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Putting Up With Mitchell and Next Door Neighbours
IN 1987 SARAH ELLIS BECAME THE FIRST recipient of the Sheila A. Egoff Prize for her first book, The Baby Project (Groundwood $6.95).
This fall she is the author of two new books, Putting Up With Mitchell (Brighouse $9.95) and Next Door Neighbours (Groundwood $7.95).
After reading approximately one book per day throughout her childhood, Ellis naturally turned to storytelling when, as a critic for Horn Book magazine and as a North Vancouver children's librarian, she found herself surrounded by a community of writers in Vancouver.
"1 wanted to see if I could do it. That must occur to anyone who gets pleasure out of children's books."
The Baby Project is a modern family story with a cast of believable characters adjusting to a new baby in the home. Mom jogs and works on her computer; Dad drives taxi or stays at home with the kids.
After ll-year-old Jessica is taken aback by the news that her mother is pregnant, she and a school friend enthusiastically adjust by monitoring her mother's 'baby project' as a school science project.
With a sudden twist of direction and tone, the baby dies and the narrative shifts from comic warmth, quirky wit, and sharp characterization to tragedy. The reactions of Jessica and her family are dealt with sensitively and honestly.
"I intended on writing a wholly sunny book like Lois Lowry," says Ellis, "a funny, warm family story. It kept getting serious on me. I knew the children were unhappy but I didn't know about what. I picked the baby's death because it didn't involve blame; it was a bolt from the blue."
In a previous interview Ellis has elaborated on the unpremeditated origins of the tragedy.
"The part about the baby dying is just made up. It hasn't happened to me and I don't know anyone it's happened to. I did read a long and scholarly book on sudden infant death syndrome, just to make sure I didn't get anything wrong, but that was the extent of the research."
As in The Baby Project, a Vancouver setting is subtly evoked in Ellis' new novel, Next Door Neighbours, set in the 1950's. Vignettes and Ellis' low-key, offbeat sense of humour propel the quietly-paced story of 12-year-old Peggy who has just moved from the country to the city.
Ostracized by her new schoolmates, Peggy forms, over a long shared summer, an unlikely friendship with her neighbours, a Chinese cook and a Russian immigrant. The multicultural aspect of the story is true to the Vancouver of the 50's as well as the Vancouver of today.
Ellis does not subscribe to the school of thought that children need lots of plot.
"I am trying to work out for myself," she says, "how to write a, compelling book without relying on major events. I like to notice how things are and try to capture that: the details that build a world, the relationships between characters, the surface of life how you
eat an ice cream cone."
Her latest book, Putting Up With Mitchell: My Vancouver Scrapbook, is full of charming details in concert with the exuberant and whimsical illustrations of well-known graphic artist Barbara Wood.
While visiting their grandmother in Vancouver, Elizabeth and her loudmouth younger brother Mitchell are taken on day-trips to Vancouver landmarks such as the UBC Anthropology Museum, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Ho Ho Chop Suey restaurant ("Does Santa Claus live here?" Mitchell asks), the aquarium and the Bloedel Conservatory.
The lively storybook for young readers was partly inspired by Vancouver bookseller Phyllis Simon who noted there wasn't a kids' book specifically about Vancouver. As an admirer of Barbara Wood's pictures of Vancouver buildings, publisher Terri Werschler subsequently approached Sarah Ellis to create an appropriate storyline and characters to match Wood's style.'
Ellis maintains that writing books has had an impact on her column for Horn Book magazine, making her a more appreciative reader, more aware of the structure of books and the effects achieved, and more easily delighted with original, successful workeven
more capable of recognizing the amount of work that went into the making of a lacklustre book.
But, she adds, "I still hate to be disappointed. I want people to do betternot get away with cheap effects and cliched thinking."
Ellis' voice in her Horn Book column is refreshingly intimate and often inspiring. She quotes Michelle Landsberg: "One simple, but I think valid, touchstone for literary criticism is to ask whether it leads you back to the book that is its subject."
Ellis began writing for the prestigious American children's book review while attending Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's Literature in Boston There she met editor Ethel Heins and they agreed that Canadian children's books had reached the stage of deserving international recognition and conceived the idea of a column on Canadian children's books.
Ellis feels her writing in "News from the North" is neither reviewing nor criticism, but appreciation of a variety of genres and writers. In ranging from L.M. Montgomery's journals to Elizabeth Cleaver's picture books, her influential column has discussed other B.C. children's book writers such as Sue Ann Alderson, Betty Waterton, Jan Hudson and Kit Pearson.--by Judith Saltman
by Judith Saltman
[BCBW Autumn 1989]
This fall she is the author of two new books, Putting Up With Mitchell (Brighouse $9.95) and Next Door Neighbours (Groundwood $7.95).
