I KNOW HERE

Going walkabout down the small stretch of country road that she and her family are about to leave, a child offers a mildly comforting strategy to others who are about to pull up stakes. Her little brother is excited about moving to Toronto, but to the narrator, “This is where I live. I don’t know Toronto. I know here.” “Here” is rural Saskatchewan, where her family has been living while her father worked on a hydroelectric dam, now complete. Walking from home to school (“only me in grade three”) and back, she counts her community’s house trailers along the roadside, waves to a familiar passerby and recalls sighting a moose and hearing wolves in the surrounding woods. Her mood lightens at last when she realizes that she can capture and retain at least some of her small world by drawing pictures of it. James’s vividly colored, naïve-style scenes capture the bright intensity of the child’s inner and outer landscapes and also the unaffected way in which she observes them. Good for sharing. (Picture book. 7-9)