SATA
ENTRY TYPE: new
WORK TITLE: The Pony and the Starling
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.jennifermcgrath.ca/
CITY: Hillsborough
STATE:
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY:
LAST VOLUME:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:St. Francis Xavier University, B.A.; University of Victoria, M.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and illustrator.
AWARDS:Alice Kitts Memorial Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature, and Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, 2017, both for The Snow Knows; Hackmatack Award, for Chocolate River Rescue.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 2025, Carolyn Phelan, review of The Pony and the Starling, p. 68.
Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2025, review of The Pony and the Starling.
Resource Links, October 1, 2007, Karen Loch, review of Chocolate River Rescue.
ONLINE
Bookshelf Cafe, https://www.thebookshelfcafe.news/ (February 13, 2021), Allan Hudson, “Award Winning Author Jennifer McGrath of Moncton, NB.”
Jena Benton website, https://jenabenton.com/ (February 4, 2025), “Simply 7 with Jennifer McGrath.”
Jennifer McGrath website, https://www.jennifermcgrath.ca (August 9, 2025).
Welcome
to the official website of Jennifer McGrath. Jennifer is a national award winning author from Canada's East Coast. Her children’s books are popular with young readers and educators alike and include The Snow Knows, Chocolate River Rescue, and Pugs Cause Traffic Jams, among others. Her newest picture book, The Pony and the Starling, illustrated by Kristina Jones, launches in February 2025.
In case you were curious...
My name is Jennifer. I live in New Brunswick, Canada. I like animals, exploring the outdoors, and writing stories. Sometimes I make up silly poems. Scroll down for more FUN FACTS.
16 Fun facts about me
1. My friends and family call me ‘Jen’ for short.
2. My last name is pronounced McGraw (the -th is silent).
3. I love animals of all kinds – especially dogs and ponies.
4. I also love goats.
5. My favourite colour is green.
6. And also teal.
7. Sometimes it’s orange.
I live by the
Petitcodiac River.
8
It's nicknamed the ‘Chocolate River’ because of its muddy colour.
9
I live near the Bay of Fundy. It has the highest tides in the world!
10
11. There are lots of wild places to explore where I live – including woods, caves, abandoned quarries, crumbling cliffs, and beaches with really weird rocks.
12. Many of these places end up in my books.
Chocolate River Cover NEW.jpg
WhiteCavecover 2018 NEW.jpg
13. (Ok, ALL of them end up in my books.)
14. (But not all of them end up in all of my books all of the time.)
15. I have a terrible sense of direction. Sometimes I get lost when I’m exploring.
16. But that’s okay because I usually find a story or two along the way.
Award Winning Author Jennifer McGrath of Moncton, NB.
February 13, 2021 Allan Hudson
Jennifer and Friend.
The Scribbler is most fortunate to have Jennifer as our guest this week. She is an accomplished author of children’s stories. Her books have garnered numerous, excellent reviews and high praise.
Her stories have been making a splash with children and teachers alike.
She has graciously agreed to a 4Q Interview and is sharing an excerpt from Chocolate River Rescue (Nimbus Publishing).
An award-winning children’s author from Moncton, New Brunswick, Jennifer has published two middle grade adventure novels, and two picture books. Her book, The Snow Knows, (Nimbus Publishing) was the 2017 recipient of the prestigious Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, presented to the year’s best Canadian picture book for children. It also won the inaugural Alice Kitts Memorial Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature. Her books are a favourite with educators, librarians and young readers alike, and have been included in a number of reading programs, literacy initiatives, and book clubs across the country.
Jennifer received her B.A. in English from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia and holds an M.A. in English Literature with a Directed Study in Children’s Literature from the University of Victoria.
Her next book, Pugs Cause Traffic Jams (Kids Can Press) is scheduled for release in 2022, with Kathryn Durst illustrating. (Hey, Grandude, by Sir Paul McCartney).
4Q: As a writer myself, I admire authors of children’s books such as the beautiful collection you’ve penned. What draws you to this genre?
JM: Wow, that’s a surprisingly tricky question to answer. The short version is that’s just what comes out when I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). I write about things that make me happy. They are, in no particular order: things that I find beautiful; things that I find funny; things that delight me; and things I think might possibly delight others. By happy accident, much of what I write seems to delight younger readers. And that delights me, too. And when I’m delighted, I write. So it’s really a vicious circle of delight. (Except when it’s a vicious circle of angst and self-doubt, but that’s a blog for another day.)
