Nominated for B.C. Chocolate Lily Award 2018/19!
A West Coast Summer
ISBN 978-1-55017-843-2 • Harbour Publishing • 2018
81/2" × 11" • 32 pages • 15 colour illustrations
$19.95 Hardcover available at fine bookstores.
WATERCOLOURS BY CAROL EVANS, TEXT BY CAROLINE WOODWARD
A gorgeous children’s picture book about summer on the Pacific Northwest coast.
Available on bookstore shelves NOW. Hardcover edition at $19.95.
"A West Coast Summer is simply magical! You'll find yourself transported into the wonder of a perfect day by the ocean. A Must-have for anyone who loves to play!"
Robert Budd, co-author of the Northwest Coast Legends and First West Coast Books series with Roy Henry Vickers
"I have long admired Carol Evans's art. What a treat to see her paintings in her first book for children. The light, the ripples of water, the joy! Evans's paintings vibrate with the magic of rocks and tide pools as seen from a child's point of view. Accompanied by Caroline Woodward's lyrical text, this book feels like author and illustrator take the reader by the hand for a wondrous walk in the sunshine. A must-read, not just for West Coasters but for all who want to experience the beauty of wild Pacific shores."
Margriet Ruurs, author of Stepping Stones: A Refugee Family's Journey
Book Description
Master watercolourist Carol Evans often spends
summers vagabonding up and down the Pacific Northwest coast,
finding picturesque anchorages in communities from Gabriola
Island to Klemtu. On these travels, Evans captures the beauty
of life at the ocean’s edge, with a special skill for depicting the
interplay of light and water. This beautiful volume collects
fourteen of her marvelous paintings, all inspired by children
delighting in the coastal landscape—racing bikes along sand flats,
searching under logs and in tide pools for tiny creatures, jigging at
the government dock for herring, dancing at a totem pole raising
ceremony, making memories and leaving footprints in the sand.
Matching Evans’s wonderful watercolours with a lilting
rhyming story by Caroline Woodward, A West Coast Summer
tells of a timeless, idyllic summer where “Sea salt in the air floats
everywhere /and cedars smell so sweet beside the shore.” Readers
of all ages will enjoy this charming collaboration, sure to become
a West Coast children’s classic.
CAROL EVANS’s work has achieved international acclaim
as part of many group exhibitions and private collections
worldwide. Her art has been published in West Coast: Homeland
of Mist (SummerWild Productions, 1992), Releasing the Light
(Raincoast Books, 1997), and the bestselling The Shores We Call
Home (Harbour Publishing, 2010). She lives on Saltspring Island,
BC, with husband Bryn King.
CAROLINE WOODWARD is the author of the children’s books
The Village of Many Hats (Oolichan Books, 2012) and Singing
Away the Dark (Simply Read Books, 2010). She has also written
books for adults, including a bestselling memoir, Light Years:
Memoir of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper (Harbour Publishing,
2015). She lives and works as a lightkeeper on the Lennard Island
Lightstation, near Tofino, BC, with husband Jeff George.
Reviews
Caroline Woodward and Carol Evans celebrate ‘A West Coast Summer’
Authors present collaboration in Tofino.
MARCIE CALLEWAERT - Special to the Westerly
Many of us moved to the coast because of the beauty of a West Coast summer. Caroline Woodward, local author and lighthouse keeper at Lennard Island, has turned her love for that beauty into a children’s picture book titled, ‘A West Coast Summer’.
The book is a collaboration between Woodward and Salt Spring Island artist Carol Evans, which was brought about after a nudge by Harbour Publishing who thought the pairing would be a great success.
Unlike her first picture book, ‘Singing Away in the Dark’, ‘A West Coast Summer’ was written in response to the art she was provided with, instead of illustrations being completed later on to complement the story. Woodward said she found her inspiration for the story from Evans’ paintings, “which are so highly realistic that they can initially appear photographic” and her parents’ stories of visiting the “seaside in Holland and Wales” during their youth.
