(As Native elders have advised from time immemorial, this ...)
As Native elders have advised from time immemorial, this is a gentle plea to respect the natural environment. When the award-winning poet David Bouchard first saw the artwork of First Nations artist Roy Henry Vickers, he was struck by Vickers’ reverence for nature, the vibrancy of his colors, and his perceptive understanding of Canada's rugged West Coast. He saw in Vickers' images the perfect complement to his own lyrical, thoughtful poetry. They collaborated on the original edition of The Elders Are Watching, which has delighted more than 100,000 readers in four languages.
(Have you danced the round dance yet? Of course, you have ...)
Have you danced the round dance yet? Of course, you have - you're in my dream. You've danced in circles next to me You now know things aren't as they seem. Beloved children's author David Bouchard has teamed up with emerging writer Shelly Willier to create a heart-warming tale in his newest book, The Drum Calls Softly.
(A boy provides a look at life on the prairies of North Am...)
A boy provides a look at life on the prairies of North America and describes the effects of the climate on the people in the heartland of the continent. A boy provides a look at life on the prairies of North America and describes the effects of the climate on the people in the heartland of the continent.
(In the follow-up to the 1994 bestseller, If You're Not fr...)
In the follow-up to the 1994 bestseller, If You're Not from the Prairie, award-winning author David Bouchard has teamed up with well-known artist Peter Shostak to once again explore in verse and image the prairie experience that is so cherished in the memories of countless North Americans. Both in text and image, Prairie Born focuses on the passing of the seasons and their effect on the people and the landscape.
(To help her arrange her paper cut-outs of the animals in ...)
To help her arrange her paper cut-outs of the animals in the Chinese zodiac in the proper order, a young girl's grandmother tells her the story of the race in which each animal secured its place.
(Frightened into sleeplessness by the noisy celebration of...)
Frightened into sleeplessness by the noisy celebration of the Chinese New Year, a young girl takes comfort in her grandmother's soothing story of a dragon, a mother's sorrow, and Buddha.
(In A Barnyard Bestiary David Bouchard focuses his poetic ...)
In A Barnyard Bestiary David Bouchard focuses his poetic insight on domestic animals - some rare, some extinct, and some still quite common. The thread that binds these animals together is the way their relationship with man has deteriorated with the passage of time. Through the voices of such familiar beasts as the Highland Cow, the Buffalo and the Ostrich, and exotics like the Blonde Mangalitza Pig and the Onagadori Chicken, he questions the wisdom of our deliberate neglect of these once-prized beasts whose usefulness belongs to another era.
(History meets myth in this inspiring tale of friendship, ...)
History meets myth in this inspiring tale of friendship, loyalty, and transformation, as Qu Yuan, celebrated poet-in-exile of ancient China, and a sea dragon in the guise of a mermaid develop a curious friendship.
(When Etienne takes his cousin out to play street hockey f...)
When Etienne takes his cousin out to play street hockey for the first time, he has a lot of explaining to do. Street hockey is nothing like ice hockey. Everyone has to wear a No. 9 Canadiens hockey sweater, but beyond that, the game has more to do with a fun day in the snow than with winning or losing. Etienne's cousin comes away with a talisman and a story worth passing on.
(Renowned Cree painter Allen Sapp's inspired and stunning ...)
Renowned Cree painter Allen Sapp's inspired and stunning artwork beautifully complements this sweet story of a young First Nations boy preparing for his first pow-wow. The young boy's Nokum - his beloved grandmother - guides him through the exciting day and watches over him as events unfold.
(This is a one-of-a-kind fairy. No gauzy dresses or flowin...)
This is a one-of-a-kind fairy. No gauzy dresses or flowing tresses for her. No delicate wand with a sparkly tip. She rides a Harley and brandishes a wand of leather. Her hair flies behind her in long braids. Her job is to look after the magical need of the children on the street. And no child needs to worry when she is around Right now the trouble lies with Victoria and her loose tooth.
(Promoting literacy should be our focus from before our ch...)
Promoting literacy should be our focus from before our children are born until they leave secondary school. Teaching children to read and to love reading is the shared responsibility of every teacher, every administrator and every parent.
(Before the angels stars grew dim And wondering hunters he...)
Before the angels stars grew dim And wondering hunters heard their hymn One mystic flute - one hundred drums One message clear, "A King has come!" Not one had ever seen the like By light of day or moon of night Before the angels stars grew dim And wondering hunters heard this hymn...
(Astonishing in their lush realism and symbolic depth, the...)