Without disappearing into the rabbit hole of ‘What is children’s literature?’ and what makes a particular piece of writing for children, I will say that there is a sort of authenticity that’s embedded in the best children’s books – an emotionally honest and undistilled way of perceiving the world, and reflecting it back in words and art. Fantasy writer, Lloyd Alexander suggested that children’s books offer “a means of dealing with things which cannot be dealt with quite as well in any other way” and I think there is truth in that as well.
4Q: The first book of yours that came to my attention is The Snow Knows. I understand you and your Illustrator, Josee Bisaillon, are both award winning artists. Tell us about the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award. How exciting it must be.
JM: So, it’s kind of a funny story. I didn’t actually knowabout the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Prize prior to that year. It just wasn’t on my radar at all. In fact, I didn’t even know The Snow Knows had been submitted for consideration, much less nominated and short-listed until I got a Facebook message from a writer friend of mine, saying ‘OMG, CONGRATULATIONS!!!” And I replied: ‘THANK YOU!! WHAT FOR???” And she told me that The Snow Knowswas on the short list for the Marilyn Baillie Prize. That was the first I knew of it.
The Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Prize is presented annually as part of the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards, sponsored by TD Bank and the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. It recognizes the year’s best illustrated picture book. To say I was gobsmacked would be an understatement. That year, The Snow Knows was nominated alongside Col. Chris Hadfield’s book The Darkest Dark(illustrated by the brilliant Fan Brothers), as well as New York Times bestselling author-illustrator Jon Klassen’s book We Found a Hat. It was a completely surreal experience.
And then, when I arrived for the awards ceremony in Toronto, I found out the event was being emcee’d by CBC Radio’s Shelagh Rogers. I may or may not have had a complete book-nerd/fan-girl meltdown at that point. Plus the room was FULL of children’s authors and illustrators I had idolized forever. It was definitely a what-am-I-even-doing-here moment.Really, I could not have been more dazed and amazed if you had tapped a pumpkin and turned it into a coach-and-four. It was also the first time I got to meet my illustrator, Josée Bisaillon, in person. Which was, of course, utterly delightful.
4Q: Please share a childhood memory or anecdote.
JM: Well. Let’s see. There are so many to choose from. There was that time my parents and some friends decided it would be a good idea to build a homemade boat and sail it to the Caribbean. Did they have any boatbuilding experience? Nope. Sailing experience? Mmm, not so much. At seven years old, I was the oldest of half a dozen kids bundled aboard that boat. We set sail from the Bay of Fundy on a freezing, wind-swept day in November, loaded to the gunwales with gear, winter clothes, rations, charts (no GPS in those days), baby diapers, books, Gravol, and barf buckets.
It was the Boat’s maiden voyage as construction had taken a longer than anticipated (I am told the sails were still being sewn the night before our departure) and the window to get out of the Bay before winter weather made it impassable was rapidly closing. There were storms, waves, whales, a brief mutiny and, oh yeah – we ran aground on Plymouth Rock. Yup. That Plymouth Rock. It was underwhelming. There weren’t even any pilgrims.
Huh.
I should probably write a story about that someday.
***I agree, Jennifer, it would be an amusing story.
4Q: Tell us about The Chocolate River Rescue. What was the most difficult part to write?
JM: CRR was first book I’d written so I really had no idea what I was doing. Because the idea for the story stemmed from real-life events, I struggled initially with how much to ‘stick to the facts.’ I didn’t know when, where or if I should take creative license. The first draft followed the real-life incident as it was told to me very, very closely. There were three boys adrift on an ice floe who were eventually rescued by firefighters and a SAR helicopter. It read a little bit like those Reader’s Digest drama-in-real-lifestories…but, you know, not as good. It felt stilted, two-dimensional. When I submitted my manuscript to my editor, she read it and very gently pointed out that there weren’t any girls or women in the story. Would I perhaps consider adding another character or two? And that’s when the lightbulb went off in my head.
I could do that? Really? You mean, I was allowed to, you know, just…make stuff up??
That’s when it hit me what being a fiction writer actually meant.
I could write Anything. I. Wanted.
It was a dizzying realization. I felt like I had been driving with the emergency brake on, but now it had been released, and I was free to hit the gas.
The character of Petra pretty much leaped onto the page fully formed and she completely changed the course of the book. I re-wrote the entire thing from the beginning, in less than three months.
4Q: Favorite authors? Novels?
