WITH DELIGHTFUL PHOTOS and engaging text, going out to our Apples & Honey (2 Months to Two Years) Age Group this month is Welcome Song for Baby by Richard Van Camp. This sweet book offers a Jewish perspective on the many joys of welcoming a little one into the family.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Welcome Song for Baby was written by author Richard Van Camp, a member of the Dogrib (Tlicho) Nation from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada. Van Camp is a versatile writer, having written poems, short stories, and novellas. He is currently a creative writing professor at the University of British Columbia.
In a PaperTigers.org interview with Judith Saltman, Van Camp says recurring themes in his writing include family, identity, and culture.
“I was raised away from my people. So, because I'm half White and half Dogrib, family and identity are recurring themes in my writing,” he says.
Van Camp believes stories are medicine. “When you read the Good Book it says, ‘In the beginning was the Word,’” he explains. “Words are powerful. Words can maim. Words can stop somebody from growing, but they can also heal, help mend. With words you can give people the answers they've been looking for their whole lives.
REVIEWS & ACCOLADES
PJ Library isn’t the only free book program giving away copies of Van Camp’s “Welcome Song for Baby.” The British Columbia-based program, Books for BC Babies, has selected it, too.
American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides “critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books.” In 2007, AICL gave Van Camp’s book a glowing review in the piece “Richard Van Camp's Welcome Song for Baby: A Lullaby for Newborns” by Beverly Slapin.
“Welcome Song is a song of hope, a song of joy, a song of celebration, an honoring song for babies and the promise they bring to the universe,” Slapin writes.
Moreover, Slapin gives accolades to the imagery along with the text. “The color photographs, of babies together with their parents, together with other babies, asleep, sleepy and looking at their new world, perfectly complement Van Camp’s lullaby,” she writes.
University of Manitoba’s Canadian Review of Materials (CM) gave Welcome Song for Baby some similar attention in 2007, when it too formally reviewed the book.
In his CM review of the Van Camp’s book for newborns, writer Dave Jenkinson gives the book a “Highly Recommended” rating.
According to Jenkinson, Welcome Song for Baby is as much for parents as it is for babies. “The board book's contents, a lullaby, alert those given the gift of a newborn child to the reality that their world has been forever changed by this life they have created, a life which is filled with limitless potential,” he writes.
BOOKS FOR BABIES
Do you know a family with a baby or toddler who might enjoy a book like Welcome Song for Baby by Richard Van Camp? Use our online “Tell a Friend” form, and share the story of PJ Library!
April 2, 2013