 So yeah, I'm going to talk about Kibikwa Children's Literature. First thing is I've been reading in French for the last 25, 30 years. I started reading English-Canadian literature when I moved here in 2004 but then realized that I had read some of it already because there are some translations. I'm going to talk about that as well because I think it's interesting to see what actually travels between the languages in Canada. So I'd like to start with a quiz to see what you know about French Kibikwa Children's Literature and about English-Canadian children's literature as well. So which English book was the first novel for children to be translated into French and is still in print and widely read from coast to coast? Judy, you're not allowed to answer. Any guess? Sorry? Oh, early 20th century. Adam Greengable. So it was first translated in 1925 in French and Switzerland. Then another translation in France in 1964 and the first Canadian translation in 1986. It was a co-publishing between a large Kibikwa publisher, Kibikamerik and a smaller PEI publisher called Ragway Press. It's still very well known in French and I mean everywhere else as well in many, many languages. Can you identify the two books that are translation of novel written by well-known Kibikwa author? So two of those are actually written in English and two of those were written in French originally and they are translation. One is words that start with B, this side of the sky, the road to Schlieffa and a perfect dental knight. So what are the two that are translation? What are the two that are not translation? You can go back. It's not a translation, I agree with you. It's not a translation. It's Keith Pearson's, I don't know if it's a more recent book but it's the most recent that I've read for sure. What's the other one that is in English? Sorry? Yeah, word that start with B by Vicky Van Sickle who is a former MECL student. So that's been published quite recently. So the two that are translation are this side of the sky which was written by Marie-François Nébert. And there's a mistake in the date. This is not, it should read 2003 and 2006. I was first published in 2003 and translated in 2006 and then the road to Schlieffa. So I don't know if you've read the road to Schlieffa. I'm a big advocate for that book. I've been talking about it ever since I moved here, I think. Written by Michel Marino won the Governor General Award and is a very, very interesting story about friendship, about a boy from Lebanon who moves to Montreal during the Civil War in Lebanon in the 90s and then through flashback we learned what happened to him while he was still in Lebanon. So it was well received in French, not as well known in English, but still you can easily find it in print these days. And the other one, this side of the sky is about Mona who has a sister who has a mental handicap and she's in a small town in a remote location and it's a very poetic kind of reading. So both in French and English is a very poetic language. And there's a very good review for this side of the sky in CM Magazine. So if ever you want to have a bit more about this book, you can check it out. So, which Hawaii novel and translator won the 2009 Governor General Award, literary award for translation from French to English? Good for nothing, so those are all translations, but only one, won the Governor General Award. So good for nothing, translated by Shirley Tanaka, waiting for Jasmin, which translated by Sheila Fishman, and the Key of Do, translated by Suzanne O'Riou, or Pieces of Me, translated by Suzanne O'Riou. So which one won the Governor General Award in 2009 for translation? I have a few faces, like, you want to try? Judy? No. Yeah, Pieces of Me. Pieces of Me was written by Charlotte Gengra in 1998, and interestingly it was translated more than 10 years later. I have no idea what happened to that book in those 10 years. I've actually emailed Charlotte Gengra and she's like, no idea what happened, why it was finally translated. And Suzanne O'Riou won the Governor General Award for translation, and it's the only book for YA for children that has ever won the Governor General Award for translation. So it's usually an adult book that wins that award. So the other one's Good for Nothing is a translation of Michel Noël, then Waiting for Jasmin is a book by François Gravel, and then in the Key of Do is another book by Carole Frechette. So how many, for those of you who keep the scores, how many answers did you get? You don't have to tell me. I think it's interesting that when I moved here, I didn't know much about English-Canadian literature, and knew much more about literature from France, really didn't know much about, except the few translations that I had read. There's very something that's happening in Canada where there isn't that communication, that translating between the French and English. And French publishing is mostly in Quebec, but there are also some publishers in almost every provinces that publishes in French. I haven't found one in B.C., but there's a few in Alberta, in Saskatchewan, in Manitoba, quite a lot in Ontario that publishes in French. And then New Brunswick has some, Nova Scotia has one at least, I haven't found one in P.E.I. and Newfoundland, but most provinces, I don't know about the territory, but most provinces do publish books in French and English, and there's very few translations and very few understanding of what's going on in French. So I'm going to try to go back in history for a minute, just tell you how publishing in Quebec started early 20th century. I'm just going to look up my notes for that. So publishing for children's literature took off in Quebec at the beginning of the 20s, the 1920s, and until the 50s, beginning of the 60s, it was one of the most profitable sector in the book industry. So true children's literature started off with the magazine Loiseau Bleu, which was launched by educator and priest. You have to remember that Quebec was profoundly religious in the 20s and 30s and 40s, mostly Catholic, and they were really influential, so Catholic were really influential in education and in politics as well. So