Archived Children’s Book Reviews

Brenna Book Reviews, 2011

Manitoba author Craig Russell’s teen fiction Black Bottle Man: A Fable (Great Plains paperback, $14.95) is a riveting read. Highly charged storytelling supports the tale of a man caught since the age of ten in a bargain his family made with the devil.

Rembrandt’s quest is to find a champion, someone who can fight the devil and win, but now, at ninety years of age, he has only thirty days more until the devil’s final triumph.

The story of our hero intertwines with the poignant sketch of a young teacher who, in keeping her students late, put them at the mercy of a gunman. Gail has spent most of her days since then on the streets—unable to forgive herself at the knowledge that four children were shot, one fatally. How she transforms into someone Rembrandt has been looking for offers an unpredictable and glittering ending to a tale well told.

A unique aspect of this book is that it stretches the boundaries of typical character development for its intended audience, presenting entirely adult portrayals except for a few memorable scenes where Rembrandt, at sixteen, falls in love but cannot stay in one place long enough to marry his sweetheart. For this reason, in addition to appealing to young adult readers, the text may also find favour with adults looking for short chapters and a compelling storyline.

Quebec writer Catherine Austen’s teen dystopian fiction novel All Good Children (Orca hard cover, $19.99) chronicles an American community in the not-too-distant future whose children are medicated into well-mannered citizens. The compulsory “vaccinations” arouse the suspicions of seventeen-year-old graffiti artist Maxwell Connors who manages to escape being “treated”, along with his friend Dallas, thanks to the ingenuity of his mother—a temporary school nurse. Although Max recognizes the other kids for the zombies they have become, he is powerless to change his impending fate until the conceptualization of a dangerous escape to Canada.

This edgy saga offers distant parallels to underground railways in other periods of history, and homophobic dialogue alongside intolerance for intellectual disabilities paint a picture of a narrow community rife with prejudice. Some intriguing themes here, including a warning about the use of medication for behaviour control, and a tribute to the power of art. For mature readers.

Saskatoon author Beth Goobie’s newest title Born Ugly (Red Deer Press paperback, $12.95) is the story of an abused and alcoholic teenager who reaches out to life when almost everyone she knows lets her down.

Goobie’s marvellous ability to develop authentic characters never wavers; Shir and her compatriots are as true as if they were directly transposed from real life, and according to the author interview at the back of the book, there is some autobiography at work here. Another aspect of Goobie’s craft is her ability to employ the richness of a character’s perspective to invoke just enough detail for a reader to predict an upcoming turn even before the character does, a strategy often clumsy when actualized by less experienced writers but in this case tremendously well done. Finally, Goobie’s writing pushes past the trite or mundane, and whether or not her themes are appealing to individual readers, the stellar workmanship is beyond reproach.

Images of a brutality not often depicted in adolescent literature do appear in this title, yet teens who experience firsthand the agony in Shir’s life may find through her the power to endure. Hope resounds, even in the darkest moments, through a character whose innocence is at times as unsettling as her horrific life experiences. For mature teens.

Back to Index

“Everyone’s got a book in them. A great idea. A funny childhood memory. A crazy dream they know would make a fantastic novel. We carry it around like a dirty little secret. Like Gollum’s ‘precious.’ It consumes us as we fantasize about it, envisioning the cover face out, front and center in the bookstore. We’ve practiced our sloppy author’s signature. We already know who we’ll get to do the illustrations, who we’ll dedicate it to and who we’ll thank in our award winning speech. Maybe we’ve even started the book. Or at least bought another new journal. And some more pens. The good ones.

“But something always stops us from actually writing. We feel its watchful all-seeing eye burning up every line. It’s the dreaded critic. Our worst one. Ourselves.”

So begins Caroline Pignat’s preface for Peter Carver’s insider’s handbook for children’s writers and illustrators who want to get published: So You Want To Write a Children’s Book (Red Deer Press, paperback, $12.95). Known for his literary acumen, and a trusted mentor and friend to writers worldwide, there could be no better choice than Carver to write such a book.

Since 1996, Carver has been the children’s book editor at Red Deer Press and has previously worked at the Canadian Children’s Book Centre and as a high school English teacher. In addition to instructing classes on writing for children at Toronto’s George Brown College, and working in Ghana to develop original books for local teens, he speaks across Canada about children’s books and, in 2006, won the Claude Aubry Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Children’s Literature.

The handbook itself is a fluent and comprehensive collection of essential requirements for those newly interested in the writing and illustrating aspects of published children’s literature. While focused on children’s books, with sections addressing particular genres as well as organizations and associations related to publishing for young people, any writer will find good advice here as well as appreciate the concise and inviting prose that marks Carver’s style. In addition to Carver’s own wisdom, the text includes sidebars from the likes of Philip Pullman, Brian Doyle, Ken Oppel, Barbara Reid, and Janet Lunn. Challenges on the business side of things are addressed directly and helpfully, and it is clear that Carver respects and celebrates the work that goes into literary products for young people. A quip from Ted Staunton lightens the tone of a serious chapter on why people write for children: “When asked what advice he could give someone who wanted to become a children’s writer, Ted Staunton replied, ‘Become a dentist first.’”