JM: You KNOW that this question melts the brains of the book obsessed, right? My favourite author this week? This month? Of all time?? Favourite Canadian author? Children’s author? Picture book or YA? Modern or Classic? Fantasy? Sci-fi? Short Story?
Okay, I’m spiraling.
I will be forever and infinitely grateful to my parents for reading to me for as far back as I can remember. Treasure Island, Robin Hood, The Lord of the Rings, Watership Down, Pippi Longstocking, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang, Alice in Wonderland, Jake and the Kid, Anne of Green Gables and countless others were read aloud to me before I’d even lost my baby teeth.
Others I discovered later on my own – Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, Northanger Abbey, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. My grandfather gave me books like White Fang, The Grapes of Wrath, Sherlock Holmes and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Today I am delighted by storytelling wizards like Neil Gaiman, Cherie Dimaline, Ami McKay, Thomas King, Holly Black, Theodora Goss, Eden Robinson, Michael Chabon, Maggie Steifvater, Daniel O’Malley, Erin Morgenstern, N.K. Jemisin, Katherine Arden, and so, so, somany others. A galaxy of authors. A wonder of worlds.
4Q: How much and what kind of research do you have to do for your books?
JM: I am an obsessive researcher. Compulsively curious. The hard part is making myself stop researching long enough to begin writing. I take what I call the ‘White Rabbit’ approach to research (alternately referred to as, ‘Squirrel!’). I love it when I go to look up something and stumble upon something else entirely by accident – something that takes me on an entirely new and unexpected path but that also, simultaneously, feels absolutely RIGHT. I think most, if not all stories are born out of serendipity.
4Q: Anything else you’d like to share with us?
JM: I’m pretty sure I’ve overshared as it is. I like dogs. And ponies. And also goats.
An Excerpt from Chocolate River Rescue (Nimbus, 2007)
“We’re losing ice!” said Craig.
It was true. Almost every wave that rippled over the floe carried away another piece of the crumbling ice. Tony half-turned his body to look toward the shore. The ice floe tilted dangerously. A large wave sloshed onto the ice, soaking the boys up to their ankles.
“Whoa!” yelled all three boys. Slowly, slowly, the ice floe righted itself again.
“Do not move!” ordered Shawn.
“Move?” croaked Tony. “Man, I’m barely breathing!”
Another wave washed the ice floe. A piece of ice crumbled away.
“It’s breaking apart, Shawn,” whispered Craig. His blue eyes were very wide.
“Don’t move,” repeated Shawn.
“We’re out of time,” Tony said softly. “This is it.”
(Copyright is held by the author. Used with permission)
Thank you, Jennifer for being our featured guest this week. Wishing you continued success with your stories.
More from Jennifer.
FB – Jennifer McGrath | Facebook
Simply 7 with Jennifer McGrath: THE PONY AND THE STARLING
February 4, 2025 / jenabenton
I love being out in nature and watching animals be themselves. Today’s picture book captures that feeling with gentle grace.
Jennifer McGrath is an award-winning author whose books include Pugs Cause Traffic Jams, illustrated by Kathryn Durst; The Snow Knows, illustrated by Josée Bisaillon, winner of the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award; and the middle grade book Chocolate River Rescue, winner of the Hackmatack Award. She lives in Hillsborough, New Brunswick, with her partner, two dogs and pony. You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram, BlueSky, or Facebook.
THE PONY AND THE STARLING is a picture book set on a Canadian farm. A young girl notices her pony has a lone starling friend and worries for its well-being when the winter comes and it doesn’t follow its flock. Will the pony and starling’s friendship survive the seasons? This is a quiet story that hums with heart. The writing is downright poetic and the illustrations are beautifully soft and wispy in that way that only watercolor can capture (even if it’s digital!).
Welcome Jennifer!
Me: Can you tell us a little bit about your writing journey? How has that brought you to writing this picture book?
Jennifer: I was so fortunate to grow up in a home full of books and storytellers – stories have always been an integral part of my everyday life, and I’m so grateful for that. As a writer, almost all my stories begin from a sense of place, and the landscapes that I know and love. I feel most like myself when I am in nature and around animals – so those are the stories that come most easily, and feel the most authentic to me. I especially love picture books – they are such a marvelous, magical fusion of poetry and art. Picture book writing – and this is particularly true of The Pony and the Starling – is how I celebrate the places and people and animals that shaped me.
Me: I love this book so much and every single character, from the animals to the humans. What gave you the idea for this story?
