Tag: nature
An appealing trio of picture books for young readers take journeys to forests and seas. Among the vivid colours and striking images: invaluable lessons about cooperation, language, and ecosystems. —Ginny Ratsoy reviews 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; and The Land Knows Me: A Nature Walk Exploring Indigenous Wisdom, by Leigh Joseph (illustrated by Natalie Schnitter) (Dover: Quarto Publishing, 2025) $25.99 / 9780760392911
With eclectic figures and images—from the Grim Reaper and the banshee to ripe fruit, seeds, and soil—a poet cannily examines “our frail human presence,” aging, and death with calm, humour, and wisdom. —Jane Frankish reviews Becoming the Harvest, by Pauline Le Bel (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2025) $20 / 9781773861562
“Rhenisch jam-packs his songs with ideas, zooming and spanning, yet with the grace of a skilled composer; a song might jar and rattle while at the same time carry a croon that compels. A reader cannot help but be swept and stilled simultaneously in the lyric experience.” —Steven Ross Smith reviews The Salmon Shanties: A Cascadian Cycle, by Harold Rhenisch (Regina: U Regina Press, 2024) $19.95 / 978177940154
Marked by “verve and whimsy,” this collection portrays a “virtuous smart mouth poet” who is “gentle with humour” and “searing with insight.”
—Cathy Ford reviews Refabulations: Selected Longer Poems, by Sharon Thesen (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023) $24.94 / 9781772015102
A boldly illustrated kids book in memoir form is “a simple, heartwarming story that offers life lessons to the young—and perhaps to older readers as well.” —Ron Verzuh reviews Adventures in Desolation Sound, by Grant Lawrence (illustrated by Ginger Ngo) (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $24.95 / 9781990776878
Poetry volumes highlight a poet’s “impeccable way of seeing the grieving, dreaming world” as well as another’s “no readily-digested messages.” —Catherine Owen reviews Distractions, by Eve Joseph (London: Baseline Press, 2023) $15.00 / 9781928066873 and Signal Infinities, by Melanie Siebert (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2024) $22.95 / 9780771013980
Picture book for elementary school-age readers teaches “vivid ways to tell us where we live and how the world works.” —Ron Verzuh reviews The Bee Mother, by Hetxw’ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson) (Winnipeg: Highwater Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781774920800
Poems with ‘immediacy, tactility, and general imaginative freshness’…
Christopher Levenson reviews Crushed Wild Mint, by Jess Housty (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2023) $19.95 / 9780889714502