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26 Family Follies, Family Love

Alan Cumyn
Ontario
Maggie de Vries
British Columbia
Kit Pearson
British Columbia
Alan Cumyn,  Ontario

Alan Cumyn is the author of several highly acclaimed but wildly different literary novels. Burridge Unbound and Man of Bone both won the Ottawa Book Award and were respectively shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Trillium Book Award. His first novel for children, The Secret Life of Owen Skye, won the Mr. Christie’s Book Award and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. His new novel for young adults is Tilt. Read more

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Maggie de Vries,  British Columbia

Maggie de Vries is the award-winning author of seven books for children, including Tale of a Great White Fish: A Sturgeon Story, Fraser Bear, Chance and the Butterfly and a teen novel Hunger Journeys, which won the 2011 Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize at the BC Book Awards. She also teaches creative writing at UBC, UNBC, travels regularly to lead writing workshops with children and teachers, and occasionally edits children’s books. Maggie lives in Vancouver. Read more

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Kit Pearson,  British Columbia

Kit Pearson’s nine novels for children include A Handful of Time, the Guests of War trilogy, Awake and Dreaming and A Perfect Gentle Knight. She has received 14 awards for her writing. Her newest novel, The Whole Truth, is set on a West Coast island during the 1930s; she is presently working on its sequel, Nothing but the Truth. Pearson lives in Victoria with her partner Katherine. Read more

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Host: France Perra
Thursday, October 20, 2011 - 10:00am - 11:30am
Performance Works
$17 / $9.50 for student groups

“You can’t choose your family!”—so the saying goes. And that means that you love them and live with them, character flaws and all. Alan Cumyn’s Owen Skye is grateful for his brothers in spite of their knack for turning every plan into an ordeal. Maggie de Vries has crafted a heartfelt story about Martha, whose place in her adoptive family is pushed aside with the arrival of a sister. And Kit Pearson sets her family story in 1932 when Polly is sent to live with her grandmother. These three hugely talented authors reveal the ups and downs of family life in all their glory and frustration. You’ll have no problem relating!

Suitable for grades 3–6

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View the study guide for this event.

Family Follies, Family Love

“You can’t choose your family!”—so the saying goes. And that means that you love them and live with them, character flaws and all. Alan Cumyn’s Owen Skye is grateful for his brothers in spite of their knack for turning every plan into an ordeal. Maggie de Vries has crafted a heartfelt story about Martha, whose place in her adopted family is pushed aside with the arrival of a sister. And Kit Pearson sets her family story in 1932 when the young Polly is sent to live with her grandmother. These three hugely talented authors reveal the ups and downs of family life in all their glory and frustration. You’ll have no problem relating!

Curriculum Connection:

  • Writing to express personal responses to experiences
  • Creating strategies before writing and representing
  • Experiment with different forms of writing.
  • Research an unknown place
  • Use literature as a key to understanding oneself and one’s community.

Activities

  1. Have your students write a letter to one of the authors, Alan Cumyn, Maggie de Vries or Kit Pearson detailing how they felt about the novel, what they liked or disliked, what they would have changed and why, and lastly, what they thought the overall message and theme of the novel was.
  2. Discussion: Why does de Vries character feel left out with the arrival of a new baby? Ask students to think of situations where surrogate siblings or other family members are present. What really makes someone “family”? Is it blood or something more? Does it make a difference if someone is related by blood or not? In what way is it an advantage to have a sibling? What way is it disadvantageous?
  3. Have your students imagine that they had to pick up and leave their home like Polly in The Whole Truth. Have them choose another Canadian city or town to inhabit, have them research its climate, landscape and history, and write a fictional letter home to their parents describing what their new life is like.

More Resources:

Owen Skye Discussion Questions: http://www.multcolib.org/talk/guides-owen.html

Orca Books Teaching Tools: http://www.orcabook.com/client/client_pages/teachers/tools.cfm

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