Astonishing in their lush realism and symbolic depth, the color images in this book by award-winning artist Zhong-Yang Huang draw readers into the mysterious Forbidden City. This fictionalized memoir of Cixi, a former Imperial concubine who ruled behind the throne for nearly half a century, includes intimate details about daily court life and presents a sympathetic look at how this strong woman thrived in a male-dominated world.
David Bouchard is a Canadian writer. He has written more than 50 books in both French and English.
Background
Ethnicity:
Bouchard claims to be of Métis descent (more specifically, Ojibway, his Ojibway name is Zhiibaayaanakwad). This claim of descent is not recognized by the British Columbia Metis Nation.
David Bouchard was born in 1952, in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Career
Bouchard has written several children’s books that celebrate the landscape and rural lifestyle of the author’s childhood on the Canadian prairie. In If You’re Not from the Prairie, for example, a series of poems describes windswept prairies in all seasons, while Henry Ripplinger’s illustrations show a boy throwing snowballs with friends, walking a creek bed alone, and boarding a school bus during a snowstorm. The poems directly address the reader and challenge the audience to learn about the prairie in order to learn about the speaker. “The dialogue style works well rhythmically and makes for a possible story hour or program read-aloud,” observed Susannah Price in School Library Journal. “The book affectionately shows farm life on flat land, wherever the land is,” remarked Mary Harris Veeder in Booklist. A later book, Prairie Born, is another paean to Bouchard’s childhood, as the narrator recounts memories of a simpler, rural time gone by in a voice that is “folksy and familiar,” according to a reviewer for Publishers Weekly.
In Voices from the Wild, Bouchard presents what his subtitle calls a “sensagoria,” that is, a catalog of the senses - touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing - each illustrated by five wild animals whose reliance on the particular sense aids in finding food, evading predators, and protecting the young. Like his earlier books, the text of Voices from the Wild is a series of first-person poems, here, each is in the voice of the animal showcased, who urges an unseen painter to depict accurately the animal’s effective use of one of the senses. “But while Bouchard casts the painter as a mediator between wildlife and humans, it is the poet’s rhythmic, quietly urging voice that empowers the art,” remarked a critic for Publishers Weekly. Booklist reviewer Lauren Peterson praised Bouchard’s “effective” use of the first person in his poems and predicted that, because the author relies upon concrete images over abstract language to describe the animals’ activities, “this attractive, well-designed volume will be useful in science instruction as well as in many areas of language arts.” Patty Lawlor, a reviewer for Quill & Quire, similarly called Voices from the Wild “an enjoyable marriage between language, natural history, and Ron Parker’s outstanding wildlife paintings.”
Bouchard has published a trilogy of books on Chinese culture. In the first, The Great Race, the author devises a fictional scenario that explains how ancient Chinese astronomers created the zodiac. A grandmother tells her small granddaughter the legend of a race around the world conceived by Buddha between the rat, pig, tiger, ox, and the other animals of the traditional Chinese zodiac. Bouchard’s version of this legend celebrates “friendship, cooperation, and self-sacrifice among the animals who finish the race behind the conniving rat,” observed a School Library Journal contributor. Booklist reviewer Shelle Rosenfeld celebrated The Great Race as “not only an interesting story but also a fine introduction to the Chinese zodiac.” In The Dragon New Year, Bouchard utilizes a similar scenario between a grandmother and her granddaughter to tell the legend of how the traditional Chinese celebration of the new year began. Here, Bouchard creates “a dramatic story told in strong, spare prose,” according to Joanne Findon in Quill & Quire. In The Mermaid's Muse, Bouchard devises a legend that explains the origins of the dragon-boat races. Here again, the author’s writing was described as “economical and dramatic,” in the words of a reviewer for Maclean’s. All three books are illustrated by Zhong-Yang Huang in a fashion that emphasizes the emotions of the easily frightened little girl in The Dragon New Year, and the various characteristics of the animals in The Great Race.
The Journal of Etienne Mercier both carries on the strengths of Bouchard’s earlier books and pushes at the limits of the picture book genre, according to Quill & Quire reviewer Patty Lawlor. In this fictionalized diary account of explorer Etienne Mercier’s journey to the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1853, the author first establishes the character of his narrator as good-natured, friendly, and curious, then, through subsequent entries “delivers an amazingly effective introduction to the people, customs, languages, and wildlife of the time,” Lawlor maintained. The book also prints the verses of ten French-Canadian folk songs of the era, and a companion CD features Bouchard's reading of the story and rendition of the songs. The result is an “innovative glimpse of Canadian history,” concluded Lawlor.
David Bouchard is married to Vicki Bouchard. They have a daughter Victoria Patricia. He adopted Vicki's children Todd and Ashleigh. He also had two children from a previous marriage, Adrien and Etienne.