Marianne Dubuc

After multiple reading of the 'The Lion and the Bird', I wrote to Marianne Dubuc with some queries. She was very kind to reply back almost within a day. Thank you, Marianne Dubuc for writing back with a lot details.  

Here it goes - 

Query - Going through the book, I wondered if the book could have been just made as a wordless picture book. The picture by themselves seem to speak volumes, did they still need the extra words at all?

Marianne: You might have read that already, but I actually did the whole book in images first. I wanted to do it this way, so that I would tell story with the images as much as possible. But I also wanted to add words. Because I feel that sometimes the fact that there are so few words can emphasize the emptiness, the stillness or force the reader to look at the image and let it complete the phrase. When I read wordless books to my kids, I tend to talk a lot, say tons of words. With The Lion and The Bird, the reader has to read the few words on the page, ans then complete it if he wishes, but there is a rythm that is imposed by their presence. And I say all of this, but I can assure you that I had not thought all of this through while doing the book. It all kind of happened this way, and I then noticed the impact that so few words can have on the reading experience.My first intention was to let the images tell the story and then add words so that both could work together. But I think that they do more then simply work together... :)

Query - I read in your write up with Picture book makers that you liked to tell a story through animals. I loved the way you showed human emotions using a Lion. Was it easy to transfer human emotions to a lion or does our human minds play a role in pushing these images into the pictures based on our understanding of the story at that point? Would love to hear your views on this. 

Marianne: I don't really plan things when working on stories. They kind of happen the way they do... But I do use animals a lot in my work. I prefer to draw animals then humans. I think I give myself more freedom of interpretation with animals then with humans. And I guess that animals all have personality traits that are associated with them culturally. This helps to tell the story. When I ask kids which one, between the Lion and the Bird, is the strongest, based on the cover, they all say "the lion!!". And the weakest, more fragile one is always the bird. But once I have read the story, they say the Lion is more fragile in my story. And I explain that the fact that we think the Lion is usually strong, lets the story surprise us, and emphasizes the Lion's vulnerability. I don't know if I make sense, english is not my main language.

Where Do Our Baby Teeth Go?

Where Do Our Baby Teeth Go?

Tooth Stories from Around the World
by Vilasinee Bunnag
illustrated by Yasmin Doctor


With the resident first-grader losing teeth left and right, back-to-back, teeth have been in the limelight for the last few months.

He does not want to leave the baby teeth under the pillow for the tooth fairy as is the custom around these parts. He did write a note to that effect, in polite words, to the tooth fairy, so (s)he won't be disappointed.

He intends to collect all his baby teeth in a jar and keep them for future research.

Which got us thinking about this tradition of leaving the fallen baby tooth for the tooth fairy. And made us wonder what other such traditions are there related to baby teeth.

What do kids in other parts of the world do when their baby teeth fall out?

Just to answer such a question, this book presents tooth stories from around the world as the subtitle states.

The book starts out by asking 'Have you lost a tooth yet?' And explains a few facts about the 20 baby teeth, including the term "Diphyodont". Then, we embark on a journey around the world to learn about different traditions surrounding baby teeth. A map of the word shows the places we are visiting.

Starting in New York City, where of course the Tooth Fairy has the honors, we move to Mexico where Señor Raton scurries it away. In Brazil, Saint John takes care of it, while in South Korea kids get to throw it up in the air where a magpie catches it and brings a new strong tooth. We learn close to a dozen such traditions in different countries.

And since it's all about each child's own tooth story, the book ends with an invitation: "What's your tooth story?" and offers a Baby Teeth Diagram showing the placement of the mighty twenty.

The illustrations are bright and colorful. Two things that thrilled the resident seven year old: flag of each country tucked away in the illustrations, and peppering of words from other languages. He was chirping the Zulu greeting of "Sawubona"  and  the Swedish "Välkommen till Sverige".

Little nuances kept him interested - like, the drums on Nigeria page with their names "djembe" and "shekere", as well as factoids like "Dentists were working on smiles in Egypt as early as 3000 BC" and "China is a land of inventions. Fireworks and bristle toothbrush were invented there over 500 years ago."

While the concept is lovely, the only thing I would've preferred to be different is the font and color of the text - especially the white text on a darker background, and the all caps font made it difficult to read.


[Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book. The opinions shared here are my own. The images shared here are from the review copy sent to me.]