Little ones will delight in readings of these imaginative picture book stories, while learning fun and gentle lessons about how to be a good friend. In Sara O’Leary’s A Friend Is a Friend Is a Friend, featuring charming illustrations by Qin Leng, a child arrives at summer camp, wondering how to make friends when one by one, the other kids share their ideas. Croc braves his fears to enjoy an adventure with his best friend, Mac, in the early graphic novel Mac and Croc by Jami Gigot. Juni of Hayley Lowe’s Juni and the Anything Tree likes to spend recess with her favourite friend, a fallen tree in the schoolyard—until she and a new friend need to save it from a community cleanup! Grades 1–3.
Themes: Picture books, friendship, humour, courage, nature, activism, adventure
Curriculum Connections: English Language Arts K-3, Arts Education K-3
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Event Participants:
JAMI GIGOT is the author-illustrator of many books for children, including Starboy: Inspired by the Life and Lyrics of David Bowie, Imagination Vacation, Seb and the Sun, Mae and the Moon, and The World in Our Backyard and the illustrator of My Daddy Can Fly!. She has also worked as a visual artist on many award-winning films. In her free time, she can be found in a hammock in her small and lovely backyard, bird-watching and listening to the buzzing of bees. She lives in Vancouver, BC, with her husband, two children, and a big orange cat.
HAYLEY LOWE is an illustrator and storyteller who enjoys exploring a range of media. In previous chapters of her life, Hayley worked as a contemporary dancer and as a children’s yoga instructor, where she used storytelling as a tool to teach and ignite imaginations. She is the author-illustrator of The Pie Reports and the illustrator of Diaper Kid and Memory Stones.
SARA O'LEARY, an author of books for children and adults, has won the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People. Her notable picture books include A Family Is a Family Is a Family (USBBY Outstanding International Books) and A Kid Is a Kid Is a Kid (TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award finalist), both illustrated by Qin Leng, and The Little Book of the Little Brontës, illustrated by Briony May Smith, praised by SLJ for its “exquisitely crafted text.” Sara lives in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.