Following multiple drafts and a version written entirely in haiku, Woodward said she found success for the story in ‘A West Coast Summer’ by transporting herself “back to being a seven-year-old child again and tapping into [her] sense of touch, hearing, smell, taste, sight and wonder at the ocean and adventure”.
Despite their close partnership during the writing of the book, Woodward and Evans actually did not meet in person until the October, 2018, book launch at the Tofino Community Theatre.
After the launch, they followed a “a busy schedule, doing the slide show and answering questions and reading the book to adults and school children in four different theatres, libraries and the Maritime Museum in Victoria. Plus, signing books at four different bookstore events.”
Woodward and her husband, Jeff George, have been based at the Lennard Island light station since 2008.
She said she finds life at the light station makes working as an author much easier.
“Shift work helps structure my days and…the wilderness and isolation of my life as a lightkeeper gives me lots of uncluttered time to think and ponder and solve fictional problems,” she said.
“’A West Coast Summer’ launched in September of 2018 and was on the B.C. bestseller list for 14 weeks in a row and ended up being number 10 in the Top 20 BC Bestselling books for 2018, so we are quite pleased and amazed by that,” Woodward said.
With the great success of the first collaboration between Woodward and Evans, there is hope for another project for the two of them and Woodward said she is “mulling over some possibilities” on how to continue their partnership.
Carol Evans Paintings Inspire Children’s Picture Book
By Elizabeth Nolan - Gulf Islands Driftwood
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Summer may be categorically over on the West Coast, but the magic of spar-
kling sunshine on clear ocean coves is an everlasting joy in the paintings of Carol Evans.
People of all ages now have the opportunity to return as often as they wish to
those magical restorative images in A
West Coast Summer, a new children’s
book that pairs the Salt Spring artist’s
work with a sweet rhyming narrative by
Caroline Woodward.
Evans’ large realist watercolour paint
ings are often mistaken for photographs,
so expertly does she capture the complex interplay of light and water. Her art
is inspired by a deep knowledge of the
coast, which she travels by sailboat ever
summer with her husband. While many
of her works focus on a special piece of
landscape, from Walker Hook to Jervis
Inlet, she also enjoys including people
interacting with the environment. A West
Coast Summer is based on 14 paintings
that showcase children playing around
the ocean shore.
“They always seem to be so excit
ed and joyful and thrilled to be at the
ocean,” Evans said on a call from temporary moorage in Montague Harbour.
“I love it when we’re out on the water
and we hear a boatload of kids com
ing. They’re like little wild creatures —
they just love to get right in and explore
everything.”
The idea for the children’s book came
from Harbour Publishing, who put out Evans’ best-
selling book The Shores We Call Home in 2010.
They reached out to Woodward as the possible
author of the text. A former publishing representative herself, Woodward left that world to become
a lighthouse keeper southwest of Tofino around a
decade ago. She is also the author of multiple children’s books and a best-selling memoir of her life
in the lighthouse.
“I leapt at the chance to collaborate with Carol,”
Woodward said. “I just dove into it and spent a lot
of time with around 24 images they sent to me.”
Woodward said at first she was so taken with
Evans’ water and misty coastal scenes that she
was inspired to create a series of poems based on
Japanese forms. When Harbour Publishing gently
reminded her that wasn’t quite what they were
after, she was so deeply acquainted with the paint-
ings that she had no trouble creating a sequence
and child-friendly text to go with it. The images are
connected by the repeated verse: “To the sea, to the
sea, who or what waits here for me?”
“It made sense to put them together,” Woodward
said about her choices. “Everyone was just ecstatic
to be there, by the sea. I was able to be seven years
old again and get right in there about what was
exciting.”
“I think she was so good at piecing out how a
child would feel,” Evans said. “Because you know,
when I’m making a painting, I am thinking about
that too — how would that boy feel going fishing
with his dad?”
One of the lovely things about Evans’ images
is the children pictured are based on those she’s
observed in life, from family members to people
she’s met on her boat trips, to complete strangers
she’s witnessed having a good time. First Nations’
presence on the coast is not forgotten, and demonstrated as just part of life in B.C., their joy as natural
as that of more recent inhabitants and those who
visit just during the summer.