In addition to direct support for artistic processes, Carver also addresses popular fears about the effect of technology on reading. “There have been enough dire predictions about the death of the book over the past five or six decades that this current one should be taken with a grain of salt. No matter the format, there will always be room for creators of wonderful stories to engage young readers, and for the visual artists who can enhance these stories by making them jump off the page—or the screen.”

Highly recommended.

Back to Index

Claudia Souza’s first picture book Princess to the Rescue (Second Story Press, hardcover, $15.95) does a lot of telling rather than showing. Instead of allowing the adventure story to unfold, letting readers anticipate and predict, the narrative is heavy, pushing forward a didactic tale about a princess who, contrary to traditional gender roles, manages to save a prince. Traditional gender roles? Female protagonists have been saving male characters, and vice versa, for years, with gender stereotypes mainly residing in classic fairytales. Christelle Ammirati’s vibrant illustrations make this package look better than it is, although sections of text do reflect a pleasant sense of humour, such as the description of the princess’s purse—“which, naturally, was packed with secret weapons.” A harmless but trite read. For ages 4 – 8.

Another unconventional fairytale is Kiss Me! (I’m a Prince!) by debut author Heather McLeod and illustrated by Brooke Kerrigan (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, hardcover, $18.95). With well-developed characters who grow and change, and punchy dialogue, this story unpacks stereotypical roles for royalty while remembering its real business—to delight and entertain. Ella is a girl with pockets just the right size for ferrying a frog. Instead of a purse she carries other things—a basketball, mostly—and in the end, her sporty lifestyle helps her royal froggy friend see the advantages in becoming a prince.

Recommended for ages 4 to 8.

While books are one way of contesting tradition, they are also culprits in propagating stereotypes. Such a book is Georgina Harris’s Why Girls Love Bags: A Celebration of a Girl’s Best Friend (CICO Books, hardcover, $9.95). Vibrantly illustrated by Sam Wilson, this little number seems bent on convincing readers that “the quest to discover a bag of practical perfection that elegantly expresses our personality” is indeed “a lifelong quest.” Unlike the strong female protagonists described above, whose interests lie beyond cover-girl status, here “the right bag makes you feel different, better, and more beautiful”—the ultimate goal of a girl’s life, or so it seems. And “the right one makes your waist look slimmer, too.” Can a purse really do that? And why would we want it to? This title is not recommended for anyone.

Back to Index

Cohesive, well-structured chapters and captivating central characters make Rachna Gilmore’s new novel That Boy Red (HarperCollins, paperback, $11.99) and Caroline Pignat’s title Wild Geese (Red Deer Press, paperback, $12.95) stand out in the growing number of historical fiction books for young readers.

In That Boy Red, Roderick “Red” MacRae is an impulsive eleven-year-old Canadian hero who connects with readers through his humorous Depression era misadventures. Runaway horses, missing hair, cow dung, lost sisters, outhouses, and even aeroplanes, offer page-turning power. But when his father is injured, Red shows a poignant fortitude, blazing in to manage the woodworking that is part of his family’s livelihood.

Inspired by anecdotes told by Gilmore’s father-in-law about growing up in rural P.E.I., the setting of That Boy Red resonates with the prose of another islander—Montgomery’s beloved Anne books.

Tightly crafted chapters that read like stand-alone short stories make this book an excellent choice for reluctant as well as avid readers ages 8 to 12. Here’s hoping Gilmore has sequels on the way; further information on That Boy Red can be found on the author’s blog.

Another style of historical fiction appears in Pignat’s Wild Geese, a stand-alone sequel to the Governor General’s Award winning novel Greener Grass. In contrast to Gilmore’s virtually self-contained episodes, Pignat’s chapters carefully build their way towards the book’s finish, each one ending with a strong declarative statement from the heart of the young narrator or else a cliffhanging event, serving to wind the reader a little closer with each installment.

The title reflects the struggles of expatriate Irish through the story of teenager Kit Byrne as she journeys away from the Irish famine of the mid 19th century. Her travels take her across the Atlantic, through the Grosse Isle quarantine station, and on to Upper Canada, where she struggles to put her family back together. While her original dreams don’t come true, she gains hope, faith in God, and faith in herself, and these accumulated gifts inspire a new dream, concluding the gentle love story that frames this highly recommended title for ages 12 to 15.