that magazine contributed to the development of children's literature and to making children author and illustrator well known. So I'm going to try and see if the link will work to show you that... No. Okay, so the magazine Loiseau Bleu is all online. So you can actually, I can send you the link and you can just Google Loiseau Bleu and you can see everything from the 20s. They've all digitalized it so that you can actually look at what kind of story were published for children at that point. So the Catholic Church was very powerful in Quebec for a large portion of the 20th century. Under its protection, there were many books published. The church was encouraging publication of books that were, of course, promoting Catholic values. Children's literature in Quebec is closely linked with the church, with Kristen Youth Leader. In 1926, a law that was voted, the Choquette Law by the département de l'instruction publique, which is the Education Ministry of today, and it recommended giving Canadian literature as book prizes and the government adopted a regulation requiring schools to reserve 50% of their book purchase for Canadian books. So until the Second World War, European children's literature represented a large portion of the market in Quebec. With the beginning of the Second World War, it was much harder to get books, to import books from France, mostly from Switzerland. So, Quebecois Publisher took the matter into their own hands and decided to start publishing their own books. So that period after the Second World War to the 60s was a golden age of children's literature in Quebec because much more was published than before that. But then in the 60s, the book prizes were abolished. There was a slowdown in publishing. So in the 50s, there was about 10 publishers who were publishing children's literature. By the end of by 1970, there was only two remaining that were still publishing children's literature. So one book that was published in that period in the 60s was Surreal 3000, 4 Montréalais en l'an 3000. And I'm going to read the quote because it's cutting a bit. The first and for a considerable time, the only Canadian science fiction for children was by the French-Canadian writer, Suzanne Martel, Surreal 3000, translated into English as the city underground. So this book was reprinted many times. I think the last time was 2003, but it's still hard to find, is science fiction. It's about a boy who lives under... Has anybody been to Montreal? Heard of the Mont-Royal, so there's been a big catastrophe sometime in... I can't remember which year, but then everybody had to go live under the Mont-Royal. Sorry. And they created a new society, and they've been under the Mont-Royal for about a thousand years. So they lost their hair, they don't have beard, they don't have... And one boy somehow found out that you can still breathe outside. He does go out above ground, and he found out that there's other people living above ground, and through this discovery and a friendship with a girl that lives above ground, there's a relationship that develops between them, and he has to break the law of his own society to help her, his new friend. Have you read it in English, Judy? Yes, I have. Was it well received when it was translated in English? Yeah, it was. We had very little science fiction here. So I read... So it was written in the 60s, I read it in the 80s, still loved it. I haven't seen any kids that I've read it lately, but I think it's still very, very interesting. Unfortunately, Susan Martel died in 2012, so she passed away just a few months ago. So if ever you read French, you can actually read an article about her in Le Relu. Le Relu is one of... It's the only magazine in Quebec that focus solely on children's literature and children's culture, generally. And they have an article in the latest issue on Susan Martel. So back to history. We're in the 70s, and there's only two publishers where there was 10, 20 years before, but now there's only two publishers publishing children's literature. Or else, québécois children's that were just going to die. So what happened is that Camille Casson Jeunesse was founded, which is a non-profit organization which promotes children's literature. And their help really helped publisher get back into publishing for children's literature. Le Relu was also founded in the 70s, and it's published three times a year, still published today. And there isn't many teacher librarians at the elementary level I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a children's librarian in an elementary school in Quebec. There's some in high school, but not in elementary school. So those magazine are mostly read by teachers, and they're the one who are promoting children's literature and reading in the schools. So there was mostly young and talented illustrator that brought new energy to picture books. One of them... I'm actually going to skip ahead and come back to this one. One of them was Jeunette Hanfuss who did a series with Jiji. Most books before Jiji, most little girls were well behaved, they were well dressed, they were really nice, and Jiji was completely the opposite. She would fight with her friend, she was never neatly dressed, she was not well behaved, it was funny. And this book La Cachette, which was translated as hide and seek, was just beautiful. There's three characters in the book. There's Jiji of course, then there's her stuffed animal, and there's the reader because right from the start Jiji addressed the reader and said okay, I'm bored, what can I do? Oh, you can play hide and seek with me. So of course the reader says yes, and when they turn the page we go through all the rooms in her house. Oh no, you can't go in my parents' room of course. So my mom would never let me go in there, so of course I'm not hidden there. So you just have to look at them. Once again I read that book as a kid, loved it. I read it to kids as a teacher librarian a few years ago, and from K to 2 they really liked it. And what's really nice because they look a bit old, they wouldn't pick these books on their own because they have like an oldest kind of cover they would like