With beautiful printing quality, A West Coast
Summer promises to be cherished equally by those
lucky enough to live on the coast and those who
don’t, and as appealing to adult art lovers as to children dazzled by water, trees and ocean.
“At the heart of all the things I paint around here
is [the desire] to have a bond, a relationship with
the environment and to hand it down to our loved
ones, as intact as we can,” Evans said. “And the best
gift parents can give to their children is to introduce them to the quiet of the forest and the sea and
to become a lifelong friend to it.”
Both Evans and Woodward will be on Salt Spring
for a book launch at the library set for Thursday,
Oct. 4 from 1 to 2 p.m. The event will include slides
and stories, with people of all ages welcome.
Evans’s illustrations capture the jubilation of children exploring the seashore, inspiring young readers to take their own journey to the sea to discover who or what waits for them in the Pacific Northwest—and learn that the best memories are those shared with family and friends.
Readers of all ages will enjoy this charming collaboration, sure to become a West Coast children’s classic.
A West Coast Summer
49th Shelf - www.49thshelf.com
To the sea, to the sea,
who or what waits here for me?
Pairing two dozen of Carol Evans’s wonderful watercolours with a lilting rhyming story by Caroline Woodward, A West Coast Summer tells of a timeless, idyllic season where “Sea salt in the air floats everywhere / and cedars smell so sweet beside the shore.” Children race bikes along sand flats, search under logs and in tide pools for tiny creatures, jig at the dock for herring, dance at a totem raising ceremony, pick berries, make memories and leave footprints in the sand.
Evans’s illustrations capture the jubilation of children exploring the seashore, inspiring young readers to take their own journey to the sea to discover who or what waits for them in the Pacific Northwest—and learn that the best memories are those shared with family and friends.
Readers of all ages will enjoy this charming collaboration, sure to become a West Coast children’s classic.
A West Coast Summer
By Helen Kubiw - CanLit for LittleCanadians
While A West Coast Summer may be a perfect book for reminiscences of a summer past, I think we should enjoy one last plunge into a summer on Canada's West Coast.
A West Coast Summer is a print gallery of dramatic artwork by watercolour artist Carol Evans who lives on Salt Spring Island. Her paintings–cameos, single pages pieces and art that spans double-spreads–depict children in activities along the coast, both on land and on the water, sometimes solitary, often with companions as they explore, play and reflect. It's an intense experience for all the senses as the reader steps foot in the water, cycles on a land spit, scrutinizes the small amidst the majestic landscape of trees and rock, honours their ancestry and accompanies friends and family on common and extraordinary adventures.
You will hear descriptors of the art as gorgeous, breath-taking and beautiful and they are all those things. By Carol Evans's hand, the water becomes palpable, lapping or still, serene or powerful, a playmate, a well of life, or a depth of secrets. Her ability to give light to landscapes both open and sheltered is astounding. Most readers will feel the need to look closer to convince themselves that Carol Evans's art is not photographic or at least not produced with a camera. It is not, but it is certainly true to life while evocative of time and place and feeling.
Caroline Woodward, author children's book including Singing Away the Dark (illustrated by Julie Morstad, Simply Read Books, 2011), knows how to put power in words. She hears what children are feeling and thinking and takes the reader with them to the places they visit. The lines
To the sea, to the sea,
who or what waits here for me?
are repeated several times through the book, with rhyming answers like
Sea salt in the air floats everywhere
and cedars smell so sweet beside the shore.
We explore the bog and flip over a log
to find beetles and bugs galore!
The dedication from Carol Evans is a telling statement about the intent of her art and the book:
Dedicated to all the children who will inherit this coastal homeland. And to the children who come to visit her. May we hand it down to you intact.
For those who live on or visit the west coast, A West Coast Summer will be familiar and comfortable. It will be home. For those who have never been, the book will be an invitation.
