Picture This!

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Although Steve Thompson, a retired eastern Ontario teacher, has written
poems, short stories, novels, and a regional history booklet, he may be
defined by his rural tales. The success of his anthology Doesn’t That
Hurt the Cow’s Back? inspired the publisher to issue Picture This! as
a companion volume.

Thompson re-creates his large family’s farm adventures during the
1940s and 1950s. He blends adult insight into his childhood memories,
enabling him to recall his past with intelligent humour.

An example of the author’s mirth can be found in “The Little
Rats.” When David and Paul, the author’s younger brothers, discover
that their adopted rat is missing, they are unable to get their little
sister Carol to admit that she set her pet cat on it. Then “Dave
considered an autopsy on the cat, but Paul talked him out of it.” This
quote is hilarious because it triggers the demented imaginations of
readers, who picture two little boys surreptitiously taking the animal
apart and restoring it to its previous state. Fortunately for mainstream
types, such wicked wit is offset by more wholesome memories.

None of the fun puts down country people. Some of the characters are
uneducated, but none are dumb “hicks” who invite mockery. Readers
laugh with, and learn from, rural folk.

The author showcases his society by assuming the role of an insightful
historian, not a didactic teacher. His historical sense is woven into
his stories. He remembers an interview at Ottawa’s Central Canada
Exhibition “for the CBC’s farm show ... but I never saw it, because
we didn’t have yet a television set.” Readers learn that technology
gradually changed rural Ontario. Picture This! is an enjoyable and
useful book.