Juno News - Christine Van Geyn's new children’s book, Maple’s Garden, teaches kids about free expression

00:00:00.000 I find that quite often this idea of big daddy government taking care of everything, everything

00:00:07.240 the government says is fine, and it's in order to be safe, okay?

00:00:12.120 That kind of thinking really gets baked in here.

00:00:15.560 And it's different.

00:00:16.760 Like here in Alberta, it's a bit different, but it's really baked in, I found from experience

00:00:21.140 of living in places like Ontario and living in places like Nova Scotia, not to generalize,

00:00:25.520 I know everybody is different, but just generally speaking as a culture.

00:00:29.180 And I think that that does start in the schools, and it starts in kids' books, which is why

00:00:34.740 I'm bringing this up.

00:00:36.220 You wrote a kids' book, I think it's called Maple's Garden, and it's all about the fundamental

00:00:42.620 need for free expression.

00:00:45.140 Up in the United States, they'd call it free speech, but free expression, free speech.

00:00:50.620 Why did you think it was important to help little kids start appreciating a fundamental

00:00:58.440 freedom like this? So it is so important that children understand the right to freedom of

00:01:03.640 expression at an early age, because it's going to be our children who are the guardians of our

00:01:09.840 civil liberties for the next generation. And I, as a civil liberties lawyer, I watch every day

00:01:15.660 these freedoms get eroded. And I think the courts are not the bulwark against the government

00:01:23.700 overreach that we would like them to be what we need to do is educate our children and create a

00:01:30.660 culture where civil liberties is valued and so that's why i wrote this book maple's garden

00:01:36.740 beautifully illustrated by a canadian artist who i actually grew up with who has had her own

00:01:45.140 issues with with freedom of expression as an artist she drew pictures of the convoy and she

00:01:52.500 had other artists attack her and if you can't have free expression as an artist if you can't explore

00:01:59.620 controversial as an artist i mean what is even the point of art if you can't do that so i was

00:02:05.460 so proud to collaborate with lisa on this project maple's garden it's going to be available uh as of

00:02:12.500 september 2nd and it's available for pre-order right now it's available september 2nd yeah that's

00:02:19.300 the launch date did you pick atlas shrug day on purpose or was that just a coincidence it's of

00:02:25.540 course you know would know that chris no that's a coincidence but yeah i should say it's on purpose

00:02:33.060 but it was a question.

Juno News - August 19, 2025