After reading approximately one book per day throughout her childhood, Ellis naturally turned to storytelling when, as a critic for Horn Book magazine and as a North Vancouver children's librarian, she found herself surrounded by a community of writers in Vancouver.
"1 wanted to see if I could do it. That must occur to anyone who gets pleasure out of children's books."
The Baby Project is a modern family story with a cast of believable characters adjusting to a new baby in the home. Mom jogs and works on her computer; Dad drives taxi or stays at home with the kids.
After ll-year-old Jessica is taken aback by the news that her mother is pregnant, she and a school friend enthusiastically adjust by monitoring her mother's 'baby project' as a school science project.
With a sudden twist of direction and tone, the baby dies and the narrative shifts from comic warmth, quirky wit, and sharp characterization to tragedy. The reactions of Jessica and her family are dealt with sensitively and honestly.
"I intended on writing a wholly sunny book like Lois Lowry," says Ellis, "a funny, warm family story. It kept getting serious on me. I knew the children were unhappy but I didn't know about what. I picked the baby's death because it didn't involve blame; it was a bolt from the blue."
In a previous interview Ellis has elaborated on the unpremeditated origins of the tragedy.
"The part about the baby dying is just made up. It hasn't happened to me and I don't know anyone it's happened to. I did read a long and scholarly book on sudden infant death syndrome, just to make sure I didn't get anything wrong, but that was the extent of the research."
As in The Baby Project, a Vancouver setting is subtly evoked in Ellis' new novel, Next Door Neighbours, set in the 1950's. Vignettes and Ellis' low-key, offbeat sense of humour propel the quietly-paced story of 12-year-old Peggy who has just moved from the country to the city.
Ostracized by her new schoolmates, Peggy forms, over a long shared summer, an unlikely friendship with her neighbours, a Chinese cook and a Russian immigrant. The multicultural aspect of the story is true to the Vancouver of the 50's as well as the Vancouver of today.
Ellis does not subscribe to the school of thought that children need lots of plot.
"I am trying to work out for myself," she says, "how to write a, compelling book without relying on major events. I like to notice how things are and try to capture that: the details that build a world, the relationships between characters, the surface of life how you
eat an ice cream cone."
Her latest book, Putting Up With Mitchell: My Vancouver Scrapbook, is full of charming details in concert with the exuberant and whimsical illustrations of well-known graphic artist Barbara Wood.
While visiting their grandmother in Vancouver, Elizabeth and her loudmouth younger brother Mitchell are taken on day-trips to Vancouver landmarks such as the UBC Anthropology Museum, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Ho Ho Chop Suey restaurant ("Does Santa Claus live here?" Mitchell asks), the aquarium and the Bloedel Conservatory.
The lively storybook for young readers was partly inspired by Vancouver bookseller Phyllis Simon who noted there wasn't a kids' book specifically about Vancouver. As an admirer of Barbara Wood's pictures of Vancouver buildings, publisher Terri Werschler subsequently approached Sarah Ellis to create an appropriate storyline and characters to match Wood's style.'
Ellis maintains that writing books has had an impact on her column for Horn Book magazine, making her a more appreciative reader, more aware of the structure of books and the effects achieved, and more easily delighted with original, successful workeven
more capable of recognizing the amount of work that went into the making of a lacklustre book.
But, she adds, "I still hate to be disappointed. I want people to do betternot get away with cheap effects and cliched thinking."
Ellis' voice in her Horn Book column is refreshingly intimate and often inspiring. She quotes Michelle Landsberg: "One simple, but I think valid, touchstone for literary criticism is to ask whether it leads you back to the book that is its subject."
Ellis began writing for the prestigious American children's book review while attending Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's Literature in Boston There she met editor Ethel Heins and they agreed that Canadian children's books had reached the stage of deserving international recognition and conceived the idea of a column on Canadian children's books.
Ellis feels her writing in "News from the North" is neither reviewing nor criticism, but appreciation of a variety of genres and writers. In ranging from L.M. Montgomery's journals to Elizabeth Cleaver's picture books, her influential column has discussed other B.C. children's book writers such as Sue Ann Alderson, Betty Waterton, Jan Hudson and Kit Pearson.--by Judith Saltman
by Judith Saltman
[BCBW Autumn 1989]
Submitted on June 15, 2004 in By David.