Jennifer: Thank you! I’m so touched and happy to hear that! This story was inspired by my own grey pony, Fiona. Fiona was such a wonderful, gentle soul – a real-life storybook pony if ever there was one. And she really was befriended by a starling one summer. I watched them from the kitchen window. As the weeks turned into months, I realized I was witnessing something very special. The bird was always near-by – on the fence, or on the ground inside Fiona’s paddock. If the pony moved to a different part of the field, the starling would flutter after her. It would even hop along between her hooves while she grazed. I knew that this was a story I would write someday…but I didn’t know the shape of it yet. It would be several years before that seed of an idea blossomed into a book.
So, this story is about a pony and about a bird… but it is also about a dog, although not in an obvious way. Danny, my border collie, was my constant companion for over a decade. He was always with me when I went to the barn to feed, clean and brush Fiona. On lazy afternoons, we’d sit on front porch watching the sky and the birds – although Danny was more interested in the squirrels, if I’m being totally honest! Danny is in all my memories of Fiona from that time (the pony and the dog were good friends, too!) so it is fitting that that you’ll find him on most of the pages in this book as well.
Me: There is such a poetic quality in the text with some circular bits that just make it sing. I can’t imagine how much work went into making it this lovely. Please tell me that there were a lot of revisions to get to this state! Did the story evolve over time or was it a gift from the muse like this from the first draft?
Jennifer: The magic of stories is that the best ones feel like gifts. I would love to say I slaved over this text but really it felt more like clearing away a few weeds to reveal a flower that was already there, ready to bloom. I wrote The Pony and the Starling over the course of four or five days. I always start with way too many words – but I throw them all down on the page anyway just to see what’s there. Then I take a deep breath and just listen for the heartbeat of the story. Once I find it, it’s a case of gently pruning away the extra bits. Interestingly, there were almost no further changes during the editorial stage with the publisher. I think maybe a word or two, and some line and punctuation formatting. As writers, a lot of our job is about paying attention, and not getting in the way of the story that wants to be told.
Me: I love that and I love the rhythm of your book which is so subtle. I would definitely call this a quiet story and we’ve heard that they can be hard to sell. Did you have a hard time marketing this manuscript? Can you talk about this book’s journey to publication?
Jennifer: So my confession is: I’m not particularly good at the submission process. I send manuscripts out rarely and sparingly – often to only three or four publishing houses. I do NOT recommend this approach, by the way! This is my own personal quirk that I am working on. I simply have hard time hitting the ‘submit’ button. It’s been my enormous good fortune that my favourite stories all found wonderful homes fairly quickly, in spite of myself! I believed in this story, though, and never really doubted it would find a home. I think I sent this manuscript out to four publishers. I got a polite pass from one, and didn’t hear back from two. When Groundwood responded, I was beyond thrilled. It immediately felt like the right fit for this story.
Me: The illustrations by Kristina Jones are wonderful. They fit your story so perfectly! Any illustration surprises for you? Any favorites?
Jennifer: What an absolute joy it was to see this story brought to life by Kristina’s beautiful art! Not gonna lie – I shed a few tears when I saw them for the first time. That little graphic on the title page, of the girl on her bike with the border collie chasing joyfully after her, just undid me. Such a small thing yet so perfect. I’d have a hard time picking a favourite page or spread – they all speak to my heart. I think I gasped every time I turned to the next spread. As for surprises – it was Kristina’s portrayal of the mother. Because she looks JUST like my own mother at that age. I don’t know if I’ve even told Kristina that, actually! That’s some powerful story magic, right there.
Me: What is one thing that surprised you in writing this story?
Jennifer: I think it was the sense of peace I felt when I finished. It was written during a difficult time – during the second year of COVID – when I was feeling very sad. But the act of writing this book felt so healing, so comforting, and I felt so much lighter when it was done. I felt stronger, too. I felt like I had put a little bit of beauty back into a world that needed it. As creatives and storytellers, we should never underestimate the importance of that.
Me: Any advice for new picture book writers?
Jennifer: Listen for the story and try not to let ego get in the way. The story that wants to be told may not be the one you set out to tell. That’s okay. Pay attention, be flexible, and notice the little things.
That is excellent advice Jennifer. Thank you for stopping by my blog today.
Dear readers, this book is published today. It’s a gorgeous story of an unexpected animal friendship, nature and the seasons. It’s beautifully written and illustrated. Trust me when I say, you’re not going to want to miss this one.
Excellent, enduring, everyone should see it!