Back to Index

Two characters with heavy burdens leave their contemporary lives to travel into different places and times where lessons learned offer inspiration and courage. Cass, in Winnipeg author Margaret Buffie’s Winter Shadows (Tundra, hardcover, $21.99) and Alyssa in Regina author Alison Lohans’ Picturing Alyssa (Dundurn Press, paperback, $12.99) would have a lot to say to each other, if only they could meet outside their respective books.

In Winter Shadows, a teenage girl uses an antique brooch to time slip five generations, connecting with a previous resident of her old house on the Red River. Through eavesdropping and sampling bits from a diary, Cass comes to know Beatrice as a young woman who shares many of the same struggles. Just as Cass longs to escape a life with her newly blended family, Beatrice experiences tensions with her father’s new wife who seems to be consciously driving a wedge between Beatrice and her father. Should Beatrice accept the proposal of a man she doesn’t love, just to embark on a journey where she might eventually find happiness? Cass offers sound advice, and, through helping Beatrice, Cass finally finds a way to deal with the death of her beloved mother and move forward.

The 1865 setting is as sharp and authentic as the contemporary context. Buffie adeptly reproduces tensions related to the mix of Scottish, aboriginal, and English cultures in the early settlement near Selkirk, Manitoba, allowing themes of ethnicity to weave into the background of Beatrice’s gripping story. Cass’s modern story is equally page-turning, and the combination of the two results in a rich and satisfying read.

Picturing Alyssa is a novel covering similar territory. A young girl victimized by bullying, her family bereft at the loss of a baby, finds a way to travel into the Quaker home of her great grandmother where the girls become fast friends. Using a photograph as a portal into the world of 1931, Alyssa at first yearns to stay with Deborah, but our young time traveller soon finds out that life anywhere has its ups and downs. In the end, Alyssa returns home to deal directly with her challenges.

In the hands of experienced writers Buffie and Lohans, the shifts between past and present are easily navigated by readers. The brooch in Winter Shadows and the photograph in Picturing Alyssa both operate smoothly to convey characters through time and space. At first stricken with confusion, and then with growing understanding and control, these two protagonists are strikingly convincing within the suspension of disbelief conjured by good fantasy. Both books are highly recommended for ages 11 and up.

Back to Index

Reminiscent of other tales where characters journey in and out of books is David Ward’s new junior fantasy Between Two Ends (Amulet, hardcover, $19.95). A young boy enters a translation of the Arabian Nights on behalf of his father who, two decades earlier, entered the book with a young friend and agonizingly left her there. Now it is up to ten-year-old Yeats to rectify an accident that has haunted his dad all these years. Will Yeats find Shara, who now thinks herself Shaharazad? And if he finds her, can he convince her to come back home?

Underpinning the lively action is a folktale about a girl both courageous and beautiful, the lovely Shaharazad. At the heart of her story is a king, once betrayed by a woman, who marries a new girl each night but kills her before morning. Shaharazad manages to save herself by telling the king a series of stories, for a thousand and one nights, ridding him of nightmares and building his trust until he at last accepts her as a permanent wife. Yeats must save Shara before she enters into this arrangement, adding a time factor to their ordeal that pushes the plot even more quickly forward. Recommended for ages 8 – 12, with companion reads available in Funke’s Inkheart as well as Child’s picturebook for younger readers: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book?

The Arabian Nights is a collection of ancient tales from India, Persia, and North Africa, and the stories became available in English in the early 1700s. Retellings of One Thousand and One Nights appear in a number of contemporary children’s stories for younger children. Sinbad: From the Tales of the Thousand and One Nights and Sinbad in the Land of the Giants are two stellar retellings illustrated by Ludmila Zeman. There’s a Mouse in My House by Sheree Fitch is another picturebook playing on the Shaharazad folktale, with a storytelling mouse occupying the lead role.

A historical fiction novel for older readers that also deals with intertwining destinies is Marthe Jocelyn’s Folly (Tundra, hardcover, $22.99). Authentic dialogue and settings that capture the essence of Victorian England, yet invoke present sensibilities, raise this title to exceptional heights, with a storyline both poignant and gripping. One of the voices in this title belongs to Mary, a young woman whose unwitting choices cause a pregnancy that threatens her survival in a time and place where unwed mothers find little support. A second voice is that of her son, young James, whose upbringing in the care of Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital illuminates an organization still in operation to support London’s inner-city children.

Jocelyn’s interest in the Coram Foundation began when she traced her family’s roots beyond the “orphan” label attached to her grandfather, discovering a great-grandmother who had received support from the Foundling Hospital in the late 1800s. While this novel is not her great-grandmother’s story, Mary’s character was certainly inspired by Jocelyn’s roots.