it when I was reading it. But then they reprinted it in 2009, all new design, new illustration and republished them. So they're much more popular with this new and more modern color. So of course you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all do it. So I thought it was interesting that they did that. And now I'm going to go back to this because I'm going to talk a lot about collection. And I know that for librarians a collection is not what I mean when I talk about a collection. So I'm going to take a minute to just tell you that publishing in Quebec for children work with what we call a collection. So it's different from a series. A series has the same character in all the books and you follow the same character at different stage of their life. A collection is either all about the same, all the same genre. So there's all books in science fiction that have the same kind of cover and you'll know that by looking at this cover what you're going to read is a sci-fi book for example or it could be about age. So these books in particular that collection is for 6 to 8 year old. So for example, Dominique Compagnie which is a big children's publisher in Quebec has at least four collections Romain Rouge, Romain Lim, Romain V, Romain just means novel and then within one collection you can have different series with the same character and also just random books that have a different, completely different character. So if you hear me talk about a collection it's not a collection in the library it's a collection, it's a way of publishing and they usually have like a similar look like if you look at that, this is a collection for young adult and they all have that kind of band and the side is always easy to recognize as well. And then same thing for Romain Jeunesse, La Courpe Echelle and I remember talking to a girl who had done French immersion in BC and she was telling me all the covers of those French books are so boring and I thought what is she talking about? Because what I like as a kid was that I couldn't look in the library and find the book that I knew I was going to like right away because I could recognize them because all the covers were similar but for her it was the opposite it was boring because they were all the same. So I think it's just the way I was used to see them like that and I never thought of it as a boring I thought of it as something reassuring that I could know, I knew that I would like these books because they were in that collection that I was familiar with. So I'm going to go to so if Gigi was one of these books like Echelle the hide-and-seek was one of these picture books that really broke the rule and brought something new in children's lit this is one for YA so Resin is a very hard word to translate the book was actually translated as the Big Loser so Resin is someone that is a bit shy never know how to act, will do stupid things so I don't know if Loser is the best translation but that's how the title was translated and many researcher academics saw that book as year one of a new literature for adolescent, it was a turning point it opened the way to realistic novel in Quebecois YA literature so it's about a boy, his name is François Gouges he's an adolescent and he's not a hero I mean he's the main character, he's a protagonist but he's just not a hero, he has a big nose he has glasses he's in love with a girl that he's known forever but he's just discovered her now and he's really, he's too shy to talk to her so it's really the realistic fiction where he addresses the reader and he's really like you and me like he's just one of the guys, he's not a superhero it's not fantasy, it's not science fiction it's just the everyday life and it's really funny and it was also reprinted like the Gigi books, the one by Ginette en Faust they also made like a new and they really planned died in 2006 and a few years later they decided because there was more than one book, there was a series there were three or four books and they decided to reprint it as an anthology so that the four books would be together for the 20th century, so I've been talking about I mean 21st century what are the new trends and I'm gonna pick your brain at the same time so that you see if you've seen the same trends in English literature as well so what they've been doing I've already mentioned twice is that their publisher are reprinting classics so in the 80s I read Gigi, now I have a daughter they reprinted the book I'm gonna buy it and give it to my daughter so that she can read it these books Lisi Natif was a sci-fi series written in the 80s and 90s by Denis Côté it was about a hockey player who was just from the common people was chosen when he was a kid to become a superhero, a super hockey player and he's really good, everybody loves him but then he's facing a new challenge he has to play against robots and the interesting thing is that it's happening in 2013 so they're reprinting these books so they already did it in 2005 this is what I read as a teenager reprinted in 2005 and they're doing an anthology of the four books together so that whoever read them as a teenager in the 80s and 90s is going to be interested in buying it I think it's going to interest new reader as well not only parents because it's very well written it's an interesting sci-fi it's a dystopia kind of story but they've done it with this one the headline that it just spoken before and they've been doing it with a few series I don't know if you've seen that in English, Canadian publishing not just reprinting but bringing a series of books together reprinting it giving a new page new design so that it's going to be going to get a new life because the kids are not taking them because the cover looks old so I don't know if you've seen that in English, Canadian publishing but this is it's a trend that I've been seeing in the last few years and then stories about social media I used to try to stay away from Facebook, I can't I used to try to stay away from texting and I can't emails, I don't know if anybody never writes email I don't think I know anyone who doesn't at least have one email address I think it's all part