Welcome to the last Sunday, and second last day of Picture Book Month.
We hope you have had fun following along with our Book Suggestions. (We will actually continue on into December as we are still waiting on a couple books from the library. Once we have our own Story Time with those books, we will update each post).
Today’s book is another one of those Books books we are still waiting for our turn at the Library. Will update shortly.
Boy Soup by Loris Lesynski and Illustrated by Michael Martchenko
- Best Books for Kids & Teens, Canadian Children’s Book Centre
- Storytelling World Award, Honor Title
- 100 Best Canadian Kids’ Books, Today’s Parent Magazine
When Giant wakes up with a giant cold, he turns to his home medical guide for help. The prescription? A bowl of Boy Soup. Catching the boys is easy, but what he doesn’t count on is Kate. Accidentally kidnapped along with the boys, clever Kate convinces Giant that what the guide really means is a soup made by boys, not one with boys in it.
Kate and the boys proceed to concoct a particularly nasty broth:
They put in
some mud
and some thick yellow glue
and a generous dollop of dandruff shampoo.
Giant spits out the soup with a mighty blast, which carries the children to safety. The happily-ever-after ending sees Kate and the boys opening up their own restaurant (minus Boy Soup) and Giant learning a valuable lesson.
Originally published in 1996, this delightfully silly story has been a consistent favorite. Now reissued with hilarious illustrations by renowned artist Michael Martchenko, Boy Soup is sure to attract a whole new generation of young readers.
Source – http://www.annickpress.com/Boy-Soup-Revised-Edition
recommended age 4-7
In 2013 this book was chosen as the TD Grade One Book Giveway. [ http://www.bookcentre.ca/bookgiveaway2013 ]
Here’s a couple other articles about the Grade One Book Giveaway and Boy Soup:
April 10th, 2013 The Canadian Children’s Book Centre is thrilled to announce the title of the 2013 TD Grade One Book Giveaway. Over 500,000 copies of Boy Soup, written by Loris Lesynski and illustrated by Michael Martchenko will be distributed to Grade One students in schools across the country this fall.
As part of the TD Grade One Book Giveaway program, the author and illustrator will go on a Canada-wide tour later this year, visiting schools and libraries to meet children for a live reading. Author Loris Lesynski says, “I’m so happy to have so many kids get a copy of my book that I can’t even find the words for it! It’s an author’s dream come true: lots and lots of readers. And I’ll get to meet a whole bunch of those first-graders on tour – I can’t wait!”
Charlotte Teeple, Executive Director of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, is especially fond of this program: “Every year we receive hundreds of letters from parents, grandparents, teachers, principals and school board trustees, all telling us how much they love this program. At the same time, we receive home- made drawings, posters, post cards, videos and class projects as well as little notes and other messages from happy students who want us to know how much they love the book. For some students this will be the very first book of their own.”
“Children’s literacy is important and we’re proud to support the TD Grade One Book Giveaway encouraging reading at an early age,” says Frank McKenna, TD Bank Group’s Deputy Chair and Literacy Champion. “For the 14th year in a row the program helps put a book in the hands of grade one students across Canada, and this year with Boy Soup we hope that it continues to foster a love of reading and imagination.”
Boy Soup was originally published by Annick Press and has been translated into French for the first time by Marie-Andrée Clermont as La soupe de garçons.
Complete details of the TD Grade One Book Giveaway can be found at www.bookcentre.ca.
Source – https://tdreads.com/2013/04/
School districts reject free copies of Grade 1 book because of bank logo on cover
by Tristin Hopper [ http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/school-districts-reject-free-copies-of-grade-1-book-because-of-bank-logo-on-cover ]
About the Author –
Loris Lesynski doesn’t just write poems for kids. She takes them into classrooms to test them out on her target audience, then perfects them until each one gets kids laughing and tapping to the rhythm. Her latest offerings, Crazy About Hockey! (Spring 2015) and Crazy About Basketball! (2013), follow the original title in the series, Crazy About Soccer! (2012). These books combine her love of language with the most popular sports in playgrounds today.
Earlier books include Shoe Shakes (2007), which sets its sights on preschoolers who get a kick out of wacky sounds and off-the-wall ideas. “I Did It Because …”: How a Poem Happens (2006) is a unique collection blending the “best of” with “how to” for passionate poets, while Zigzag: Zoems for Zindergarten (2004) combines pictures, sounds, and movements, appealing even to children who don’t speak English yet as well as to the grown-ups who will be reading the poems aloud. Loris strongly believes that pleasure in the sound of language is the basis for a love of reading, and has seen thousands of children respond with delight to good rhythms and funny words.
