Fire Pie Trout. Melanie Mosher. Illustrated by Renné Benoit. Markham, ON: Fifth House, 2014. 32 pp., hardcover, $19.95. ISBN 978-1-92708-318-5. Subject Headings: Families-Juvenile fiction. Grandfathers-Juvenile fiction. Fear in children-Juvenile fiction. Preschool-grade 1 / Ages 4-6. Review by Ellen Heaney. **½ /4

In her picture book debut, Melanie Mosher has written a story about the strong bond that can exist between a child and a grandparent.

     It is not giving anything away to explain that “fire pie” is young Gracie’s term for pizza, which is what she packs for lunch on the first page. She and Gramps are setting out on a fishing expedition, and on the way to the river the sights and sounds of their surroundings are discussed.:

“Are your sure it’s all right to go fishing in the dark?’

“It’s not really dark, Gracie. It’s just the fog. It’s as thick

as your gramma’s pea soup. I bet the sky will be as

bright as a blue jay by lunch time.”

     Reaching the water, Gramps is quick to put some live bait on his line and get it into the water. But Gracie hesitates to impale the wiggling worms, and, one by one, she lets them slither away into the grass while pretending to fish with only her plastic bobber.

     After Gramps catches a trout, Gracie asks:

“Are you sure I’m not too young to be fishing?

I’m too young to stay up late.”

“I reckons the fish don’t know how old you are,

Gracie. All they know is how tasty that worm looks.”

     Gracie finally gets the idea to bait her hook with a piece of the pizza and quickly lands a fish, her “fire pie trout”. She laughs while Gramps congratulates her on her catch and agrees that she is not too young to fish.

     Illustrator Renné Benoit has successfully captured the feeling of a cool, misty morning turning to sunshine and the warm relationship between adult and child who are shown as solid, rounded figures. The text tells the story adequately but is a bit drawn out; and Gramps is overly idealized as the sage grandparent.

     While readers can be pleased that Gracie has reached a milestone in her growing up, it does not seem to make sense that she is unable to bring herself to put live worms on her hook and yet has no compunction about catching a real trout (which does not appear to be going to be thrown back).

Recommended with Reservations.

Ellen Heaney is a retired children’s librarian living on Coquitlam, BC.

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