of life and in the last 5, 6, 10 years more than English and in French it's been coming into instead of the old media, the book getting translated or transmediated into the new digital media it happens but it also happens the other way so the blogging, the texting the emails are getting included in the literature so this is a few example just from I was reading the latest issue of Le Relu and trying to see so are just these new way of writing, the blogging, the emails is it coming into YA and children these are just a few examples the blog de namaste is a series and it's a girl who writes, it's a diary book but it's in a blogging format and this one in particular I'm not a big fan because there isn't that critical reflection or so when I was writing my diary on paper and hiding it under my bed my little brother could find it but this there are like a million people who could find it and there isn't that reflection on how dangerous or are yeah, you have to think before you put something online this is not because this is quite a delicate story it's a girl and her best friend tells her that she's in love with her and the woman, the girl who's blogging is actually putting that online so it's not even her secret it's someone else's secret that she's putting online and there isn't that critical idea that well, you shouldn't be doing that so still, I mean the blogging is there, it's in the literature and there isn't that critical reflection Textomaki is a very recent one and I've only read the first chapter and it's really interesting it's a woman who's giving birth and the first chapter and she's texting as she's giving birth at some point it gets too painful and she trolls her phone her husband catch it and then he trolls it and they lose it somewhere in the action of the woman giving birth and then when all is done, the woman's like where's my phone, where's my phone and the baby has the phone is holding the phone in his hand so they're saying that this baby's born texting and that's the story of this man looking back on his life and it seems, I haven't read the whole thing I'm getting into it now it seems that it's really critical about texting so there's more of that critical view of those new social new way of communicating Hackerboy is again a blog a blog and it's a boy who is trying to defend naive people that are getting ripped off, that are getting their money is getting stolen because they promise you that you're going to get this fantastic medicine that's going to help you do whatever you want and then you send your money or your credit card number or anything back so he's the one he's hacking them trying to save people before it happens and then Louis is a story about I love story on Facebook and how there's this reflection on when you put something on Facebook it's not a private thing, it's a public element as well and then the mystère des jouels is about geocaching so I've never done any geocaching where you look at the GPS coordinate and then you find something in a cache and I was wondering I've been looking at some books using blogging emails and texting and I found a lot, not a lot I find a few American but haven't seen any Canadian books that I've been using the blogging email texting so I don't know if you've seen, if you ever think of one I'll give you my email, email me, I'm looking for something because I have a few examples in French but I can't find Canadian one it's a very popular one American which is all in texting, thank you I couldn't remember the letters so I found a lot about this one there's lots of controversy about this one which was really interesting I haven't found that much about these books any controversy or anything so if you have anything in Canadian children's lit, young adult lit let me know, I would be interested oh yeah I got the cover for there's two mackeys this one is clearly one for girls and this is a bit younger like it's a middle reader and then this is more for adolescent informational books this is an informational book nonfiction is not a very big thing in Quebecois publishing I think it's because it's really expensive if you make the color, if you make it a nice book, it's quite expensive there's a few things, there's lots of translation actually, not a lot but there's a bit of translation for example, I was looking again in Le Relu and then in the last issue there was 16 informational books that were reviewed, this magazine is mostly about reviewing books so they review everything that has been published throughout the year in Quebec, so 16 informational books were reviewed and then 8 of them were translations scholastic translates a lot of their translates a few of their informational book, Bayard Canadais another publisher who does it and there's a small publisher in Manitoba called Des Plaines which also translates some books but they're they're actually a bit boring most of these books, I was looking at the topic I'm sorry, not boring, just not very original like it's about North America about countries, about getting shots about the natives they're not very original, very well done like I don't know if you know about the Round Table the Vancouver Round Table informational award these books would never be nominated for that, they're not that original really nice books that you see when you go to this but there's still a few publisher in Quebec that publish interesting things in the informational book and this is one of my favorite, the publisher is called Michel Quentin and this series is about all the animals that you hate there's a book about one of them for sure and the kids love them there's cockroaches lobster, grizzlies moles, crows, all of them they're usually black and white they also made some colored one, hard cover colored one therefore they say seven to ten years old but from kindergarten to grade six, seven the kids just love them, they're very short and they're very dynamic like there's information written by a veterinarian Michel Quentin himself who's a veterinarian and the editor there are a really cool drawing made by, what's his name Sampar and then Alain Embergen who's another, writes speech bubble so it's