Dear RCGW Members,

“I Love to Read Month” is a month-long celebration that is held each year in February to encourage reading, writing, and sharing in the joy of literacy. This year’s theme is “Moving Forward with Hope.” This theme is meant to help readers understand different perspectives, develop compassion and move through these challenging times with empathy. As the world around us begins to recover, we too, need to move forward with renewed optimism as we forge a path of healing and reconciliation.

On behalf of the Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg, I have prepared the idea calendar below. The RCGW is a group of dedicated educators who meet monthly to share and work to promote knowledge and awareness of lifelong literacy and learning. Please share the idea calendar with teachers, students and their families. It would make a great addition to your school newsletter. Activities are included for students of all ages to have them explore different ways of engaging with literacy. I hope that both teachers and students will have fun with the suggested activities and that they will challenge the students to learn something new. I also hope that families will be able to share the excitement of reading and writing together.

In addition to the idea calendar, the RCGW will be making a book and monetary donation to the Cancer Care Unit at the Children’s Hospital so that the staff can continue to update their children’s and teens’ libraries and magazine subscriptions. This provides children, teens, as well as parents with reading materials that are appealing and entertaining, as well as supportive.

The RCGW thanks you for sharing this idea calendar with teachers and families. In doing this, you are helping to empower our students to change the world.

Brittany Bell
I Love to Read Committee Chair
Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg

The Manitoba Council of Reading Clinicians is pleased to present Wiley Blevins, who will deliver a two-evening virtual workshop, A Fresh Look at Phonics: Common Causes of Failure and Seven Ingredients for Success, January 19 & 20, 2022. 

​RCGW members are also members of the Manitoba Reading Association, and so the special member rate of $30 applies. For more information and to register, please see the poster below or visit MCRC's website. 

As the winter holidays approach, my mind turns to shopping and cooking up a storm for the upcoming winter celebrations. Browsing new and cherished cookbooks has had a lot of therapeutic value for me, and it has evoked many personal, family, and neighbourhood memories. 

​My very favourite cookbook is Traditional Ukrainian Cookery by Savella Stechishin. My family gave me this book when I left home in 1975, and it remains one of my most prized possessions. It provides guidance on how to make all the classic Ukrainian dishes, including the 12 dishes for Christmas Eve and the heavenly breads like Paska, Babka, and Kolach. 

I am bonded for life with my Traditional Ukrainian Cookery, as it helped me ground my culinary heritage. Yet how did I function with a lack of photos? I had to imagine the recipes, using all my senses to recall each dish from my family’s cooking. There were a few illustrative photos, such as designs for braiding on paskas and some pen and ink illustrations of scenes in Ukraine. While the cookbook is now out of print, used copies can be found online.

​Stechishin was one of the first Ukrainian Canadian women to study at the University of Saskatchewan in the 30s, receiving her BA in Home Economics. She was a feminist in her unique way and did much to enrich the culinary landscape of Canada and the role of women in the Ukrainian Canadian community. Traditional Ukrainian Cookery's publisher – Winnipeg's Trident Press, which closed in 1995 – also produced the Ukrainian Voice. Our family was happy that Mrs. Stechishin shared her favourite recipes in the weekly newspaper, and many were shared as an oral tradition or by simple demonstration in our extended family of great cooks and bakers. Her cookbook recipes ultimately continue to be shared in families and adapted in newer cookbooks across North America. 

​There appear to be many new Slavic cookbooks sprouting like mushrooms after the rain. Here are several to help you prepare for gift buying or treating yourself to a new book. In exploring these cookbooks, I came to realize that simply browsing these new cookbooks had a lot of therapeutic value for me during the pandemic.

A dear friend brought to my attention two popular new Ukrainian cookbooks, Mamushka and Summer Kitchens, from award-winning British author and chef Olia Hercules. Mamushka earned the Ukraine-born Hercules the significant Fortnum and Mason Award for debut cookbook in 2018. She lived in Cyprus before becoming a British chef, and her cuisine may even be one of the reasons for Ukrainian cooking becoming so “hot” in England! She has introduced the rich range of Ukraine’s cuisine to many and has drawn attention to our collectively evolving culinary heritage. Check out Hercules's online presence: She has posted several informative online cooking workshops and webinars that have been entertaining and educational. 

Mamushka and Summer Kitchens are more than a collection of hundreds of delicious recipes – they are also culinary travelogues of contemporary Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Hercules weaves a tapestry of personal stories and powerful images of the beautiful country from the Black Sea to the Carpathian Mountains and beyond. She provides creative versions of recipes for both common and new comfort foods. 
 
These cookbooks have expanded my view of Ukrainian cookery beyond the usual Canadian–Ukrainian favourites. They are helping me reconnect with dormant culinary memories from my own experiences. For instance, summer kitchens were very popular before the advent of air conditioning in rural Ukraine and on the Canadian prairies. These unique structures, built outside of the main home, were special places where the cooks prepared food and canned preserves in the hot summer weather. As a child, I loved spending time with the older women who cooked, told stories, and sometimes sang as they transformed their homegrown produce into memorable, savoury dishes and jams. I would serve as their “scrubber” for the cucumbers and their official taster for the rich raspberry jams. The gorgeous photos in Summer Kitchens evoked the memories of the delectable aroma of these special culinary places I had visited in Ukraine and rural Manitoba in my youth. I wondered how many summer kitchens now remain on the Canadian Prairies...

