Skip to content | Skip to institutional links

Common menu bar links

Archived Content

This archived Web page remains online for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. This page will not be altered or updated. Web pages that are archived on the Internet are not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards. As per the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, you can request alternate formats of this page on the Contact Us page.

Annotated Award-Winning Titles

Prix littéraire Le Droit – Children's category 2005
Awarded by the Association des auteures et auteurs de l'Ontario français et de l'Outaouais québécois for the best children's book
Les impatiences de Ping
Andrée Poulin
Montréal: Québec Amérique,
2005. 180 p.
(Gulliver; 141)
ISBN 2764403879
Ages 10 to 12

Les impatiences de Ping
Source

As their summer holidays begin, close friends Maude, Mathilde and Ping, each 12 years of age, go into business and create the MaMaPing. Ping is determined to make Chinese fortune cookies; however, their culinary efforts prove difficult, expensive and not exactly successful. They are forced to put their budding enterprise aside, at least for the time being.

Ping is also devoted to Yéyé, the grandfather of Chang, her great friend, who is almost a sister to her. Yéyé, who immigrated to Montréal only recently, is still suffering from the loss of his wife and trying to cope with his new environment. He clings desperately to his dying bonsai.

Listening only to her heart, and without consulting her friends, Ping uses the money set aside for their small business to buy a present for Yéyé. In her haste to do something good, Ping disappoints the people around her. Fortunately, her big brother and his new girlfriend,Yvette, a specialist in the art of bonsai, help her mend any hard feelings among her friends.

The book is written in the first person with the main character as the narrator. The writing is imaginative and informative, with the author incorporating many interesting facts about the cultivation of bonsai.

–ST