a trio writing these books and there's a very cool dynamic and really really funny and the kids love them some of them don't read the information at the bottom, they only read the speech bubble but there's a very dynamic element and the kids just love these ones and this one from another publisher La Courtechelle is a newer series I think those are the first two ones so they just started in 2012-2013 and there's also about animals for younger kids probably age five, six, seven le verre is warm and then la mouche is the fly and it's the same kind of spirit they're using the animals they're using anthropomorphism they're the speech bubble and they're funny giving information to a funny kind of setup instead of using the image, the photograph and the very serious kind of layout and this brings me because this series that I've just shown you about the animals is written by Elis Gravel and Elis Gravel won 2012 Governor General Award for illustration with this book La Cléa Mallette I'm trying to remember how to translate La Cléa Mallette in English a wrench I think, it's a tool to I'll show you he probably gets one so actually Elis Gravel that's a Cléa Mallette there you go Elis Gravel is really interesting actually she won the Governor General Award for this one but it's not my favorite of her book the favorite of her book she has a very good humor and sense of the absurd she's really she paradises the world of advertising in fashion and she creates fake magazines for adolescents where the ads are all about so look how silly that can be so it's very interesting this one is also about consumerism I was going to say boy it's a little rabbit actually he goes to the store to buy something to fix his bike but then he goes to the store and ends up buying something else because the guy at the Mega Mart just tells him oh no you should buy this and he gets back and he got something completely new like a fridge which is also a hat or something like that and he gets back and like yeah I haven't fixed my bike so he goes back and then buys something else the reflection and the way she shows it is really interesting but I don't it's not my favorite kind of illustration she has a different style but she's done very interesting books so this is the one I was telling you about Nunush magazine which is a fake magazine for teenagers and her father is François Gravel who is an author and he's been doing a really interesting thing on the etymology of words so he's reflecting of where words come from so this is cocorico is for younger kids and then Shlinks is for older and they've made a book together which I think is really interesting father or daughter made Le Guide du Trichard this is interesting so I don't know if you like board games and card games but the premises for this book is like well you know board games are really boring so if you have to play because your friends likes them at least you should win so Trichard is the little guide to cheat so he's giving way so if you're playing Monopoly that's how you should do if you win so if you have to play that really bad boring game at least try to win so he gives way to win of course it's tongue in cheek and it's really interesting so this is one of the newest book I have read and then translation this is my little um personal interest because I found out when I moved here that I had read Forbidden City by William Bell and never knew it was a translation I started reading it in English I was like hey I've read this before so there isn't this awareness I think of translation in Canada so there isn't much translated actually I don't know have you guys ever noticed that you were reading a translation something from French or for any other language except for what's the name? Robert Munch he's translated almost like if you publish something in 2012 in English it's 2012 in French right away so if you're Robert Munch and if you're um what's the guy you wrote Frankenstein um yeah he's been translated really quickly as well I know if you read the latest book of some of them are translated very quickly and then others never get translated and I don't quite understand how it happens so from French to English this is a research I was doing last year YA literature I looked in the last 20 years it's hard to define YA literature so it's a bit of a gray area but what I could find as young adult literature a realistic fiction that was translated in last 20 years there were four books so they might have been some in the last and because the last one is 2009 pieces of me and all of them were translated by Susan Urhu there were a few other ones that could be qualified as YA but there's very very very few translation in YA literature from French to English there's more from English to French so for example in picture books and once again I was working with Le Relu looking at what has been reviewed and translated so this is only from the last issue so for four or five months in 2012 those picture books were translated so but in Canada so I don't know if you recognize some of these books the first name is the author and the second one is the translator actually so first one is about Canadian geography then about hockey then this is about the environment this is about hockey, Sydney Crosby big goal in the Olympic games this one is really interesting Jin Letol published by Scholastic it was published at the same time in French and English and the illustrator is Jean-Vierve Côté it's a great book it looks really really good in French and in English I mean it's exactly the same book very rare that they would publish the same book in French and English at the same time and then Rubbermunch of course and this is about dinosaurs so I'm going to say a lot of it is about Canada a lot of it is by Scholastic and I still don't understand how they choose what is translated sometimes it makes sense sometimes it does not make sense and I mean it's interesting it's one like they go goodnight to Saskatchewan goodnight to British Columbia they do all the provinces but I don't know why this one was translated and not another one so I'm still trying to figure it out same thing those are novel and