While browsing through this plethora of new Ukrainian and Eastern European cookbooks, I initially came across a wonderful Polish book called Rose Petal Jam: Recipes & Stories from a Summer in Poland, written by Beata Zatorska and her husband Simon Target. Rose Petal Jam, recognized as one of the best current cookbooks and awarded the distinguished Gourmand Award, combines Zatorska's childhood memories of Poland and her family’s culinary heritage. As I grew up in the North End, some of our close friends on Stella Avenue were Polish, and over time, I developed an affinity for Polish culture and cooking. I am so glad to have discovered this beautiful cookbook. Zatorska skillfully braids her memories of her youth in the rural areas of Poland, treasured family recipes for sixty traditional meals, snippets of songs, and inspirational Polish poetry translated into English. Target took extraordinary photographs that capture the picturesque beauty of summer in many parts of Poland. 
 
Zatorska and Target have truly raised the literary bar for a cookbook as a genre for me. They also collaborated on another extraordinary volume called Sugared Orange: Recipes & Stories from a Winter in Poland​, which explores the winter season in Poland and the cycle of winter feasts to prepare for in one’s kitchen. I have begun to appreciate both Polish–Ukrainian culinary similarities and differences. Zatorska includes excerpts of rich literary texts from various genres, while Target’s photography captures the particular beauty of winter feasts and the Polish landscapes. One criticism is that the font for the recipes is too small and light. I hope that they change the font in future editions to make it more legible for aging chefs. The travelogue quality of two fine cookbooks has triggered dreams about a future trip to Eastern Europe after Covid subsides.

Another newer Slavic cookbook that has received a lot of attention and some rave reviews for providing knee-tapping humour alongside creative and traditional recipes: Baba’s Kitchen: Ukrainian Soulfood with Stories from the Village. It has unique qualities that include Baba's hilarious stories from the village –written in a Baba dialect. 

Kindergarten to Grade 2

• It Fell From the Sky by The Fan Brothers
• Field Trip to the Ocean Deep by John Hare
• Be Quiet by Ryan T. Higgins
• Norman Didn't Do It by Ryan T. Higgins
• Fox in a Box by Eva Klassen
• Hidden Treasure by Elly MacKay
• On the Trapline by David A. Robertson, ill. by Julie Flett
• The Midnight Fair by Gideon Sterer, ill. by Mariachiara Di Giorgio
• Unicorns Are The Worst by Alex Willan
• Dragons Are The Worst by Alex Willan

Grade 3–5

• Sunny Days Inside by Caroline Adderson  
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
• The Barren Grounds by David A. Robertson (for MY too!)
• ​The Great Bear by David A. Robertson (for MY too!)
• Hockey Super Six series by Kevin Sylvester

Grade 6–8

• Focused by Alyson Gerber (for SY too!)
• Free Lunch by Rex Ogle
• Punching Bag by Rex Ogle
• Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds
• Barry Squires, Full Tilt by Heather Smith
• The Fabulous Zed Watson by Basil Sylvester & Kevin Sylvester

​
Grade 9–12

• The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
• Hunting by Stars by Cherie Dimaline
• Faith Taking Flight by Julie Murphy
• Faith Greater Heights by Julie Murphy
• The Girl From the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag
• When You Get The Chance by Tom Ryan 
  
• The Stone Rainbow by Liane Shaw

Books for Adults

• The Paris Apartment by Kelly Bowen
• This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankle
• Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
  
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
• Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
• Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen
• The Strangers by Katherena Vermette

​
Professional Reads

• South Asian Adventures with the Active Poor by Gem Munro – Short stories about life in Bangladesh and how Canadian charity Amtrak Society came to be. 
• Shifting the Balance by Jan Burkins and Kari Yates – Hot read on adjusting teaching practices in response to research about how children learn to read. A must for EY teachers and specialists. ​

Congratulations to McNally Robinson Booksellers on their 40th anniversary! We are so fortunate to have Canada's largest independent bookseller in our community. 

​McNally Robinson for Kids shared on Twitter that they will be extending their 25% educators' discount for MTS PD Day until Sunday, October 24. Shopping must be done in-person at the Grant Park location and the discount applies only to books in stock. Might we suggest some of the latest MYRCA titles? Happy Book Shopping! 

The Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg will host Karen Filewych for MTS PD Day, October 22, 2021. An Edmontonian, Filewych has been a classroom teacher, school leader, and consultant. Her two books, How Do I Get Them to Write? (2017) and Freewriting with Purpose (2019), are available through Pembroke Publishers.

How Do I Get Them to Write? Explore the Reading-Writing Connection Using Freewriting and Mentor Texts to Motivate and Empower Students equips teachers to implement an effective Kindergarten to Grade 6 writing program. Filewych offers new teachers a treasure trove of ideas and routines, and veteran teachers will encounter helpful tips to invigorate their instruction. Ready-to-use line masters are provided in many chapters. We agree with Filewych’s belief that students should write something every day; as she says, “teaching students the skill of writing is a gift of empowerment: words change worlds” (p. 10).
 
In nearly every chapter, Filewych recommends mentor texts, many written by Canadian authors. Because so many high-quality and culturally responsive texts are published each year, we recommend that educators supplement these lists with newer titles. Filewych’s active blog can help – she regularly often new books, which could be highlighted with parents in a newsletter for potential read-alouds at home.

There are many excellent professional learning opportunities for teachers this fall offered by the Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg and the Manitoba Reading Association. Our MTS PD Day Event with Karen Filewych will surely delight teachers who are interested in fine-tuning their writing instruction. The Manitoba Reading Association's Professional Learning Series, which features webinars spread throughout the school year, will also respond to many teachers' curiosities. We look forward to seeing you at these events!