The late autumn palette is a subdued mix of earth tones, cross-hatched by the black and grey spikes of defoliated branches. On a good day, it’s like a breathtaking Wyeth canvas stretched across the low horizon. On a bad day, it feels as if all the colour has drained from the world. Wandering around this blanched landscape the other day, thinking about my next post, one thing came to mind (OK, two things, but anti-depressants require a prescription): I needed to immerse myself in something juicy and colourful, like the newest book by Marie-Louise Gay, Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth, for instance. Imagine your computer screen in the dim setting, just before sleep mode. Now imagine tapping a key. Suddenly, the screen is infused with light and colour. To view the art of Marie-Louise Gay is like someone tapping us out of some dimmed state of consciousness into a bejeweled and bewitched landscape.

She is the cure for dull.

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It's raining cats and thing-things...

The thing about Thing-Thing is that hesitation is not always the best policy, which contradicts everything I said in my previous blog about mindless accumulation. I first identified Thing-Thing as a jewel worthy of plucking about a year ago. The title, in particular, appealed to me, as did the art, but for some reason, I hesitated. Thing-Thing was a one of one in the bookstore, and it stayed that way for six months, until the day it disappeared from the shelf. The day, of course, when I finally realized it was time to bring Thing-Thing home. Presumably, the book had been sent back to the publisher, but maybe someone less diffident than me had picked it up. I hope so. Books that are returned to the publisher eventually get sent back on giant lots with other ‘remainder’ stock, only this time, the sad history of their early rejection is slashed across their bottoms with a big black marker. I was able to retrieve the book from the publisher before it suffered a completely undeserved fate. Thing-Thing is now my Thing-Thing, and it is most assuredly one of my favourite things.

It begins with a spoiled brat named Archibald Crimp (Dickens would approve) throwing a hissy fit, declaring that he is ‘not getting out of this bed‘ (Naomi Campbell would approve) until his parents bring him a present better than all the electronic games, racing cars, and robots littering the floor of the hotel room in the BIG CITY, where the family is staying for the little snot’s birthday. The exasperated, but pathologically indulgent parents oblige, and the father heads over to the nearest toy store. There, on a top shelf, he finds Thing-Thing, who was ‘not quite a bunny rabbit, but not quite a dog either, nor a bear, or cat for that matter.’ Dad brings the toy home and Little Lord Archibald promptly throws it out the window. End of story? No. Thing-Thing’s slow descent to the pavement is where the story actually begins.

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When the bookseller handed me a copy of Picturing Canada: A History of Canadian Children’s Illustrated Books and Publishing by Gail Edwards and Judith Saltman, I was disappointed. It was thick, and it had a moose on the over. Not that I have anything against weighty books, or Canada’s antlered icon, but it seemed cliché. A quick flip through the pages confirmed my worst fears: very few pictures. How could this be? It’s a book about illustration and it’s mostly text? O Canada.

Now that I’ve read the book, I am no longer disappointed. In fact, I am elated. Picturing Canada is an entirely engrossing history of the illustrated children’s book in Canada from the 19th to the 21st century. To put it in book terms, from the publication of Northern Regions: or, A Relation of Uncle Richard’s Voyages for the Discovery of a North-West Passage, and an Account of the Overland Journies of Other Enterprizing Travellers (1825) to Eh? to Zed: A Canadian Abecedarium (2001). Our love of rambling titles has remained steadfast for over 200 years.

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