Groundwood Books

A child touchingly narrates the ups and downs of living with a parent who experiences mental illness.Sometimes Mom soars like a kite. Other times the kite turns into a sail, and she's like a boat, bobbing along the waves, until water spills over the sides and she starts to sink. "I try to bail the water out," the child says, "but my bucket is too small or has a hole in it." On a better day, Mom introduces the child to a "new friend" named Grace, a therapist and a good listener. Grace explains that it's not the child's job to fix things when Mom has a sinking day. And Grace helps the child find coping strategies such as talking, playing games and, especially, drawing as a creative outlet for their complicated feelings.Gradually, the child begins to feel better when they're at home with Mom, where there are plenty of crayons, as well as the comfort of a beloved pet to cuddle.But the child has one big question. At the end of the story, they ask their mom, and then Grace, if they will sink

Sydney and his friends gather outside to play, transforming one by one to climb, leap, lumber and soar into a shared jungle of their imagination.Hanging upside down in a tree, Sydney imagines he is a sleepy, sun-bathing sloth. And that's where Sami finds him. Sami thinks sloths are too slow, so she scampers up the tree and becomes a spider monkey. "Fast is fun!" she chatters. "Fast is best!" And that's where Edward finds them... One after another, the neighborhood kids wander by and slip into a shared imaginative world where leaves and giant flowers unfurl, playing, laughing, teasing and bickering, until Edward the elephant fills up his trunk and--WHOOSH!--sends the children "galloping home like a herd of small wet animals." As always, Marie-Louise Gay's writing and artwork are wonderfully pitched to young readers, capturing the effortless way that children travel back and forth between the worlds of real life and make believe. With its sun-dappled watercolors, depiction of time spent

A little boy spends the weekend at his dad’s new apartment in this picture book about how things change when parents separate — and the important things that stay the same.“This home is home because m

Where Are You, Agnes is a stunning imagining of abstract artist Agnes Martin’s childhood and the ways in which it may have shaped her work as an adult.Agnes Martin was born on the Canadian prairies in

In this powerful story from Christine Baldacchino, author of Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress, a young girl navigates social anxiety at family gatherings and works with her father to find a

In his stunning new wordless picture book, Geraldo Valério explores the nature of true friendship and love when a swan invites a boy and his dog on a ride through a shimmering pond.On a dull gray day,

Pudding Tat is born on the Willoughby Farm in 1901 — just another one of Mother Tat’s kittens. But it turns out that Pudding is anything but ordinary. He is pure white with pink eyes that, though beautiful, do not see well, and hearing that is unusually acute. He finds himself drawn to the sweet sounds of the world around him — the pattering heartbeat of a nearby mouse, the musical tinkling of a distant stream.Soon the sounds of adventure call to Pudding, too. But before he can strike out into the wide world on his own, he hears a voice — coming from right inside his own ear. A flea has claimed Pudding as his host. The bossy parasite demands that Pudding take him away from the lowly barn and the drunken singing of his fellow fleas. He doesn’t want adventure but a finer life — one where he can enjoy a warm bed and blood flavored not with mice, but with beef tenderloin and cream.Fortunately for this mismatched pair, the world is an extremely interesting place in 1901. Over the next decad

When Maya’s grandma makes a surprise visit from thousands of miles away, Maya is delighted. But her excitement doesn’t last long. When Grandma picks her up from school, she wears fancy clothes and tal

When Sarah and her younger brother Charlie go to stay with their grandparents, it rains for days. At first, they have fun exploring inside the big, old house, but eventually they want to explore outsi

Norma and her parents are going to her great-uncle Frank’s funeral, and Norma is more excited than sad. She is looking forward to playing with her favorite cousin, Ray, but when she arrives at the chu

On a gray and crowded city sidewalk, a child discovers a book. That evening, the child begins to read and is immediately carried beyond the repetitive sameness of an urban skyscape into an untamed nat

This hilarious collection of illustrated stories gives us a glimpse into the things children wonder about every day.What do cats really see? What do trees talk about? Should you make funny faces on a

The first book in Deborah Ellis’s riveting Breadwinner series is an award-winning novel about loyalty, survival, families, and friendship under extraordinary circumstances during the Taliban’s rule in

Many children want to know where stories come from and how a book is made. Marie-Louise Gay’s new picture book provides them with some delightfully inspiring answers though a fictional encounter betwe

?Stella,” whispered Sam, ?are you sleeping?”?Yes,” answered Stella. ?Aren’t you?”Sam can’t sleep without his beloved dog, Fred. But where could he be? Sam knows that Fred is afraid of the dark, of the

The United States and its allies invaded Iraq seven years ago. Today the country is still at war, and no one can claim that true democracy has come. Four million Iraqis have been displaced, and about