“I began exceedingly ignorant, apart from what a girl can learn through family mayhem, a dead mother, a grim stepmother, and a sorrowful parting from home. But none of that is useful when it comes to being a servant, is it? And nothing to ready me, either, for the other surprises a girl might stumble over. Let no one doubt that I’ve learned my lesson and plenty more besides...I’ll confess there were a part of me that shone bright in the sunshine cast by Caden Tucker as it never did elsewhere. A part of me that were me, the true Mary Finn, when I were walking out with him.” Mary’s candid first-person narration leads us through the first chapter in the sure way Jocelyn always deals with beginnings, creating a hook that catches and holds. Highly recommended for ages 13 and up.

Back to Index

Harvey by Hervé Bouchard and illustrated by Janice Nadeau (Groundwood Books, hardcover, $19.95) is the first Governor General’s Literary Award winner for both text and illustration. Translated from the original French by Helen Mixter, this 2010 graphic novel illuminates poignant themes of death and grief through the first-person narrative of a young boy, Harvey, whose father dies of a heart attack and who becomes invisible in the adult world of confusion and customs.

Highly recommended for ages 10 to 13.

Prisoner of Dieppe by Hugh Brewster is a new book in the I Am Canada historical fiction series (Scholastic, hard cover, $14.99), a collection of titles generally aimed at young male readers. Centred around what has become known as “the bloodiest nine hours in Canadian military history,” the narrative unfolds through the eyes of 18-year-old Alistair Morrison as he enlists in the army at the urge of a fearless friend. Gritty without being gratuitous, the first-person narrative is a compelling read for ages 12 and up.

A book for younger readers is Heather Hartt-Sussman’s Noni Says No (Tundra, hardcover, $19.99), a picturebook that relates the original story of a little girl who just wants to please, but to her own detriment. When Noni finally finds her voice, the consequences are surprising, reminding readers to be true to themselves. Playfully illustrated by Geneviève Côté, a previous winner of the Governor General’s Award for children’s illustration, this title is highly recommended for ages 4 to 7.

Back to Index

The characters in Rebecca Bender’s debut picture book Giraffe and Bird (Dancing Cat Books, hardcover, $18.95) probably would never give each other a valentine, but that does not mean they are enemies. They are just the kind of friends that pester and perturb each other...shouting themselves into a rift that at first looks permanent. When a storm makes them realize the comfort they found in each other: “...The next morning, the bird feels glum. He has nowhere to sit, and no one to pick and peck.” The giraffe feels lonely too...all the giraffe can think about is the bird. What can he do to renew their relationship?

The deliciously comic characterizations are presented for ages 4 - 8 through bright acrylics, while particular words are included in oversized bold font to create further humour. Dancing Cat Books, a new imprint of Cormorant Books, is a Canadian publisher to watch.

A clever retelling of the Cinderella folktale in the format of an intermediate-age novel, Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Simon & Schuster, paperback, $7.99) is a highly plot-driven read. Beginning with a pre-wedding scene where the new princess is stuck in her chilly palace room, unable to build her own fire because of stupid rules of etiquette (she has been admonished previously about stooping to menial tasks), the book races forward. An occasional flashback nods to the well-known fairy tale while also contradicting some of the original.

About halfway through the book, Ella (or Princess Cynthiana Eleanora, as she has been ostentatiously renamed) realizes that her feelings for Prince Charming are not love, and that she is now trapped in a situation from which extrication is going to be incredibly complicated. That is the real story here, and one worth telling, although murmured allusions to King Henry VIII may limit this as a story less universal than it really is. In addition, the ending merits critical discussion, as readers will find themselves resting back on stereotypes related to physical beauty. A title whose colloquial style may capture reluctant readers, it is highly recommended for ages 12 to 14.

Gravity by Leanne Lieberman (Orca, paperback, $12.95) is a more realistic coming-of-age novel also addressing the oppression of women, this time with a local focus on the 1980s. Fifteen-year-old Ellie Gold, daughter of Orthadox Jews, must somehow reconcile her faith and her lesbian sexual orientation amidst other questions of career choice, the place of women in society, and her own personal identity.

“Boys,” she says to herself. “Ellie, you’re supposed to like boys. Right. Like...I don’t know any boys. They go to a different school, sit in a different part of the synagogue, look away when we walk by. There’s that nice guy at the supermarket Neshama thinks is cute. He has nice eyes, and his hair is the same strawberry blond as Lindsay’s, except hers is rippled and soft...Omigod...I’m thinking about a girl, and she’s not even Jewish.”

This text was Lieberman’s master’s thesis at the University of Windsor and a winner of Orca Book Publisher’s novel contest as well as highly recommended by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. A complex and sensitive read for mature teens.

Back to Index

Books for young people are stretching real-world boundaries with variations on science fiction and fantasy, and four new titles from 2010 deserve a look in this regard. Regina author Sharon Plumb offers a compelling read in Draco’s Child (Thistledown, paperback, $14.95), an adventure story set on a planet that has become home to a group of humans fleeing a polluted, dying Earth. The characterization of Varia is highly authentic in its presentation of a young teen who strives for independence despite the dangers associated with their terrestrial community. Typical teen angst is magnified as the only other girl Varia’s age was on a second ‘lander’ whose arrival on the planet went off track and is yet to be discovered. The most complex relationship in the book occurs between Varia and a dragon that she secretly hatches from a crystal egg, although an emerging confidant appears in Sidran, a boy whose depiction implies romantic promise.

