One of the things that teachers of young people believe in most is the importance of speaking to them at their level. This doesn’t mean talking down to them, nor does it mean glossing over subjects an adult may believe them incapable of grasping. That belief presumably lies at the heart of every project Elise Gravel embarks upon. That, and the possible influence of her father, François Gravel, who has been writing for children and young adults since the late 1980s, and from whom she may have learned a little about understanding her audience while bringing her own voice to the drawing table.
Given Elise’s prodigious body of work as writer and illustrator of 30 books and counting, it’s easy to see how seriously she takes her goal, declared on her website as the promotion of ‘diversity, tolerance, respect and empathy.’ There is a great deal of respect and empathy in what she does, not just with the way she approaches every subject, but also in the lightness of touch with which these weighty lessons are dispensed.
Club Microbe treads a path that ought to be familiar to anyone who has read Elise’s earlier work. In The Bug Club, for example, she introduced readers to intriguing facts about spiders, caterpillars, honeybees, and mosquitoes, balancing science with that peculiar brand of gross humour so appealing to children.
She did it again with The Mushroom Fan Club, which encouraged readers to look at what was growing beneath their feet — from coral mushrooms and Lactarius indigo mushrooms to puffballs, chanterelles, and stinkhorn mushrooms. The parent of one reader described it as a book her son was obsessed with, and that detail is key to what makes Gravel’s work so compelling. She has a knack of tapping into a sense of wonder that exists in all of us at an early age, until it is overwhelmed by the prosaic business of living. Look carefully, she says, then look again, and what you find may surprise you.
This time around, her subject is smaller than ever, but populates a world more complex than the one visible to us: microbe families including bacteria, viruses, fungi, protists, and algae.
Gravel offers a succinct lesson on what they are, where they exist, and what makes them important. She also includes experiments that allow readers to grow their own microbes (with safety instructions so they don’t consume the slices of bread they’re growing those germs on). There’s even a cameo by that now infamous coronavirus.
It’s fun, charming, and perfect, not just for young readers, but for anyone who shares Gravel’s contagious brand of inquisitiveness.
Elise Gravel (W/A) • Drawn & Quarterly, $17.95
Review by Lindsay Pereira
