Community Picture Books with Rina Singh 

We are so excited to have Rina Singh join us today to share information about Community Picture Books!


Rina Singh is an award-winning Children’s Author and Spoken Word coach. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Concordia University, Montreal, and a teaching degree from McGill University. As a writer, she is drawn to real life stories about social justice, the environment, and wildlife preservation.

Grandmother School, (Orca Books) which won the BC Yukon Prize for literature affirms the life-changing power of education.  111 Trees, (Kids Can Press) won the Social Justice literature award and inspires us to become eco-feminists. The Lion Queen was among the New York Library’s Best Books of 2023.

Her books have been translated in many languages and have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist.

A lover of poetry, photography, beautiful books, and trees – she lives in a blue house in Toronto.

Reading picture books that explore community helps children forge deep ties to the world around them. These books play a crucial role in children’s development by nurturing empathy, comprehension, and a feeling of being part of something larger. With relatable stories and vibrant artwork, they expose children to various cultures, customs, and situations, encouraging them to value both their own community and beyond.

I’m going to share two of my books with you.

111 Trees by Rina Singh and Illustrated by Marianne Ferrer Published by Kids Can Press.

My inspiration for writing 111 Trees was Sundar Paliwal, an eco-feminist creating wonders in the small community of Piplantri in Rajasthan, India. I have been alarmed about nature and what we as humans have done to our environment. And gender inequality has always infuriated me. I gravitate towards stories that can help restore the balance. I got excited when I heard about this man planting 111 trees every time a girl was born in his village. I knew I had to write about him.

In Sundar’s story everything came together–– nature, activism, eco-feminism, and community. Since the story seemed too good to be true, I needed to see the village to believe it. So, in 2016, I went to India and planned a trip to Udaipur but was unable to get Sundar’s contact. I flew there anyways. (I don’t advise anyone should arrive unprepared like I did). I reached the village by taxi, and the local school principal welcomed me and contacted Sundar for me. I toured the village with him and then he invited me to meet his family. It was a beautiful day. He told me his story.

After the heartbreaking loss of his mother in childhood, and then his young daughter in adulthood, Sundar had a revelation in his grief–– he drew three lines 111 in the sand for three things: Water, Daughter, Trees, that became his mantra of action. He turned a desert village into a thriving community surrounded by forests. Marianne Ferrer helped me bring the story to life. The book got many awards including the 2021 Social Justice Award. Kat Caric, a blogger called the book a small miracle and said it could change the planet! Wow!

GRANDMOTHER SCHOOL by Rina Singh, Illustrated by Ellen Rooney. Published byOrca Book Publishers


Grandmother School was inspired by true events that happened in 2016 in Phangane, a small village in Maharashtra, India. It is so remote that you probably wouldn’t find it on the map.  I read a news clip that Yogendra Bangar, the village teacher thought to himself – that everyone in the village could read, write, and do enough math to get by except the 29 grandmothers. So, he built Aajibaichi Shala, a one room school for grandmothers. He invited them to attend, provided them with school bags and gave them bright pink saris as uniforms. They were all over the age of sixty, and the oldest grandmother was ninety. Some were hard of hearing and many of them forgot what they had learned too easily, but they all came, dressed in their bright pink saris. They were excited to go to school for the first time in their lives. I fell in love with the story.

The idea to write a fictional story set in that village came from a personal memory. The two characters are based on my grandmother and me. Biji, my grandmother was the most loving person and had also never gone to school. She used to tell me stories and I regret not teaching her anything in return. I dedicated this book to her memory.

I wanted to discover the joy that education would bring to the community of grandmothers. This is one of my favourite illustrations. Learning to sign her name was a milestone moment in Aaji’s life. The book is brilliantly illustrated by Ellen Rooney, and it won the 2021 Christie Harris Children’s Literature Prize.

Many of my stories are rooted in small and even remote communities that have been transformed by one individual’s activism. I personally don’t picket, march, rally, plant trees, or start schools for illiterate grandmothers, but the act of writing about these everyday heroes is my contribution to social change.

Maybe I’m an activist of words.


Thanks so much for joining us, Rina!

You can find Rina on her website www.rinasingh.com or follow her on Twitter and Instagram @storiesbysingh.

The Story Behind We're Better Together with Eileen Spinelli

We are so excited to have Eileen Spinelli join us today to share the story behind, We're Better Together.


Eileen Spinelli has been writing since she was six years old. Her very first poem was about a sailboat. When she is not writing (or reading) you might find her walking the lake path with her husband and fellow author, Jerry Spinelli; playing MahJongg with friends, knitting scarves for the grandkids, hanging out with the family or baking cookies for community movie night.


When Marlo Scrimizzi, editor at Highlights Press, invited me to write a book--title to be We’re Better Together--I was delighted to say yes.

Marlo and I had worked together before. We make a good team.

Plus the theme touched a responsive chord in me. We ARE better together aren’t we? How dreary life would be without family and friends, neighbors and colleagues. It would be an easy topic to write about.

There was one issue, however. Since my first love has always been poetry, I lean toward a lyrical style. For this book, Marlo wanted the text to be simpler and more straight-forward. That was my challenge.

Several times Marlo had to “rein me in.” And she did it with kindness and grace.

The book offers many examples--from a child’s point of view-- of how we might be better together.

Some examples come from my own childhood: huddling under the kitchen table with my cousins during a summer storm...playing circle games with my friends in the park...using my toy mop to clean up spills.

I also used experiences from the lives of our kids and grandkids: searching everywhere for a beloved blanket that has gone missing...working together on crafts... delivering soup to a neighbor.

Marlo added her ideas as well. She suggested that a young mother carrying groceries while pushing a stroller might need some help.

We came up with many more “better together” scenarios than we could use. So some had to be cut.

One scenario that we cut was an airport scene. Marlo liked the idea at first but then commented that it was feeling a little out of place compared to the rest of the scenes.

While the main message of the book is to speak to the happy aspects of doing things together there is a secondary one: the fact that life can be fun without hours of screen time. I don’t say so directly in the book but it’s included in every page.

Considering that the book is not a long one, it did take a fair amount of revising. My least favorite part of the process. Ha!

And what picture book journey is complete without celebrating the art? We’re Better Together was endearingly illustrated by Ekaterina Trukham.

The first time I saw her illustrations I couldn’t stop smiling.

I love her bold, crayon-box colors, the expressions on the sweet faces, the playful spirit on each spread.

My personal favorite is the bath-time spread--complete with yellow rubber ducky.

On the last page real kids tell about how they are making the world a better place. Tucker, age five, helped clear the table without being asked. Walter, age six shoveled snow off his neighbor’s sidewalk. Anastasia, age six let someone use her coat because they were cold.

There are more ways to be part of a community than you might imagine. The question is posed: How do YOU work together? Something to think about.


Thanks so much for joining us, Eileen!

You can find Eileen on her website at www.eileenspinelli.com.