Equally authentic as a character in its own right is Galatea, the dragon that Varia enthusiastically raises until suddenly the lines between friend and foe are blurred. Their developing physical relationship, when Galatea becomes Galateor and insists they... “garoop”...to produce more dragons, is understated yet important to the plot, elevating the reading age. Recommended for teens.

Another science fiction title based on alternative communities that form after Earth’s environmental breakdown is Dark Life by Kat Falls (Scholastic, hardcover, $19.99). Not quite as compelling as Slade’s The Dark Deeps, it nevertheless offers imaginative fare for young readers who enjoy adventure and the science of the undersea world. The most intriguing theme in this title connects to a question about whether ‘differences’ are gifts, most specifically related to the mutations that occur in children growing up on the ocean floor. Told through Ty’s first person perspective, his observations detailed and clear, this plot driven novel will appeal to boys and girls in the 9 – 12 age range.

Collapse of the Veil by prolific Regina author Alison Lohans (Bundoran Press, paperback, $11.95) is speculative fiction that follows the story of teen mom Katie Carrington as she discovers a passage to a future world and the revelation that the community of Aaurenan worships her son as their prophesied saviour. With the cameo setting of Wascana Lake—

‘Oasc’na’ in the parallel Aaurenan—this local fantasy is unique in its development of a protagonist with authentic teen issues. Some aspects of the book relating to sexuality—such as the necessity for Katie’s friend Lorne to ‘seed’ new life in the desperate world of the future —elevate the reading age. For mature teens.

Matthew J. Kirby’s stunning debut novel The Clockwork Three (Scholastic, hardcover, $20.99) intertwines three stories in a Victorian steampunk fantasy that manages to be both convincing and evocative. Guiseppe, stolen from Italy as a young child, is a street musician who seeks to outsmart his ruthless master through the help of an enchanted green violin. Frederick, having escaped a cruel orphanage to work as an apprentice clockmaker, attempts to ensure his livelihood through the creation of a brilliant automaton. Hannah is a maid in a grand hotel who must find a way to purchase medicine for her critically ill father. Brought together by mysterious and compelling circumstances, each of these three children holds a key to the others’ puzzles. Tightly crafted, with a steady literary hand reminiscent of Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret, this title is highly recommended for ages 9 – 12.

Back to Index

Brenna Book Reviews, 2010

Favourite books for the holidays can be divided into two categories: older titles that withstand the test of time, and contemporary reads that more closely reflect today’s reading audience. Literacy research advocates reading aloud to children as the single most important thing a parent can do to support reading development, and the good news is: there’s lots of titles available that interest adults as well as children, a far cry from the past when children’s literature was generally didactic and difficult for adults to enjoy.

The following list is a combination of new titles and ones more tried and true, offering support for library visits as well as great gift ideas.

Favourite Picturebooks (ages 4 – 7)

Leo Lionni’s Frederick (Knopf; first published in 1968) is a delightful picturebook about a gifted poet mouse, with collage illustrations that inspire children’s own papery creations.

David Ward’s One Hockey Night (Scholastic, 2010), with stunning illustrations by Brian Deines, offers a heartwarming Christmas tale in a Canadian setting.

Junior Titles (ages 7 – 9)

Beverly Cleary’s Ramona the Pest (HarperCollins, first published in 1968) is the first in a timeless series about a curious little girl whose scrapes are humorous and universal.

Catherine Ripley’s Why? (Scholastic, 2010) is an engaging collection of children’s questions coupled with informative answers. Illustrated by Scot Ritchie, this non-fiction title is an updated version of the 2001 original, covering popular topics such as why the sky is blue, why we sleep, and why garbage smells.

Matt Smith and David Tilton’s (2008) adaption of Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery Medal winning book The Tale of Despereaux (Candlewick Press) is a graphic adventure novel about several unlikely heroes; recommended for avid as well as reluctant readers.

Ashley Spires’ Binky the Space Cat (Kids Can Press, 2009) is a graphic novel from a Saskatoon author/illustrator that weaves feline hilarity into simple words and pictures.

Intermediate Titles (ages 9 – 12)

Kate di Camillo’s The Tiger Rising (Candlewick Press, 2001) has short, luminous chapters that tell the story of two children, misfits in their community, who discover a caged tiger in the woods and through their connections with the animal and each other, grow beyond the constraints of their lives.

Alan Garner’s The Owl Service (HarperCollins, first published in 1967) follows the story of three children re-enacting an old tragedy during a summer spent in a Welsh valley haunted by mythical spirits.

