Seal Song for PPBF

Hi Everyone!  Today was my first day of spring break so one of the things I did was go to Bolen Books (my favourite Victoria book store) and buy two new books for my class.

Today's feature is:

I think Andrea Spalding is an amazing author. Last year I featured her book Me and Mr. Mah.

Andrea is a grandma, like me, and lives nearby on Pender Island. Pender is a tiny little Gulf Island just northeast of where I live, on the southern most tip of Vancouver Island.

On to the story!

Title: Seal Song

Author & Illustrator: Andrea Spalding and Pascal Milelli

Publishing: Orca Book Publishers, 2011

Intended Audience: 3 to 11

Genre: Juvenile Fiction

Themes: Friendship, Magic, Seals

Opening Lines: Work done, the boy hid on the cannery wharf. "Finn, Finn," his father called. Finn crouched behind a barrel. He had fished with his father since early morning. Now he wanted to swim with the seals.

Summary (from the book jacket): Finn loves to swim with the seals in a secret cove. One day he rescues a young seal tangled in netting. Finn wishes the seal could live on land. When Sheila, a mysterious girl no one has ever seen before, appears on the cannery docks, the fisher folk are uneasy. They believe the newcomer is a magical selkie, a shape changer.

Why I Like This Book: I've lived on an island on the West coast of Canada for 53 of my 56 years so the ocean is a huge part of my life. To leave the island you either have to fly or take the ferry (we don't have a bridge to the mainland ~ which I'm personally happy about :)).

One of the ocean creatures we see all the time are harbour seals. These guys have to be one of the cutest looking mammals on earth. 

Source: OrcaSpirit.com

Andrea combines my love for the ocean and all her creatures, with a satisfying and heart-warming tale of friendship, loyalty and self-sacrifice. There is so much to look at and discuss in this book: Fishing, canneries, the ocean, Celtic lore, selkies, and the themes I just mentioned. And Pascal's oil paintings are absolutely gorgeous! 

Resources:

1. The Vancouver Aquarium is also a great site to check out.

2. Make an underwater scene using bleeding tissue paper.

Click on the image for the directions.

I would just use variations of blue and green tissue. When the paper is dry, use black sharpies to draw an underwater scene. Note: The images could be drawn first with pencil and then traced with a sharpie before applying the bleeding tissue colours.

3. Book Chat: Don't forget to have a discussion about friendship and what it means.

Be sure to stop by Susanna's blog and check out all the other fabulous book recommendations. I just noticed that Susanna doesn't have a PPBF this week, so I'll just link up to last week's (which I missed).

That's it! Have a great evening. I'm off to the pub with friends for dinner and a glass of wine!