Pistes d'exploration

Discuss how it would feel to move to a new neighbourhood and to know no one.

The author never says that Colette has recently moved into a new home. How can the reader infer that she has just arrived?

Colette says that she is looking for her pet. This is certainly not true; is it a lie? Reread the story and explain Colette

With this as a model, create a storyboard for your own story. You may want to consider using some of the conventions of colour that the illustrator uses.

Learn the words and expressions needed to understand the story: neighbourhood, parakeet, lost pet, have you seen, etc.

Examine the cover and endpapers. Make predictions about the story.

As the story is read aloud, join in to choral read the parakeet’s description.

Think of a pet you would like and imagine possible descriptions. Exaggerate those descriptions as this author did. Create a mini book version of your pet story.

Colette wants a pet so much that she creates a lie or fib. When do you think the children stop believing the story and start joining in Colette’s imaginary world?

Mots-clés

Picture book , animals , exaggeration , friendship , graphic tale , imagination , lost and found , Montréal , moving (household) , neighbours , pets , recurring patterns , storytelling , structures and features , tall tales

Commentaire descriptif

When Colette moves to her new neighbourhood, Mile End, in Montréal, she is not sure how to connect to the children she meets in the alleyways near her house. So she makes up a story about a lost pet, a parakeet named Marie-Antoinette. The more questions she is asked, the more elaborate her answers become. The tall tale soon grows so fantastical that the children in the neighbourhood are more interested in the search than in working out whether the pet exists. Written in graphic novel format, speech bubbles contain lovely bursts of dialogue that connect the children through adventure and imagination. “Have you seen Colette’s lost pet? It’s a parakeet.” “Gee, that’s not the kind of bird I usually see around here. What colour is it?” “Um … it’s blue! With a bit of yellow on its neck.” “Hmm … not much camouflage. Must be exhausted from hiding. It probably stopped at Scott’s birdfeeder.” Artwork has a vintage feel with smudgy black-and-white pencil drawings and splashes of colour. Colette stands out in her yellow rain slicker, while tiny touches of blue, much like her make-believe parakeet, appear in highlights across the page. As the story gathers momentum, so do the children parading across the neighbourhood and marching through the pages in a friendly sea of faces. A lovely take on being new and making friends.