Sylvia Olsen’s Counting on Hope (Sono Nis Press, 2009) is historical fiction set in 1982, presenting the story of a friendship between a young English immigrant named Hope, and Letia, a young girl of the Lamalcha people. Hope’s perspective is told through prose, while Letia’s voice appears in free verse, a remarkable narrative combination that is original and striking.

Young Adult Novels (ages 12 and up)

Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) is the first in a series of dystopian science fiction titles that have quickly earned a wide audience, blending elements of popular culture and war. While the text does include minor errors in editing, the story is gripping and very readable.

Gina McMurchy-Barber’s Free as a Bird (Dundurn Press, 2010), shortlisted for the 2010 Governor General’s Literary Award, relates a coming-of-age story from the perspective of a young woman with Down Syndrome.

Edward Willett’s Song of the Sword (Lobster Press, 2010), a highly original take on the King Arthur Legend, follows the adventures of two teen heroes on a Regina landscape. Book 1 of a series by a prolific Saskatchewan author.

Back to Index

A number of Canadian awards spotlight children’s books, illuminating exceptional titles for the benefit of their readership. Each year, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Governor General of Canada collaborate to honour fine Canadian literature. This year’s shortlist for children’s text includes five young adult titles that, as a group, represent many types of diversity. K.L. Denman’s Me Myself and Ike (Orca Books) is a gripping, first-person narrative by a fictional young man with schitzophrenia. Lesley Fairfield’s Tyranny (Tundra Books) is a graphic novel that authentically presents the story of an adolescent girl with an eating disorder. Gina McMurchy-Barber’s Free as a Bird (Dundurn Press) offers the unique perspective of an adult with Down Syndrome. Wendy Phillips’ Fishtailing (Coteau Books) is a verse novel that deals with bullying through the story of four teens caught in a web of violence. Cheryl Rainfield’s Scars (WestSide Books) grittily presents the life of a teen survivor of sexual abuse who cuts herself to relieve the internal agony. The award winner will be announced in mid November.

A local event that gets young people involved in reading is the Saskatchewan Willow Awards where 30 books, divided into three age categories, have been shortlisted by a team of adult readers. Over the school year, teachers present the books to voting students who will select the readers’ choice winner in each category. It’s important to note that the books do not have to be presented by teachers - families can access them at public libraries and book stores across the province. A boost for Canadian authors and a support for children’s literacy development close to home.

The 2010 Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year is Nancy Hartry’s Watching Jimmy (Tundra Books, hardcover, $18.99), a heart rending junior novel about an eleven-year-old who witnesses an assault on her young friend that leaves him brain damaged. Historical fiction set in 1958, the story underpins the need for social support programs to assist people in trouble. For ages 10 and up.

Awards lists are good places to search for quality literature, but these lists are not all encompassing. Two Canadian authors with first novels not yet in the spotlight should find an immediate readership for their marvellous writing styles and authentic, contemporary themes and settings. Vikki VanSickle’s Words that Start With B (Scholastic, paperback, $8.99) is a definite page turner with a young teen protagonist whose snappy repartee leads readers into serious issues related to a parent’s breast cancer as well as the bullying of a friend whose sexuality is targeted by neighbourhood kids. Highly recommended for ages 11 – 13.

Adwoa Badoe’s Between Sisters (Groundwood Books, $12.95) is set in Ghana, following the life of sixteen-year-old Gloria who fails out of school and becomes a nanny for Christine, a well-to-do relative. Nudged into a corrupt world where adults prey on young girls for sexual favours, Gloria slips but regains her balance in a journey that is both a captivating glimpse of life in Ghana and a universal picture of an adolescent in difficult circumstances trying to make her way. Young girls tempted by the powerful messages offered by gang culture would do well to consider Gloria’s story as a safe way of unpacking the results of personal choices. Highly recommended for ages 13 and up.

Back to Index

Fantasy literature for young people has traditionally had more male than female authors making the awards’ lists: Lloyd Alexander, Eoin Colfer, Roald Dahl, Alan Garner, C.S. Lewis, Garth Nix, Christopher Paolini, Philip Pullman, Jonathon Stroud, J.R.R. Tolkien, and E. B. White, among others, and, in Canada, the likes of Kenneth Oppel, Charles de Lint, Dave Duncan, and Art Slade. Not to be completely eclipsed, contemporary female authors are carving new territory since the classic work of Natalie Babbitt, Mollie Hunter and Madeleine L’Engle followed by Elizabeth Knox and J.K. Rowling as well as Canadians Patricia Bow, Janet Lunn, O. R. Melling, Kit Pearson, and Cora Taylor.

