading these books to practice their farm animal sounds and basic counting, they may bore of the black and white in favour of more colourful &amp; engaging board books aimed at preschoolers. The series is aimed at ages 0-4, however I feel it better suits the 0-2 age range. Suitable for public and home libraries.Recommended: 3 stars out of 4Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.