Summer memories of grandparents, art and a very large turtle inspire Kitchener author's new picture book

CBC

2 days ago

Kitchener author Kate Jenks Landry new children's book, A Summer Without Anna, tells the story of young Junie who spends the summer with her grandparents because her older sister is sick.
While Junie does miss her family, she also has little adventures, including looking for an elusive giant turtle.
Landry joined CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition with host Craig Norris to talk about how she drew inspiration from her own summer experiences.
Audio of this interview can be found at the bottom of this story. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Craig Norris: Congratulations on the book! Tell us about Junie?
Kate Jenks Landry: Junie is fictional, but the story draws on experiences from my own childhood, so she's sort of an alternate version of me, as I had a similar experience when I was a child. My brother was ill and in the hospital quite a lot and I spent a lot of time with family and friends.
My brother was younger than me, not older. So there are differences that drew the character in a slightly different direction. But I think similarly to me, she uses a newfound interest in art. In her case it's photography to kind of make sense of the world around her and the challenges that maybe other kids her age aren't facing.
And even though she's being so well cared for and is so loved, she's figuring out all of this stuff that's happening and she's using a camera. For me, it was writing, but I wanted to give her something to help her sort of capture the world around her and tell a story.
Norris: And was there a cottage in your past?
Jenks Landry: There sure was!
Norris: What do you remember when you think of that? What were the sights and smells that you think about?
Jenks Landry: My cottage was on Crane Lake, which is near Parry Sound and it belonged to my Nan and Pop, just like Junies Nan and Pop. And it was such a core place in my childhood.
It was like a typical kind of Muskoka cottage with the evergreen trees and that black-green water. And there was a turtle, a large ancient turtle. And no one could remember how old, no one remembered it not being there. And once a summer or every few years, you'd see it, there'd be a sighting.
In the book, the turtles' name is Edmund. In real life, the turtle didn't have a name, but Edmund was the name of my grandfather who owned the cottage.
A really interesting thing I think people don't realize about picture books unless you're the author or illustrator, the illustrator is the one who's comes up with the vision for character design and setting. The illustrator of this book, Risa Hugo, who grew up in Japan and Vancouver. So she has a very different set of references. It wasn't really a Muskoka setting but was her take on a lake cottage.
She said she was really inspired by the movie My Neighbor Totoro which was something that when she was Junie's age, she was obsessed with watching over and over again. So she had this kind of idyllic, almost English-looking countryside. So even though it's rooted in those really classic Muskoka cottage memories for me, the kind of alchemy of the illustrator working with my words created something completely different.
Kitchener author's new book tells nostalgic story of summers spent in cottage country
4 days ago
Duration 1:32
Kitchener author Kate Jenks Landry has a new children's book out. A Summer Without Anna tells the story of a young Junie who spends the summer with her grandparents because her older sister is sick. While Junie misses her family, she also has little adventures — including looking for an elusive giant turtle. Kate Jenks Landry told CBC K-W's Aastha Shetty more about the new book, which was inspired by the author's own life.
Norris: Risa Hugo's art is beautiful!
Jenks Landry: It really is! Risa has done a lot of really amazing Canadian books. She has another book Metis Like Me that has just been honoured and I'm just so honoured to have worked with her.
Norris: What does it do for you to get something out there that's this personal?
Jenks Landry: It's really complex. I think I wanted to do something that tapped into an experience that I had that was really challenging, but also very formative for me.
I think going through something really challenging when you're young forced me to kind of constantly be in a mode of observing and making sense of the world. That sort of was the origin of my being a writer, and I wanted to tell that story. And I think a lot of kids have similar experiences of having to be away from parents or their bedroom or their home at a time when something difficult is happening in their families.
So I wanted it to be personal and drawn those sort of core personal memories. But I also wanted to keep it open enough that kids with maybe similar in some ways, but different versions of that experience could, find something in it. And I, I felt like there wasn't really a ton of stories out there that spoke to what it was to be a sibling or just be a kid who's just kind of off on the side while your parents are off dealing with something else.
Norris: That's true. I mean, you think about Junie's trip to the cottage, and in a parent's mind, you're thinking, 'Oh, well, this is beautiful, she's just gonna escape for this summer.' But that doesn't really actually happen.
Jenks Landry: No, and I think it's a combination. I really love children's books that are complex and are not just one thing because this experience wasn't just one thing for me.
For children, I think that's always the case. So beautiful memories are happening at the same time that really profound challenges are. So for Junie, I think she's having these really poignant memories with her grandfather in their fishing boat. She's being comforted by her grandmother and by the water itself. Swimming in the lake and being submerged in in bodies of water has always been very calming for me.
I wanted to kind of think about how immersion in nature and in family is bringing comfort even in the midst of all of these challenges. And for me, I have those memories of the cottage.
But also, I had an aunt and uncle that I stayed with that had a backyard pool. And I would just spend eight hours a day in this pool and my aunt would bring me peanut butter sandwiches at the side of the pool because I wouldn't get out.