Two relatively new female Canadian fantasy writers for young people are proving themselves rising stars in an industry where male characters have also dominated. Peterborough writer Holly Bennett, an editor and writer with Today’s Parent magazine, has established herself with a fifth of five intermediate novels published in the last five years. Erin Bow, a Kitchener poet and daughter-in-law to Patricia Bow, has recently produced her first novel—a work that will certainly garner her many accolades. Both titles are suitable for ages 12 and up, and both feature strong female protagonists.

Bennett’s new fantasy title for young teens, Shapeshifter (Orca Books, paperback, $12.95), is a retelling of the ancient Irish legend of Finn mac Cumhail involving his first wife— Sive, a woman of the Sidhe. Bennett does a lovely job of transforming the untold details of the legend into a richly crafted epic novel that will certainly make awards’ lists.

“The year Sive became a woman, two things happened that would shape the course of her life. She found her animal form. And the dark druid, Far Doirche, fixed his eye upon her.” So the story begins. We follow the narrative eagerly, hoping for a happy ending, especially where star crossed lovers Sive and Finn are concerned, but such is not to be. By the time the Dark Man is ruined, the ageless Sive has spent years in the otherworld of Tir na nOg while Finn has been following his mortal journey. Discovered by their grown son Oisin, Sive’s reinstated memories are not enough to bridge the gap between her life and Finn’s, and thus the ending of the tale is bittersweet.

Bennett is particularly deft at handling the descriptions of place that mark a vivid path for readers throughout the many settings involved. Sive’s transformations into deer form are believable in the context of the story, and the cover of the book is strikingly evocative. Highly recommended.

Bow’s first novel, Plain Kate (Arthur A. Levine, hardcover, $19.99), is an evocative yarn representative of a master storyteller. It begins: “A long time ago, in a market town by a looping river, there lived an orphan girl called Plain Kate.” As is apparent in many fantasy titles, heroes are made, not born, and Kate herself is an example of a young person who rises above adversity to consider the value of humanity above her own person.

A wood-carver’s daughter, Plain Kate has learned her art from her father, a craft that becomes her livelihood when Piotr dies from one of the plagues that scourges the countryside. Because of her gifts and strange ways, in conjunction with the villagers’ fears and superstition, Plain Kate is accused of witchcraft and, to save herself, deals with Linay, a stranger who wishes her shadow in exchange for what he presents as salvation. A growing realization that she has supported Linay in a terrible plan of revenge pushes Plain Kate to the edge of disaster...and back.

A title of high seriousness, it also has its comic moments, many engineered by the cameo comments of Taggle, a talking cat.

If there was an Oscar to be won in the realm of children’s books, this year it would decidedly go to Taggle in the context of this delightfully satisfying read. Highly recommended.

Back to Index

The beginning of a new school year is a good time to reflect on personal goals and ways to attain them. Kari-Lynn Winters’ new picture book When Chickens Fly, illustrated by Izabela Bzymek (Gumboot Books, 2009, $13.99), is intended for ages 4 – 9 but may also find a place with older students as a discussion starter about dreams and obstacles as well as acceptance of diversity.

Not content with producing Grade A eggs for the Snow Sports Competition, Esper Getz—Chicken Extrordinaire—practices her skiing in anticipation of the event. When her application is rejected, the bad news spreads to chicken coops around the world. In response, Esper’s feathered friends go on strike, the resulting lack of eggs putting farmers, drivers and chefs out of work while athletes miss their usual protein fix. When Esper finally has a chance to prove herself, this ‘free range aerialist’ doesn’t disappoint. Comical illustrations collaborate with a clever text that uses puns and repetition to relate a worthy story reminiscent of the exclusion of women from the ski jumping competition in Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Highly recommended.

Winters’ publisher, Gumboot Books, is a Vancouver based company founded in 2006 whose platform includes the fostering of a sense of social responsibility and respect for our planet and all who share it. Consult www.gumbootbooks.ca for information on their other titles.

Another noteworthy publisher, specializing in adult literacy resources, is Grass Roots Press. Their new line of Good Reads (www.goodreadsbooks.com) by established Canadian authors contain clear language in short novel formats designed to support adult literacy learners.

One of the six available Good Reads’ titles is In From the Cold (Grass Roots Press, paperback, $6.95) by Governor General’s Award winning children’s author Deborah Ellis. Rose and her daughter Hazel are urban street people, and Ellis’s text is straightforward in portraying routines of Dumpster scavenging in dark alleys and hair washing at Donut Heaven. Rose struggles to keep her Hazel safe at night, traveling on uncertain streets.

“Always, on these journeys, Rose wished she were two people. She had to walk in front of Hazel, to protect her from anything that was ahead, but she also wanted to walk behind. What if something—someone—snatched at her daughter as they walked by?” At rest, afraid that her daughter might be stolen without Rose waking, Rose loops a piece of string around their ankles, joining them together.

