All her life, Canadian artist and author Emily Carr retained a strong sense of connection with her own childhood, and there are many elements in her life story of interest to young people. In this picture book, brother and sister Michael and Diane Carmel Léger introduce Carr through the menagerie of birds and animals she kept in her rambling Victoria rooming house, The House of All Sorts. Diane Léger writes a many-layered story of discovery, imagination, and artistry, told through the viewpoint of a young boy named Paul, who comes to Victoria with his mother (in the era of bell-bottom pants and original VW Beetles) to spend a summer in the oddly named house. Their landlord, elderly Mr. Tweedie, tells Paul about Emily Carr and her animals and shows him Carr’s drawings in the attic, which inspire the lonely boy.  

Illustrations and text work very well together here, with the pictures not only amplifying the story but giving us additional information that’s important for understanding what’s going on. Although the text tells us that Paul cannot see into Mr. Tweedie’s room, the accompanying illustration shows us that Mr. Tweedie is also a painter. Although the text tells us that Mr. Tweedie does not answer when Paul knocks on the door to say goodbye, we see Mr. Tweedie’s wall covered with the drawings Paul has made for him, as the old man waves a sad goodbye. In a touching twist, when Paul and his mother leave, Mr. Tweedie becomes the lonely one.   

Though he reproduces the totemic Carr drawings on the attic walls, Michael Léger makes no attempt to suggest Carr’s own work in the style of his illustrations, in which pastel colours and a sense of large interior spaces indicate Paul’s own feelings and perspective. Both pictures and text, however, effectively show how stories about Carr can spark a child’s imagination.