Yesterday, elementary students at Swan Hills School were treated to presentations by Alberta illustrator and author, Georgia Graham. Growing up on an Alberta farm and now living on a tree farm in central Alberta, Georgia has a natural affinity for animals and wildlife which shows in the beautiful and realistic drawings in Where Wild Horses Run among others. Georgia also excels in a completely different style with the humourous cartoon-style images in books like Here Comes Hortense and The Lime Green Secret.
While fascinating the kids by drawing detailed pictures, she told her stories and showed slides of her illustrations and the photos she took while researching. She showed pictures of herself as a child and her early drawings, and talked about how she had been fascinated with pastels since her mother gave her a set in Grade 4.
Working through pastel drawings of a circle transformed into an apple, a scene with a road through hilly hay fields (from The Strongest Man This Side of Cremona) , a sled dog (from A Team Like No Other) and several others, she demonstrated how to create depth and perspective in objects and scenes with shadow and light. She described the process involved in creating a book from concept to publication and how she often uses an inspiring true story to ‘tweak’ into a great fiction book.
Division Two learned the proportions and shading techniques of making a realistic portrait and Division One watched her create the whimsical, cartoon-style protagonist of The Lime Green Secret. After each drawing was complete, she drew the name of a student who would take the drawing home. The kids were amazed and enlightened as she laid transparencies in cyan, magenta, yellow and black over one another to create a final image of one of her illustrations from the very popular Tiger’s New Cowboy Books written by Irene Morck.
Students had been introduced to Georgia Graham’s books in library classes and were eager to meet her. They were not disappointed as she fleshed out their experiences with the books and gave them the motivation to check them out more closely on their own, which will broaden their understanding of Alberta, of nature, of people and of life – those things we all gain from intimacy with books.
With their beautiful, realistic depictions of Alberta’s landscapes, several of Georgia’s books are listed in Learn Alberta’s Social Studies Literature Connections (K-12), and more could be added for students studying Alberta in general, various geographical regions, rural life and individual identity. Based on a true story, The Strongest Man This Side of Cremona tells of the destruction of a farm during a tornado that hit the area in 1965. Sweeping prairie vistas and period-accurate illustrations strengthen the story of how the experience must have felt to one small boy. Sled dog driving is featured in A Team Like No Other, a story of love and trust set in the spectacular Rocky Mountains.
Illustration from ‘Where Wild Horses Run’ by Georgia Graham
Our annual author visits are partially funded by the Young Alberta Book Society, who in turn are sponsored by many groups and agencies. We pay the artist’s fee only with the money we earn through the excellent local patronage of our annual Book Fair.
Next week is the Junior & Senior High’s turn when storyteller and urban myth exploiter Gail de Vos visits on the 15th.
Georgia Graham’s Website
Reviews on Goodreads
Young Alberta Book Society’s Taleblazers
As one teacher put it, “Even [a certain student’s] constant inappropriate comments were on topic.” At a recent visit to our school, multi-talented author and playwright Marty Chan did just that in, tailoring each of the four sessions to the grade level present, simultaneously entertaining and teaching students about writing.
He described a play that he produced for the Edmonton Fringe Festival in 1998 – a thriller called “The Bone House” – and explained how he produced tension in the audience by employing mystery, anticipation, isolation and using the audience members’ own expectations and imaginations. When it was clear that to produce the same chilling effect these 15 years later the audience would have to be deprived of their cell phones, students were overwhelmingly willing to surrender theirs for the experience. Marty also discussed how those same cell phones could be used to augment the thrill, through a little bit of hacking, were it possible, while the phones were stored during the play. Students then played parts in a group-created scene using the “OMO” elements to build the story.
Having read half of The Mystery of the Cyber Bully during library classes, Grades 4-6 students particularly enjoyed meeting the real Marty Chan, since that is also the name of the character in the novel. Marty explained that he used his own name in his mystery series to acknowledge its semi-autobiographical nature. Marty then demonstrated to these students and the Grades 1-3 how adding details is important in building a story by playing a ‘cops & robbers’ game with them where the cop had to identify the robber by the spectators’ descriptions.
Marty Chan has turned his strategy of looking at life’s challenges with humour into a varied, productive and successful career. Although he began his university career in engineering, he graduated instead with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Drama. His plays have been shown all over Canada, in Scotland and New York. His television show “The Orange Seed”, based on a series of CBC radio plays called “Dim Sum Diaries”, was nominated for a Gemini Award.
Beyond Survival in a School Library 