For Teachers Participating in the Chocolate Lily Awards
Caroline Woodward grew up on a Peace River farm in the northeast region of British Columbia without electricity or plumbing. No electric lights, no flushing toilets, no cell phones, no TVs, no easy to use microwaves or stoves or cozy heaters. There were hundreds of acres to explore though, and horses to ride to the river banks and chickens to look after and little calves to feed and a big vegetable garden to grow and wild berries to pick. The winters were long and cold except for the welcome chinooks and the summers were warm with long hours of daylight because it was so far north.
Now, after a lot of adventures working with all kinds of interesting people, young and old and in-between, in Sri Lanka, India, Switzerland, and Canada, and running a village bookstore in New Denver, B.C. and organizing all sorts of festivals and teaching creative writing to all kinds of interesting people, young and old and in-between, Caroline is a lighthouse keeper and a writer near Tofino, B.C.
How the Author Began Writing
Caroline began her career as a writer in high school when she worked as a reporter for the Alaska Highway News in Fort St. John for two years and was paid for her writing just like adult reporters. But long before that, she wrote poems, stories and plays, starring her friends, in elementary school. Caroline loves reading and listening to stories since as far back as she can remember, which is a very, very long way indeed. (I would like to be able to paint beautiful pictures too but the sad truth is, I’m just not that good at it. Oh well. Author’s true confession. Signed, C.H. Woodward) We all have to find out what we’re most interested in doing and what we’d like to do most of all in this life so that’s why she sticks to telling stories and enjoys working with wonderful artists when it comes to creating picture books!
How A West Coast Summer Came To Be
One day, Harbour Publishing, the book publisher who has published Caroline’s last two books for adults, emailed her some beautiful pictures of children playing and exploring the beaches and docks and the ocean. The paintings were so realistic that she thought they were photographs at first. So there she was living with her husband and their dog on a tiny island called Lennard Island looking at wonderful paintings done by a Salt Spring Island painter called Carol Evans and her publisher asked if she would think about writing a rhyming story to go with the paintings! “Yes!” she said, immediately, because she loved the paintings so much. After many experiments with words and putting the paintings in the right order and thinking that the best chorus to repeat through the book would be, ‘To the sea, to the sea, who or what waits here for me?’ This is because when I was in elementary school, I listened to a big sea shell our teacher, who was from Burnaby, brought to our little two-room school in the north. ‘Woosh, swish, woosh!’ I heard inside the shell and to me this was the sound of the sea and I always wanted to go there to hear that sound of the waves on the shore and hear the gulls and eagles and smell the salty, damp air and see the tall trees we didn’t have up north and see and smell and touch all the different ferns and flowers too.
Author’s Writing Tip:
Keep a journal of your thoughts and write something in it every day, maybe something you saw on the way to school. Or count the number of birds you saw on a telephone line and imagine if those birds could talk. What would they say to each other? Write to figure things out for yourself. Write so you don’t forget the first time you ever saw snow. Write to make your friends laugh. If you like to draw too, go ahead and make drawings to show what you saw or wondered about or imagined might be happening!
Suggestions for Teachers
List the five senses and lead a discussion about what students might see, hear, touch, smell and taste at the seaside. Think of doing a list seasonally as well to emphasize the changes in seasons and the migrations of birds and whales and salmon and our connections to these natural wonders. If your school is in another region of B.C. far from the coast like mine was, have fun creating A Peace River Summer or A Cranbrook Summer with the five senses as your guide and a rousing discussion of favourite things to do and see and explore (“with family and friends, with two legs or four!”)
Look for the rhyming words in the text of A West Coast Summer and come up with a list below each set of rhyming words with even more words that also rhyme with them.
What I’m Working On Now
I’m working on a picture book about a smart and brave lighthouse cat and I’m also finishing a novel for brave and smart teenagers who are on a solar-powered boat in the North Pacific Ocean set in 2060.
Other books I’ve written for children include Singing Away the Dark (Simply Read Books: 2010) a picture book which was also nominated for a Chocolate Lily Award and The Village of Many Hats (Oolichan Books: 2012) which is for readers between 8-11 years of age.
Students and teachers may contact me at: caroline_woodward@rocketmail.com
2019-2020
www.chocolatelilyawards.com
top of page ^
~ 