Acclaimed children’s authors Gary Kent and Kim La Fave will visit Courtenay this Saturday at 2 p.m. to give a presentation at the Courtenay Branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Library.
They will give a presentation based on their new book, Gubby Builds a Boat (Harbour Publishing, $19.95).
Gubby Builds a Boat is a sequel to the authors’ successful children’s book, Fishing with Gubby, which was nominated for several awards when it was published in 2010, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Children (illustration) and a BC Book Prize for best book published in B.C.
In Gubby Builds a Boat, Gubby, a salmon fisherman, his nephew Cam, and his cat Puss, are headed home to Gibsons on his beloved fishing troller, the Flounder, when they begin taking on water.
After a trip to Grumpy Bob’s shop to see what’s wrong, it becomes apparent that Gubby needs a new boat. He travels to Steveston to see Minoru, a Japanese boat builder, who guides him through all the steps of building a wooden gillnetter.
Building a fishing boat is hard work — they must choose the perfect fir timber for the new boat’s keel, steam and bend its ribs and planks, apply the paint and finishing touches and await the exciting arrival of the heavy diesel engine. Along the way, Gubby and Cam also get to experience the excitement of life on the wharfs of Steveston.
There’s a wildly unsuccessful duck hunting trip, a trip to a nearby orphanage to deliver Christmas presents, and many more seaside antics. And when the Flounder Too is finally complete, all their friends, old and new, join in on the big celebration!
Sunshine Coast resident La Fave, a Governor-General’s Award-winning artist, is the illustrator of Amos’s Sweater (by Janet Lunn) — winner of the Ruth Schwartz Children’s Book Award and the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Award for illustration — Follow That Star (by Kenneth Oppel), the best-selling The Bones Book and Skeleton (by Stephen Cumbaa) and many other children’s books.
Kent grew up in Vancouver and has his BA from the University of B.C. He was a commercial fisherman and salmon troller for 10 years.
In addition to being a children’s author, he is a furniture maker and instructor at the Inside Passage School of Fine Woodworking. Kent lives in Roberts Creek. Gubby Builds a Boat is his second book.
This event is made possible with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and is sponsored by the Vancouver Island Regional Library. The Courtenay Library is at 300 Sixth St.
For more information about the presentation, please 250-334-3369.
— Courtenay Library