The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

o C D O vH John Bkila Sub-Editor jbkila@oakvillebeaver.com C M O) C M Artscene "Connected to your Community" Pink purse inspires book on diversity, equity and inclusion C/) I It has a `magnetic appeal' I says author Julie Pehar Si D O > ______________________________________________ by John Bkila a. < Oakville Beaver Staff ------------------------------------------------------------------ ° £ 9 0 ^ What's small, feathery, fluffy, soft and pink? No, it' s not a baby flamingo, but rather a pink purse; and it' s the inspiration behind Oakville author Julie Pehar's first children' s book. The Pink Purse is geared towards youths in Grades 1-8 and tackles the concepts of diversity equity and inclusion. Based on a true story the whimsical tale is told through the voice of its narrator, The Pink Purse, which is gifted to a young girl, Kallie, by her mom. Wherever Kallie goes with the purse, playful ness and kindness seem to follow, teaching the girl about how people are different from each other and how to spread love over hate. Pehar' s friend, Katherine Joss, had bought a little purse covered in soft and fluffy pink feath ers for an upcoming occasion. After attending several events, Joss told Pe har the alluring effect the purse had on those around her. "She told me every time she took it to an event, people wanted to touch it; they asked her about it, danced with it, took photos with it," said Pehar. Conducting a sort of social experiment, Joss told Pehar she wanted her to borrow the purse and she if it would have the same mag netic appeal. And it did. "I was in a receiving line at a wedding once and people were coming up to me asking to touch it, pet it... they even would take it on the dance floor to dance with it," said Pehar. "I don't know what it is. It's just magnet ic.... We joked and I said this would make a wonderful children's book... the story begged ^ 5 5 5 1 Author Julie Pehar, left, and illustrator Veronika Milne - both Oakville residents - have published a book titled The Pink Purse, tackling the topics of equity, diversity and inclusion. Pehar is holding the book and the pink purse that inspired the story, while Milne has copies of some of her watercolour paintings that help bring the story to life. | Franki Ikeman photo to be told." The storyline of The Pink Purse is split into three scenarios: racism, homophobia and classicism/poverty Pehar, an education consultant and part time professor at Sheridan' s Social Service Worker program, teaches diversity and equity at the college. She said she believes diversity, equity and inclusion is a kind of worldview everyone has that is informed by a number of factors, both internal and external. "I also believe it is fluid, it can change over time," she noted. "I think that a lot of times where we make mistakes with diversity is it' s not because we're not nice people, but because there are gaps in our knowledge and under standing." Pehar said while she has students who have "quite an extraordinary understanding" of di versity, equity and inclusion, there is an equal number who have never heard of those terms. "They might have heard of something like racism, but they would not know how to re late that to another form of exclusion, like ho mophobia," she explained. "They don't understand the theory that links those things." For that reason, she hopes her book will help children tackle those topics early on. "I want them (her readers and their parents) to have a conversation about these issues. I want the scenarios to maybe push their boundaries a little bit. Get them to think about the scenarios and come up with their own understanding and explanations for it," Pehar said, noting she wants people to talk about diversity more than they already are, especially with their children, and continue to raise that level of awareness. "I think children are extremely capable of lis tening to stories and making them appropriate for their level of understanding," she said. Pehar notes while the story is important, it couldn't have been brought to life without the book' s illustrator, Oakville resident Veronika Milne. Pehar met Milne through a friend and com missioned her to do the artwork for The Pink Purse. "She' s been really integral to the process," said Pehar. "I wanted to work with a young person and give her a lot of artistic freedom to bring some usefulness to it." Each individual picture is a watercolour painting done by Milne and then scanned for the book. "I let her (Milne) envision it in her mind and she really had a playful, silly, joyful approach to the story and I think she' s responsible for bring ing it to life off the page," said Pehar. The Pink Purse, self-published by Pehar through Friesen Press, is currently available on line through iBooks and https://goo.gl/v2TkeI. It is also expected to be on Amazon.com and at the Kindle bookstore in the coming weeks. While The Pink Purse stands as a one-off story, Pehar says she would be open to writing more in the future. "If this resonates with people... I would abso lutely do another book. There are so many oth er topics within diversity to tackle," she added. i* * film c a cinemas 171 Speers Road (at Kerr) Oakville 905-338-6397 w w w .f ilm .c a facebook.com/filmca @filmCaCinemas O F F IC EC H R iS T M A S P A R T Y(14A) DECEMBER 9th CO LLATERAL BEAUTY (PG) DEc EMBER 16th rogue O N E: A sTA RW ARs passengers (stc) sing (stc) story (stc) Decem ber 16th DECEMBER 23RD D ECEM BER 23RD