chapter book and because like for example Aca Mammour is Vicky Vanceco the book has been translated and I have to talk to Vicky to see did you ask for it to be translated did they ask you if you wanted them to be translated how did they choose your book do you have any say in that because I've read her book it's really interesting but I don't know why they pick this one in all the novel that Scholastic publishes why this one was picked so Noura McClintock all her books are translated by Utubes it's always the same publisher she's very well she's mostly translated most of the time this is a book the Scholastic series all their Dear Canada and things like that so this is one of the latest one that has been translated I just got it I'm reviewing it for Le Relu and I got it in the mail yesterday so all this these book and those Cher Journal and all the other the Dear Canada are translated almost right away and then there's one publisher in Quebec called Pierre Tissin who has a collection made entirely of translation it's called Deux Solitudes so I don't know if you have ever heard that expression it's about that lack of communication of understanding between the two official culture two official language in Canada so that's how they call that collection so it was started in 78 and it was really about making English Canadian author known to French reader because they were not known they usually choose a word winning book but not all the time and that's I read A Forbidden City Chanda et la Cité Interdite in that collection that's how I love those books I really really enjoy them Kit Pearson I read all their book in translation when I was a teenager so this is how they look when I was a kid and this is the new design for the last five or six years yeah my two books so this is one of the latest one that has been translated they're also and in the morning by John Wilson which was translated in 2007 there you are by Joan Taylor I haven't read that one in English and Boyle Boyle, Brian Doyle that was also translated so those are the three the last three ones that were translated and a bonus because I always like to talk about to pick the author and illustrator that I've liked and to finish and you might know him Philip Bea he's done a bit of illustration with Canadian publisher as well he's very well known in Quebec he has this really cool I was going to say almost naive kind of style he's a very very nice guy a gentleman very very interesting and lately in the fall he won a prize I won a book fair I think in Montreal and he received his prize said tanks and then went back to his seat and came back on the stage and asked for the mic and said you know I went to a big bookstore called Reneau Bray it's a big it's a chain in Quebec and he was looking at one of the shelf it was written Canadian author and there was one or two books that he knew of Quebec and all of the other books were Walt Disney books Disney books so he said you know we should be careful like he just did a little spiel saying you know if you want you should promote Canadian because this is a very a very big bookstore it's a big chain but what Philip Bea did know it was that his the owner of this chain of the Reneau Bray was in the audience and asked to talk to him after that and they had a bit of a fight and the guy ended up taking out all Philip Bea's book from all the bookstore in Quebec so there was a big uproar all the author and illustrator were for him a lot of independent bookstore also said you can't do that so it was a very interesting time where politic and that came into children's like you like we like to make children's like it's just a bad book but it's much more than just a bad book so I thought it was very interesting that he didn't say this bookstore is awful you should never go there he said you should be more careful you should promote Quebec and Canadian literature you should be careful with what you do and then the owner was just mad at him but anyway his books are great he's a great illustrator he's not the illustrator he does illustrate for others little poetry rhyme that he's done and the illustration are always very interesting and he does some kind of collage something where he used different he put paints and then glue stuff as well on top and then I like to speak about Charlotte Gengra she's the one who wrote pieces of me but she also published this one it's her most recent YA book it's about a family the father goes to as a soldier and he goes to Afghanistan and it just breaks his family apart because the mother misses him she can't take care of her kids the kids have to kind of take care of themselves there's the older daughter who's a teenager and it's written almost like a diary and you have three voices you have the little boy the older daughter and the father also talks so you have this three ways narrative that is very very interesting it's the most touching book I've read in the last year it hasn't been translated yet so if you read French you can read in French but I hope that it's going to be translated and that's it thank you very much I hope I'm talking you can stop but we can do a question now thanks thank you very much thank you and I'll start with questions but we do have a good amount of time for questions and discussion my first question is I know that English can give publishing issues or publishers up to 500 new books a year now approximately I had always heard that if it was parallel it was approximately the same amount in French what do you know the last numbers I have and I can check to be sure I was going to say between 400 and 500 depending on the years give or take that's what I would say yeah I don't have the numbers here but it's about the same thing for a long time like when France for a long time we imported books from France and even when my parents were kids they were not much published in Quebec but now there is very very interesting publishing done in the Kibikwa publishing and there's probably 200 like it's about parallel with Canada and there is the numbers that I don't have are the ones for the smaller publisher Francophone publisher in the other provinces so they're much