Leanna Builds a Genie Trap

Jean Free is a past judge of the Vicky Metcalf and Ruth Schwartz awards
for children’s

literature.

Hazel J. Hutchins is the talented Alberta author of The Three and Many Wishes of Jason Reid (1983) and Anastasia Morningstar and the Crystal Butterfly (1984), written for junior grade students. In Leanna Builds a Genie Trap Hazel Hutchins gives us her first picture book.

Leanna knew that her toys, her mother’s wristwatch, her father’s pliers, and the baby’s two soothers had not been lost but had been taken by the genie whom she thought lived in her house. She decides to catch the genie and builds an imaginative trap. In the end, she discovers that the sofa is the real thief. She keeps the sofa happy by letting it keep some of the stolen articles while taking back the ones that she favours.

This is a gentle, charming story. It is creatively illustrated by Catharine O’Neill with 10 full-page paintings that would be very appealing to young children. O’Neill’s cartooning background adds humour to the delightful paintings. Leanna Builds a Genie Trap is an enjoyable picture book with which children who have lost things can empathize. Suitable for kindergarten to grade two students.