In the grace of the world

What Fish Are Saying: Strange Sounds in the Ocean
by Kirsten Pendreigh (illustrated by Katie Melrose)

Naperville: Sourcebooks, 2025
$28.99 / 9781464218965

Mother Aspen: A Story of How Forests Cooperate and Communicate
by Annette LeBox (illustrated by Crystal Smith)

Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2024
$22.99 / 9781773069357

The Land Knows Me: A Nature Walk Exploring Indigenous Wisdom
by Leigh Joseph (illustrated by Natalie Schnitter)

Dover: Quarto Publishing, 2025
$25.99 / 9780760392911

Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy

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Inspired by the beauty of Vancouver’s North Shore, Kirsten Pendreigh expertly transfers the tools of the poetry she pens to this picture book. Her delightful and illuminating lyrical journey through the sonic world of the sea is fittingly rife with rhyme, repetition, alliteration, and onomatopoeia.

Aimed at 4-year olds and up, the text not only employs tools proven to aid kids in the step from listening to reading; it also enlightens all readers about a quirky world to which we seldom pay much attention. 

Pendreigh (When A Tree Falls) smoothly introduces the major tool that brings a wealth of new knowledge to us—the hydrophone (underwater microphone)—early in the text. From it, we learn that sea sounds travel deeper than light and quicker than smell—and that fish sounds emanate from their swim bladders, bones, and movement, rather than their throats or mouths. 

What Fish are Saying describes the distinct sounds of individual species—from sea robins to damselfish to herring. Each species is associated with a single onomatopoeic word: clownfish pop, angelfish chirp, and groupers drum. The typography often mimics the content, as when the text swirls in rhythm with the swimming fish. 

Katie Melrose’s masterful illustrations, deftly connected to the text, add layers to the words. She manages to convey the varied colours, species, and depths of the sea in visuals that are at once whimsical and convincing. The small, simple hydrophone set beside the tiny, bright, and loud snapping shrimp seemingly swimming atop the grey whale wailing its “watery code” is a particularly striking illustration of diversity and interdependence. 

In an exposition following the text proper, readers are treated to additional fun facts and provided with three website addresses (including Pendreigh’s own) with recorded fish sounds. Young readers may be interested to learn (as I was) that herring farts (called Fast Repetitive Ticks) were mistaken for enemy submarines during the Cold War, and that parrotfish grind dead coral into sand, with each one pooping out 1,000 pounds of sand annually. Even without the scatological details, What Fish are Saying is a winning read and a solid introduction into sonic sea science.

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Mother Aspen is at once straightforward (even, at times, understated) and breathtaking. Considering its young audience, Annette LeBox’s prose style is unadorned. Although she personifies the protagonist—Mother Tree, a quaking aspen—and employs subtle metaphor throughout the story, Fraser Valley author LeBox eschews more overt poetic devices such as rhyme and alliteration.

The quiet beauty of Mother Aspen, with its vital message about cooperation that emanates from, but extends beyond, the forest is likely to leave a lasting mark on its readers. 

The narrative follows the aspen through the four seasons and eventually to the end of her life cycle. Significantly, her utility continues as she disintegrates: she feeds the seedlings who will replace her, eventually becoming a nurse log. The symbiosis of the forest—from trees of different species having “lively conversation” to fungi warning said trees of threats to their health to birds burying an aspen seed and thereby facilitating the birth of a new tree—is the through line of this narrative. 

Especially lovely is the reciprocity of fungi and tree: in exchange for their care, fungi receive the trees’ sugar and produce the mushrooms that “sprout in the forest understory.”

Crystal Smith’s majestic illustrations complement the tone and content of the text. The elaborate and graceful root system that graces both the inside front and back covers is especially evocative.

This book also encourages young readers to learn more. In her notes, LeBox (Peace is an Offering) acknowledges Dr. Suzanne Simard’s influence on Mother Aspen and provides more facts on the aspen. The book also provides a list of further reading and viewing that leads interested readers to the work of Suzanne Simard and Peter Wohlleben. 

The publisher, Groundwood, is also to be commended for its territorial acknowledgement, which includes a commitment to partnership with Indigenous writers, illustrators, editors and translators. 

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This instructive, detailed, and ambitious book for six-to-eleven-year-olds not only prepares young readers for, and takes them on, a nature walk around Squamish; it also introduces them to cultural practices of the Skwxwú7mesh People and over 40 Squamish words. 

Family members—three children and two adults (one an ethnobotanist)—embark on a multi-sensory day trip to explore the flora around them. Through their dialogue, young readers learn of an intricate ecosystem—which includes the nurse log, a fallen tree replete with various plant and fungi species—that is “like a fairy garden.” 

The children are introduced to edible and medicinal plants, wonders such as ferns growing high in a maple tree, and trees that have provided everything from canoes to clothes. Text boxes augment the dialogue by providing more details about specific plants and instructions about proper interaction with the botanical world, such as limiting harvesting to ensure continuation of species.

The cultural and linguistic content is likely to encourage re-readings. A respectful attitude to the natural environment pervades the text: Skwxwú7mesh people present their plant relatives with an offering—a gift of thanks—and reinforce the thanks by raising their hands. The linguistic introduction is smooth: Skwxwú7mesh terms in the dialogue are phonetically spelled out and translated to English at the bottoms of pages. 

Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) author Leigh Joseph (Held By the Land) appends the narrative proper with instructions on sustainable plant harvesting and profiles (complete, in some instances, with recipes) of numerous area flora, such as Tl’asįp (Licorice Fern) and Kwįlayus (Red Flowering Currant) introduced in the story. The book ends with a glossary of scientific terms (such as “rhizomes” and “antioxidants”) and a short list of additional Squamish words relevant to the botanical walk. 

Natalie Schnitter is proficient with both the interpretive skills needed for the narrative proper and the more detailed depictions of the individual plants. The “fairy garden” atmosphere is manifest in her illuminating and pleasing art.  

Ethnobotanist Leigh Joseph and multimedia illustrator Natalie Schnitter (who resides on the unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Territory) have created a detailed picture book that is a credit to the place they call home. The Land Knows Me, an informative introduction to a particular place and people, may also pique the curiosity of readers about history and culture—and the botany of their own backyards. 

Ginny Ratsoy is Professor Emerita at Thompson Rivers University. Her scholarly publications (co-authored and edited and co-edited books and numerous peer-reviewed articles) have focused on Canadian fiction, theatre, small cities, third-age learning, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Her most recent nature walk was in delicate grasslands in Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc territory. “Be a Friend to Our Grasslands,” a  course offered by the Kamloops Adult Learners Society, where she is also a volunteer board member and instructor, was, as KALS courses always are, enriching. See www.kals.ca for what is in store for fall. [Editor’s note: Ginny has recently reviewed books by Veronica Woodruff, L. R. Wright, L.R. Wright, Jennifer Cooper, Sara Cassidy, Kallie George, and Bill Richardson for BCR.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” –E.M. Forster