smaller I've seen a few books from all of them but I don't know what the amount would be how many books they would be from those other publishers for everybody do you want to guess how many books do you have children's books we're just talking children's books 5,000 good 5,000 it's more like 6,000 wow which is interesting that's a lot of books I was I was talking a few years ago Pierre Pratt who's a Kibikwa illustrator came to the round table the children's literature round table and he was also at the Writers and Other Festival and he was telling me how he was starting to try to get more work in the States because it was hard just in Canada as an illustrator and he had moved to Portugal he was also teaching at the same time Pierre Pratt is a very, very productive and a very well known illustrator and even him was like just with Kibikwa it's not enough for me he had to teach it's not easy it's not like you make a big amount of money illustrator or an author talk a little bit in this class about how Canadian literature is often a little bit conservative in terms of its topics and it takes longer to sort of explore new ideas in the literature Kibikwa literature is a little bit more adventurous just when you're talking about the social media I think so I actually pieces of me by Charlotte Gengra there is a scene a place where the girl is talking it's a Waii novel and she's talking about it's about female masturbation and I was showing that to a group and everybody in Vancouver and a lot of people were like okay and this is the kind of book I read when I was a teenager and I never thought it was edgy or weird or it was just the kind of book I read so when I moved here it's just when I started talking with people there is I think especially related to sexuality there is more liberty for Waii and even for picture books I think a lot of the illustration that are done in Quebec are more dynamic they try more things but there's lots of Canadian illustrator that are getting really really interesting but I think it started in Quebec there was one I can't remember when it was published it was called P'tisisi which means little penis and I was showing that book it's about a little boy who's in love with a little girl and there's another boy in love with this girl and they decided that whoever is going to pee the furthest is going to be the one who's going to be his boyfriend her boyfriend so it's really cute and really really fun but then I remember you saying a few years ago oh no English Canada is not ready for that and I thought what really? yeah it's a picture book well not ready for it no English language the Canadian publisher it ended up to translate it was translated in many languages around the world and finally there was a quite radical Dexon American English language publisher translated but it wasn't called little penis I don't know what it was I have to check where the title is in English yeah because Zizi is like I was yeah I don't know how would you it's not penis it's something else anyway so yeah so I think there is more especially in relation to sexuality I remember talking with Sarah Elis I was talking to her about the books her books that had been translated in French and the woman who had translated them who if I'm not mistaken was Michel Marino who wrote the Road to Schlieffer and so Sarah Elis had read some of Michel's work and she was like her work is really edgy and I thought really so there is really I think it's just yeah it's just different it's just the way people have been doing things is I think it's different and go back and it might explain when you go back to translation why some stuff is translated because it's not picked up by publisher it's not the kind of book it doesn't fit in whatever the publisher is publishing and the other way around would be true as well I guess what you just said is exactly what the publishers I spoke to about four years ago said which is that they chose not to translate as many French language children's books into English and Canada because they felt they really sell because the cultural atmosphere and sociological beliefs was quite different from their general market it was very restrictive attitude as well but I think the problem is the less you're exposed to something the less you're interested in something different so I think in countries where there's more translation kids are used to being faced with something that is different and you kind of get comfortable with the difference I don't know if you can get used to the difference but you get used to reading something that is different and it becomes just a routine okay this is from it's different from what I've been doing so the last you translate there is interest in translating and the last people are going to buy the books I was going to I have a weird relationship with translation when I go to kids books and I see all these English books translated in French I'm always like why don't you have more of the original French book like the book from France but a lot of the books that they have are translation from English and I'm like why because that's what the parents so if you're buying a book as a parent and you don't speak French and your kid is in French immersion and you recognize the author you know oh of course I've read this in English and I've heard it so it's easier for you to buy it but if it's a completely unknown author it's harder so that's why and I think translation is really really important but like if you can read it in English why read it in French so the translation that should be there are translation from Swedish but you're going to read it in English but not so yeah sorry that's my little spiel about translation I love I do not read yeah there's some exception but if I can read a book in its original language I like to read it in English or in French but I don't read the other way around that's just me any other questions comments yes is there a certain style that you know is making picture books for children you mean if there are are there and no I will say I can't I'd love to answer that question but I've been focusing a lot on YA in the last few years