For over a year now, I’ve been tutoring a little girl who struggles with reading. Every week on a Thursday, I go over to her house and we spend an hour reading together, doing writing activities, and a variety of other things designed to improve both her reading and writing skills. She’s also in French Immersion, which for Canadians means that even though you’re not French and no one else in your family speaks French, you take most of your classes in French. So my little protégé not only struggles with reading in English but also reading in French. Luckily, I took French all through high school, right into university, I taught it when I was younger, and I can read it pretty well. And for the purpose of this post, I’ll call my little friend Samantha:

Me: Comment ça va aujourd’hui, Samantha?
Samantha: How do you know so much French?
Me: I studied it for a long time and I used to teach it to students just like you.
Samantha: YOU WERE A TEACHER??
Me: What did you think I used to do?
Samantha: I thought you worked in an antique store.
Me: What, like all my life?
Samantha: Well, you’re not that old.
Me: Très bien, ma chère.

Samantha is in Grade 3 so I spend a lot of time looking for age-appropriate books, usually in thrift stores where you can get virtually brand-new readers for under two dollars. The other day, I thought I hit the jackpot when I discovered a book that was in both French AND English for young readers. The book was called George the Goldfish / Georges Le Poisson Rouge. I looked at the cover—it was a little boy looking lovingly at his goldfish. I opened the front cover and inside was a variety of pictures of the little boy doing a variety of activities with the goldfish: carrying him around in his bowl, playing while the fish watched, showing the fish his Hallowe’en costume (also a goldfish) and so on. The next page was a series of suggestions to parents and teachers on how to use the book to encourage reading in both languages as well as information about a picture dictionary and pronunciation key at the back. Then there was the title page with the little boy looking into the fishbowl lovingly and the fish looking back at him as lovingly as a fish can look. So I brought it with me last Thursday:

Me: Okay, Samantha, let’s get started. First read the English, then read the French at the bottom.
Samantha: Harry has a goldfish. His name is George. Harry a un poisson rouge. Il s’appelle Georges.
Me: That’s great. You have a really good accent. Keep going.
Samantha: George swims around and around in his bowl. Harry loves to watch him. Georges fait le tour de son…what’s that word?
Me: Sound it out.
Samantha: A..quar-um. Oh, aquarium, like a big fish tank. Harry adore le regarder.
Me: Excellent. Ready to turn the page?
Samantha (turns page): But one day, Harry’s goldfish—WHAT? THE GOLDFISH DIES??!!
Me (panics): Give me the book—what?! OH MY GOD.
Samantha (laughing): MOM! The tutor is making me read a book about death!

I started laughing hysterically too, a mixture of horror and absurdity, as she ran out of the room to show her mom. I followed along and we found her mom in the kitchen. I apologized profusely as her mom also started to laugh:

Me: I am SO sorry—I had no idea. I should have screened it more carefully. I just thought it was a nice story about a boy and his goldfish…
Samantha’s Mom (laughing): Until it wasn’t…hey, don’t worry about it. It’s all a part of life–or death.

Fortunately, everyone took it in good humour and Samantha wanted to read the rest of the book, which didn’t get any more light-hearted—in fact, there are lengthy descriptions in English AND French of Harry and his mom burying George in the garden and planting flowers on his grave and in what POSSIBLE world would you write a story for ages 3+ where the main character DIES ON PAGE 3?! And nowhere in the copious “parent notes” was there ANYTHING about this book dealing with the dark theme of the death of a beloved pet! It’s like the Old Yeller of 2023.

In other news, this past week, I was the featured writer on Susan Richardson’s amazing podcast A Thousand Shades Of Green. Susan is a poet extraordinaire and she also writes the blog Stories From The Edge Of Blindness, so having her choose me for this project and hearing her tremendous compliments regarding my writing really made my week. If you want to listen to her gorgeous voice reading my work, or the work of some other wonderful writers, you can find her podcast at floweringink.com