Loris Lesynski’s first picture book, the wildly popular Boy Soup, was published in 1996 and reissued with new art in 2008. In the rollicking rhyme of Ogre Fun (1997), an ogre-boy tries to cure a contagious case of yawning. Catmagic (1998), another rhyming picture book, tells the story of Izzy the splotchy cat, who decides to find a way to live on the ceiling in the cluttered and colorful Witches’ Retirement Home. In Night School (2001), Eddie finds a school for kids who like to stay up late. Rocksy (2002) is the hilarious tale of a girl named Roxanne who fatefully wishes she were made of stone to avoid scrapes and scratches in the playground.
Loris’s first book of lively, humorous poems, Dirty Dog Boogie (1999), was praised by School Library Journal as being “a collection that will appeal to fans of Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein.” The response to Loris’s jazzy, juicy rhymes helped to establish her as one of North America’s pre-eminent poets for young people. Dirty Dog Boogie was revised in 2002 with full-color illustrations. A second zesty collection of poetry, Nothing Beats a Pizza, followed this success in 2001. Kids in classrooms often write variations of these poems, or get together in groups to put them to their own doo-wah arrangements. Cabbagehead (2003) is full of poems about ideas—the getting and keeping of them—for kids in a world too full of kits and products instead of their own projects. With her characteristic wit and word wizardry, Loris explores good ideas, bad ideas, and downright cabbagehead ideas in over 28 poems. Loris loves it to bits when kids get inspired to write their own poems, songs, or stories after one of her visits.
Loris greatly enjoys speaking at teachers’ and librarians’ conferences to share insights on selecting, enjoying, and performing rhythm and rhyme from the author’s point of view. She also does occasional school visits, preferably to a maximum of two or three classes, in a library setting, with lots of time for questions (children’s and teachers’) about writing, drawing, publishing, design, or other authors. Handouts of classroom activities are made available, full of ideas gathered from many different schools and their unbelievably creative teachers, and she sends a poster to the school in advance so the kids have a good sense of who is coming (this is because, she says, she spent most of her own childhood quite lost in her thoughts and often wondered after an event, “Who was that?”).
In 1999, Loris recorded her books on tape for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and they’ve all been converted into Braille.
Loris lives in Toronto.
Source – http://www.annickpress.com/author/Loris–Lesynski
Also check out www.lorislesynski.com
About the Illustrator, Michael Martchenko –
Michael is recognized as one of the fastest illustrators in the country. According to an interviewer in Applied Arts Quarterly, “Such rapidity seems to suit the artist’s joyful sense of spontaneity.” Michael immediately breaks down a manuscript into a storyboard. He explains: “As I read, I get all these great pictures in my mind. I think about funny situations, and then start sketching.” After he has completed a rough, it takes approximately another four hours to create a finished drawing. For most of his books, Michael likes to use watercolor and pencil, as well as a generous dose of his own visual humor.
Before he became a children’s book illustrator, Michael had already launched a successful career in advertising. Fortunately for fans of children’s literature, the Annick Press publishers and Robert Munsch saw Michael’s work—a scene in a park featuring pigeons equipped with landing gear—at a graphic arts exhibition, and felt that anyone with such a playful imagination should illustrate children’s stories.
Since 1980, the year he worked with Robert on The Paper Bag Princess, Michael has illustrated over 30 books for children and has exhibited his work throughout North America. He won the Ruth Schwartz Award for Thomas’ Snowsuit in 1986, and has won additional awards for design and illustration.
To celebrate the publication of The Paper Bag Princess twenty-five years ago, Annick Press published The Paper Bag Princess 25th Anniversary Edition (2005) which has the complete storybook, how the book came to be, and never-before published original sketches.
Michael’s has also collaborated with Loris Lesynski on Shoe Shakes (2007), a zany blend of story-poem and toddler-friendly rhymes. They also worked together on “I Did It Because…”: How a Poem Happens (2006), a unique collection that blends “best of” with “how to.”
Growing up in a small town north of Paris, France, Michael loved comic books and learned a lot about visual humor from watching cartoons. He moved to Canada when he was seven. By high school Michael knew that he wanted to make art his career. Upon graduation from the Ontario College of Art in 1966, Michael began working in commercial art. He was the creative art director for TDF Artists in Toronto until 1993. Michael’s other love is aviation art. He spends most of his time illustrating in his home studio.
Michael lives in Toronto with his wife, Patricia.
Source – http://www.annickpress.com/author/Michael_Martchenko
Source – 
kaelyn's book club 