MCGRATH KENT, Jennifer
Chocolate River Rescue
Nimbus Publishing, 2007. 112p. Gr. 4 up. 978-1-55109-600-1. Hdbk. $16.95
This story is based upon true-to-life events of how three boys ages nine through twelve find themselves to be in quite a predicament when they venture off looking for something to do! There are several points along the Petitcodiac River where people stop and watch the fast-flowing water. It is noted to have the highest tides in the world. The river is very unpredictable. When the tide is out, the river is nothing more than a trickle of dark free-flowing water but when the tide comes in the water becomes torrents of charging waves. It is at one of these points, the exhilarating adventure of survival and heroism begins.
Two young brothers, Craig and Shawn, and their best friend Tony head down to the Petitcodiac River to watch the tide roll in. There are many large chunks of ice flowing in the river. Something at the edge of the river attracts the boy's attention. The boys decide to explore the possibility that the object could very well be money. They discover that the glittery object is in fact a trading card but what they don't initially realize is the fact that the card is not at the edge of the river but that ice has formed along the edge and has made a rather unstable platform extending from the river bank. Before they realize what has happened the ice platform has broken away from the river bank and the boys become trapped on an ice floe. The boys begin drifting along the banks of the Petitcodiac River or what the locales call "The Chocolate River" with little hope of being rescued; at least not until twelve-year old Petra and her uncle's dog Hobart arrive! Just when the boys believe they are being saved from the freezing murky water and the deteriorating ice raft, the journey to safety takes an unexpected turn for the worst.
This story is full of adventure. Once you start to read it is difficult to put down! A wonderful addition to any school library!
Thematic Links: Adventure Stories; Peticodiac River
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2007 Resource Links
http://www.atcl.ca
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Loch, Karen. "Chocolate River Rescue." Resource Links, vol. 13, no. 1, Oct. 2007, pp. 19+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A172135027/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=89a9019d. Accessed 18 June 2025.
Feb. 2025. 36p. Groundwood, $19.99 (9781773069791).
PreS-Gr. 3.
A girl and her mother live on a farm. Their gray pony spends its time in the pasture next to a small, red barn, where the girl and her dog take it water, hay, and food daily. After they leave, the pony is alone. One day, a flock of starlings flies overhead and lands on the farm. The mother protects the grapevines with netting, but the birds help themselves to other foods before taking to the sky to complete their migration. One starling befriends the pony and stays on the farm, but following a blizzard, it disappears. Months later, the birds return for several days and then leave, "all except one." The human characters' brief conversations are realistic, and so is the mother's quiet determination as she chops wood before the blizzard. The illustrations, which were drawn by hand and painted digitally, work beautifully with the spare yet lyrical narrative to tell a simple story that is more than the sum of its parts. A handsome picture book introducing rural life and an unusual animal friendship.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Phelan, Carolyn. "The Pony and the Starling." Booklist, vol. 121, no. 9-10, Jan. 2025, p. 68. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A829739513/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=37097565. Accessed 18 June 2025.
McGrath, Jennifer THE PONY AND THE STARLING Groundwood (Children's None) $19.99 2, 4 ISBN: 9781773069791
Nature takes center stage in this quiet, memorable story of companionship.
On the vast plains, a young girl accompanied by a dog feeds a gray pony in a summer pasture. One day the sky is spangled with a murmuration of starlings. Though the girl's mother muses that "You never see just one," when the flock moves on, a single bird remains. The girl asks the starling where the other birds have gone, but naturally, it doesn't answer. Pony and starling spend their days eating and resting together. When a winter blizzard looms, the girl leads the pony to the barn, but despite her urging, the bird won't enter. After the storm, the starling is nowhere to be found. Months pass, and the murmuration returns, "swirling around a dancing, prancing pony" in the spring field. Then the flock leaves--"all but one." Is it the same bird? We want to believe so. Imbued with ambiguity, the text is gracefully eloquent, using human activities--the girl's chores, her storm preparations--to anchor the natural melody. The tone is matched by the calm, watercolorlike images, foregrounding the soft-edged figures against the sweeping sky, punctuated by the black-and-white dog and the girl's dark hair framing her pale face. Against the spare, neutral backgrounds, the jet-black bird seems to lift off the page.
A lovely, lyrical depiction of friendship.(Picture book. 4-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"McGrath, Jennifer: THE PONY AND THE STARLING." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Jan. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A823102464/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=89809ed0. Accessed 18 June 2025.