Wide-eyed walking: Children's book challenges readers' assumptions, encourages observation

A Winnipeg children's author hopes her new book prompts readers to look at the world around them with fresh eyes.

With What Do You See When You Walk With Me?, author and illustrator Shannon Dee says she wants to encourage dialogue between parents and children about how they view the people around them, and the way experiences shape our perceptions.

The story follows a young girl, Tanya, and her older brother as they go for a walk. Tanya's brother has been tasked with keeping an eye on his sister, but his eyes are glued to his phone, and thus he misses the strange and wonderful sights all around him, like people walking pet pigs, or geese waiting for a bus — things which Tanya is well aware of.

"She's looking at the people, she's checking to see how tall they are — do they have a nice face, are they grumpy-looking, what's going on?" Dee said in an interview with CBC Radio's Weekend Morning Show.

The book's illustrations also challenge readers to reconsider their assumptions. In one scene, two boys are seen standing beside a building, and one boy is spray painting the wall as a police officer approaches.

The reader assumes the boys are tagging the wall, but on the next page you see that the owner of the building has paid the boy to paint a mural, while the other boy is the son of the police officer, who has come to give him tickets to a baseball game.

Inspired by anxiety in children and parents

Part of the inspiration for the book came from a disturbing incident around the time when her now-adult son was one year old, Dee said. Another boy had been abducted from a mall and murdered, and the boy's father started a campaign telling kids not to talk to strangers.

"And while I understand the reasoning behind it, it created a lot of fear and anxiety in children and adults. All our children, you could get them fingerprinted at the mall," Dee said.

She recalled walking with another friend and her children when an elderly woman came up to them and said hello. The kids turned away and refused to respond.

"And I thought, 'This has gone too far,'" Dee said. She wrote a poem for the kids to recite on their walk, which then became the text of the book.

Dee also drew illustrations that touch on matters both personal and political, such as her deceased husband, or a red dress symbolizing missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The characters in the book also represent a diversity of ethnicities, abilities and gender identities.

Even the page numbers take on special meaning. International students and educational assistants at the high school where Dee works helped her write the numbers in different languages, including Hindi, Irish, Punjabi and sign language.

"It was so interesting to me to see their faces light up — and with staff members as well — to be included, to see their language, and when other people are reading through the book. It's not a lot, it's one number, but they feel included. There's something familiar and special about them, as well," Dee said.

The launch for What Do You See When You Walk With Me? is Saturday, Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson in Winnipeg.