Join author KL Kivi and illustrator Amber Santos to celebrate the launch of their new book “the Town of Nothing.” The all-ages book pokes fun at the Jumbo Municipality, where there are no residents and no citizens. Join us for snacks, a reading, and a celebration. Profits from sales of the book support the campaign to keep Jumbo Wild forever!
Nelson Public Library
Tuesday July 7, 6:30 pm
About the book
The preposterousness of making a piece of wilderness into a town with no people became such an obsession for K.Linda Kivi the summer she camped near Jumbo, in the neighbouring Farnham Valley, that she wrote a kids’ book about it. Only it’s not just a kids’ book. It’s an everybody book, depending on your level of understanding of puns, plays on words and the absurdity of destroying magnificent mountains and valleys for a few rich people.
Illustrated by Amber Santos, The Town of Nothing makes fun of a situation that is anything but funny, says Kivi. “When [Jumbo Glacier Resort manager] Grant Costello would come out and tell me, ‘This is the municipal boundary,’ I’d look over and see nothing there.” And so, we meet the inhabitants of Nothing. “The Mathematician of Nothing said, ‘Nothing from nothing, leaves nothing,’ and the Musician of Nothing added, ‘You got to have something, if you want to be with me.’” (Kivi’s favourite image, pondering the square root of nothing.)
Admittedly I wondered if a kid would get this reference to the 1970s Billy Preston hit, so I called my daughter, a grade 2 teacher, and asked her if her kids would like a book like this.
“They’ll love it if there’s repetition. Is there any?”
“‘Nothing’ is repeated.”
“What???”
And so the fun began. And then there are the illustrations by bear-loving Amber Santos, who admitted it was going to be a challenge to illustrate nothing with a bear on every page. Find out for yourself how it all works out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Maa Press has also published Kivi’s book of poems, Unknown Hum; When the Path is Not a Straight Line by Ellen Burt; and The Purcell Suite, a collection of essays on the Purcell Mountains.
(from Articulate Magazine)