Lovely Book

This blog is dedicated to all my fans.

Ever so often I receive a letter or email from my fans and this one found its way into my binder of appreciation.

“Hello Gawri,

Just finished reading “Bunica’s Tomatoes” (borrowed from Oakville Public Library, Woodside Branch).

First childrens’ book I read in many a decade.

Lovely work, beautiful story and beautifully illustrated too.

My favourite page has the picture where sister and brother are “helping” Bunica water the tomatoes. Getting water everywhere but on the tomatoes …

I was intrigued to read about The Author, that your husband is Romanian. And that “Bunica” is Romanian for grandmother.

By co-incidence, two of my dearest friends are Romanian. I have learned a lot from them. They come from a culture that is so much deeper and more mature than Canada’s. Compared to the peoples of Eastern Europe, we Toronto-area folk are like innocent children playing in a sandbox.

As a Torontonian born and bred, I always chuckle when I hear people call Toronto a “world class” city. No it’s not. It’s a grown-up provincial agricultural market town. A town that has had the enormous good fortune to have absorbed wave after wave of immigrants.

Toronto has never run an empire. Toronto has never experienced the horrors of war, first hand. War of 1812 was hardly traumatic enough to rate. Unlike e.g. Romania, Toronto has never been conquered by another state. Never been under the heel of a tyrant like Joseph Stalin. Never been overrun by Roman legions, then by Ottoman armies. Sure, Toronto is a very interesting and stimulating city but, no way it’s a world class city.” – S.P.

Thanks Steve for a wonderful review of Bunica’s Tomatoes. I’m glad you loved it as so many of my adult fans do. Bunica’s Tomatoes brings out the childhood memories in them; reminiscing golden yesteryears, with their parents and grandparents.