Characters created by Vancouver Island teacher Barrie Baker for his students haunted him until he set them loose in The Village of a Hundred Smiles and Other Stories (Annick $7.95).
Central to these stories, set in turn-of-the-century Asia, is Grandfather and his granddaughter Little Orchid. Little Orchid cleverly dissuades Grandfather from a dangerous journey.
As a girl, she is not allowed to ride the iron horse-the first bicycle the villagers have ever seen. But when Grandfather is balanced on the bike she's permitted to ring the bell. That night she dreams of having a bike of her own, one with two bells.
Illustrator Stephane Jorisch coincidentally grew up in Lachine, Quebec, a town so-named by French explorers because they were convinced they had reached the Orient 1-55037-535-0

[BCBW WINTER 1998]