so except my little bonus like Philip or books that I've looked specifically I haven't been doing a lot of picture book it's really hard to get books in Vancouver in French except if I want to buy all of them I've been trying to get books at VPL and then they say oh we don't have it and we don't know of any library any libraries who have it in Canada so you can't get it I'm like what I'm sure there's a few libraries in Quebec that have that book so I've been having a very hard time looking at books I've been focusing on YA because I have to put my attention somewhere but no unfortunately I can't answer that question I'd love to I have a phone yes please it's entirely my fault again in the interviews I did for the book I wrote the people I interviewed who actually addressed the question of Quebec law publishing they said that English language publishing there is a much more representational realistic style I'm paraphrasing but this is what they about 20 people sent to me and French language publishing in Canada they said was much more experimental and surrealist and risk taking and more like European children's book illustration and they said the English language was like anglophone illustration from England and the United States and some cartoon comic realism from and they said that was because of that some English language translators were translating picture books from Quebec because they thought the song was too different or if they wanted to publish a picture book in an English language published picture book originating in an English language if it was a surreal text they would go to Quebec to look pretty closer which is just very interesting that they all play separate people approximately share the same perception and building on to that a lot I've seen like Philippe Béa I've seen his illustration in from English publishing and a lot of illustrator from Quebec are able to work with English publisher because they're able to read in English the other way around doesn't work I have yet to meet an illustrator English speaking illustrator who's worked who's been working with a Kibikwa publisher because they cannot read French I think we have an advantage because we don't really have I mean we do but most of us do speak English no I'll rephrase that a lot of the illustrator author and if you want to be able to work outside of Quebec you have to speak English the other way around is not true like you can go anywhere in North America almost and speak English and you won't need like you can work in the States you don't need French in North America so I think the illustrator are really lucky for that in Quebec because they can work with all the publisher and a lot of them have been doing it so Pierre Pratt worked in the States and they've done what's the name of the guy you did Jabberwocky I can't remember his name the lead again it is yes sorry no I mean the picture there was yes Stéphane Girish amazing illustrator thank you it was yeah you're right but they made a picture book an illustrator made and it was Stéphane Girish she made an amazing very weirdly interesting book what did you say but like there's something to and I'm wondering if there's a sort of need for more integrated Canadian literature to create Canada as an international society or does it lead to this really strong regionalism yeah you know Judy was telling you I'm working on my PhD on francophone schools and within those schools we have kids that are multi-lingual so they go to a francophone school they're in English environment but they speak Spanish or an Asian language or an African language at home so they get this very multicultural kind of culture so I think it's very hard to think about to think now of Canada of only French and English so I think we need to open up even more we're having a hard time opening up to those two languages we're having a hard time with the communication between the two languages but I think we have to open up even more to native publishing from native publisher that are not that I don't see much it's hard like it's often smaller publisher it's hard to see them like I was going to say in mainstream like in bookstore like on the first you enter and you get something from a native author and other languages as well so I think there is a need to think of Canadian society as what we want to do with children's publishing and how we want to integrate all those languages in the multi-cultural I'm fighting for the French because I'm from Quebec and I speak French so that's just it just seemed logical to me but I think I need to opening up to even something larger than just French the first step for French in English if I go back to your original question I think the awards winner should all be translated I mean if they won an award in French if they won an award in English I think they're wordy like not oh no kids are not going to there is something there it's not just like oh this book is going to work for kid in Vancouver if it got an award it works for many kids either I mean not just the Governor General Award but quite a few words should be translated I think that would be the first step and it's not done they used to be more grants and things for translation but I mean they're cuts everywhere not just in literature but in everything so it's getting harder and harder but I think there should be and with the digital the possibility to have e-books you don't have to print 5000 you don't have to translate it and then whoever needs it so it's I think there's possibilities but there has to be a will and I don't know who could how it could come to be like how when the Canadian government say okay all the Governor General Award are going to be translated not just in children's literature but in adult literature as well because it's the same thing for adults like there's lots of adults in Quebec who are unable to read in English and vice versa so that would be one step but if we were the Prime Minister of Canada that would be our first law that would be my first law every books are going to be translated I think I'll bring this to a close with tremendous thanks from all of us thank you very much