A Very Small Something

From A Very Small Something:

Somewhere past the wrinkled maps, and under
another sun, where favourite earrings find new ears
and missing marbles run, the hillsides made
their marvelous shapes for a town called Covington—

And a great pink factory as long as the breeze
weighed truckfuls and truckfuls of bubblegum.

Olivia Bezzlebee lives by the sea in a fantastic town with the world's biggest bubblegum factory, where its citizens blow bubbles all day. But Olivia can't blow a single one and feels as if everyone looks down on her. Leaving Covington to find a place where she might belong, she learns the true meanings of family and home.

A Very Small Something, beautifully illustrated by Alexander Griggs-Burr, is a story to which all children—and any tuned-in parent—will be able to relate. Blowing bubbles may indeed be a very small something . . . but when you are a small child and it's the thing you most want to do, a bubble can mean the whole world.

David Hickey is one of the leading young poets in Canada, and the author of two collections, including Open Air Bindery . He has tested his children's poems in schools across the country for the last seven years. He is finishing a PhD at the University of Western in London, Ontario.

Alexander Griggs-Burr illustrated the Ontario Library Association Red Maple–nominated Nieve in 2010. He lives and works in Stratford, Ontario.