Shining Willow Nominee

Willow’s Whispers

By Lana Button, Illustrated by Tania Howells.

Kids Can Press, c2010.
ISBN 9781554532803

Currently3.63052208835/5 Stars
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Rated by: 249 users

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Comments (4)

Willow’s soft, shy voice goes unheard by everyone at school, causing her all kinds of trouble. She thinks she has the perfect solution, and although it helps her for awhile, it doesn’t last the day. Will Willow find the courage to speak up and finally make herself heard?

About the Author

Lana Button is from Burlington, ON

Visit the Author's website

Lana Button was born and raised in the tiny border town of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, where she transformed all of her rubber skipping ropes into microphones, and sang to large crowds of imaginary people in her bedroom. Growing up, Lana took any opportunity to perform. She studied theatre performance at Concordia University in Montreal and spent some time in Vancouver acting in TV and film.

Lana fell in love with the magic of picture books while studying early childhood education. Today Lana lives in Burlington, Ontario, with her husband, her three incredible daughters and her cat, Rocco, and she spends much of her day singing and reading to small crowds of preschoolers.

About the Illustrator

Tania Howells is from Toronto, ON

Visit the Illustrator's website

Tania lives in Toronto with her husband and baby boy, Finch. She graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1997 and has been a freelance illustrator for over 10 years. Tania has done work for clients such as Today’s Parent magazine, Chirp, Holt Renfrew, The National Post and many others.

Since 2004 Tania has kept a popular blog where she talks about the nice things in life and shows pictures of different projects that she is working on. When not drawing pictures, she can be found knitting with her neighbors, eating dim sum and generally trying to enjoy life. She likes riding her bike, reading books, baking things and gardening.

Visit the publisher's website, http://www.kidscanpress.com/Canada/

Book Reviews

Suggested Activities

Play with your voice. Make it whisper soft, very loud, shy, bold, sing-song. How else can you make your voice sound?
Can you remember a time you felt very shy or had trouble speaking up? Tell a classmate or family member about your experience.
The text in the story makes words look LOUD and soft. Practise writing LOUD words and whisper words.
Visit the author's website to learn how she became an author. If you have a question about her book, you can even send her an email.

Comments

Comment #1 posted on March 13, 2011, 12:34 PM

Willow's Wispers is a wonderful book. It brought much enjoyment to my son and I. While he does not suffer from the same problem, it helped him understand other children that don't always find their voice.
This book is on my must buy list for gifts.

Monica Maillet

Comment #2 posted on March 13, 2011, 5:11 PM

This story was so warm and sweet, I just loved it! As the mother of a shy child I identified with the characters and just thoroughly enjoyed the experience of reading this with my 10 year old shy Willow.

Patti, Mom

Comment #3 posted on March 13, 2011, 8:20 PM

Wonderful! from beginning to the end. I think we all no of a willow, i have met many kids that would have benifited from such a story including one of my own how loved it and really related to willow. Wonderful Lana

Clare

Comment #4 posted on January 23, 2012, 3:12 PM

The children in my classroom really enjoyed this book. It helped them understand that we are all different and there are some children that feel shy. It is our job to give these classmate a chance to speak out!

Ms. Jarrett and the 2/3 class, Walker Elementary School

The 2011 Willow Awards