Painted Fences

Name: Painted Fences
Brand: Sara Cassidy
SKU: 9781772033519
Price: 19.95 CAD
Availability: InStock

SKU: 9781772033519

Sara Cassidy

$19.95

Hardback Picture book

A charming and evocative story within a story, exploring themes of wartime resourcefulness, local history, friendship, and the reverberations of the past in the present day.

On a beautiful spring day in Victoria’s James Bay neighbourhood, eight-year-old Esther takes a walk with her great-grandfather on his birthday. On the same street and the same date, but seventy-five years earlier, two enterprising young boys go door to door offering to give people’s fences a fresh coat of paint so that they can earn a few extra cents in an era of wartime austerity.

These parallel timelines converge as Esther’s great-grandfather pauses to show her an old fence with multi-coloured layers of peeling paint. He recognizes the avocado-green layer that he painted with his friend one spring day, way back in 1945—an unforgettable birthday that ended up being V-E Day, when the Allies defeated the Nazis in World War II. Through whimsical illustrations and vivid characters, this simple story shows how a pivotal event in history affects ordinary people and brings generations closer together.

Painted Fences does an excellent job portraying what life was like for a child at the time of World War II. ... There are lovely sentiments and learning for children ... with discussion and conversation about Remembrance Day, World War II, and also intergenerational memoirs and the passing of time.