Mother and daughter are on the run because Rose has killed Hazel’s abusive father in self defence. Afraid she’ll be sent to prison, Rose tries to lie low and think of a plan. Hazel, tired of missing school and sleeping rough, concocts a story explaining how she herself killed her dad. “I was putting my plate in the sink. You and Daddy came in. He was yelling and hitting you. I picked up the knife to get him to stop, and I accidentally killed him. Then I got scared and ran out of the house. You came after me to protect me.” But should Rose let Hazel take the blame? Or would it be better to flee herself, and leave Hazel to be looked after by foster care? Or instead of running...is there a better way?

Real issues in a well written text respectful of adults who look to further their reading skills. Highly recommended.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of seven books for young people. Her newest title Waiting for No One, a sequel to Wild Orchid, is available this fall from Red Deer Press.

Back to Index

Two new titles for ages twelve and up earn star ratings for Saskatoon authors Alice Kuipers and Art Slade, and both deal with complex and evocative characters, albeit very differently. Kuipers’ The Worst Thing She Ever Did (HarperCollins, paperback, $15.99) is a contemporary realistic fiction novel told through the dated journal entries of sixteen-year-old Sophie Collins, suffering post traumatic stress after surviving a terrorist bombing of the London Underground in which her older sister was killed. As Sophie allows herself to remember the ordeal and put it to rest, she discovers and explores a range of poetic forms, an aspect of the novel that increases its richness for young readers who may share related passions. We cheer as Sophie comes to terms with the panic attacks that are preventing her from living life the way she wishes, and find ourselves completely invested in following her day-to-day, including a navigation of alcohol, drugs, and sexuality.

The story unfolds slowly, piece by piece, with memories about Emily building until the close when Sophie can finally let herself dwell on her sister’s last moments. The emotional signature of the narrator rings true in every detail, and other characters—most notably Sophie’s mother, a woman on a tenuous, healing journey of her own—are created with similar care. In addition to Sophie’s story, readers are introduced to a cast of teens that are intriguing in their own right, and whose perspectives are threaded deftly, and with gentle humour, into the whole. Rather than looking back with nostalgia at adolescence, this title is wholeheartedly there. Its title, reflective of a third person stance not present in the novel, does not do justice to the strong first person voice within.

Just as Sophie is a fan of Stephen King and E.E. Cummings, Modo, the protagonist of Slade’s book, is a fan of Coleridge. With a contrasting speed of narration, Slade’s ‘steampunk’ title The Dark Deeps (HarperCollins, hardcover, $18.99), second in The Hunchback Assignments series, moves at a breakneck pace from beginning to end, gathering characters and espionage while taking readers to the depths of the ocean and back.

Slade portrays Victorian England while simultaneously supporting prominent fantasy elements such as shape-shifting alongside real technological developments like the telegraph. Slade’s use of steampunk, a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction, is newly in favour with other Canadian children’s authors such as Kenneth Oppel, and reminiscent of the formal style of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. This choice offers a kind of cushion for young readers when it comes to language and sexuality, avoiding potential censorship issues because lines are neither approached nor crossed regarding mature content although romance is a clear element of the storyline.

Modo, the book’s main teen protagonist and a spy for the Permanent Association, is a shape-shifter, able to temporarily hide his physical differences in the guise of personas and masks. He is paired with Octavia, another secret agent, although for much of the book his true partner is Colette, a French spy who pushes him to show his true exterior, then finds she cannot tolerate his hunchback appearance.

Slade plays with social justice, constructing a group of “comrades”, the target of global investigations, who are secretly at work on developing a new society where hiding deformity “is the old way of thinking” and where, in Icaria, “all people are welcome...able-bodied and disfigured. In Icaria citizenship means equality for all. The old, the weak, the crippled. There are no poor and no rich in our country.” A tempting philosophy for Modo, who at times crosses the line between investigator and new citizen, but whose dreams clash with the forces of evil seeking to destroy what cannot be controlled.

Rife with marine content that creates humour, especially when it comes to fishy food—bread made from ground coral, mermaid’s purse and ground whalebone, and Black Lumpfish caviar butter—readers will quickly take the bate, hooked until the last line is cast. Slade’s first title in The Hunchback Assignments series has been shortlisted for the $25 000 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award with a winner to be announced on November 9.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people. Her new young adult title Waiting for No One, a sequel to Wild Orchid, will be available from Red Deer Press this fall.

Back to Index

Graphic novels are a relatively new textual form gaining favour with many young readers. Defined as ‘sequential art narratives’, they differ from comics in the length of the story they tell, with indepth reader engagement being a main goal just as it is for traditional novels. While the term graphic novel has been in use since the mid 1960s, it has only recently been catapulted to North American popularity through series’ titles such as Jeff Smith’s Bone. Because many struggling or reluctant readers have found graphic novels enjoyable, the form has had some trouble rising above a narrow view of its intended readership. New titles have helped graphic novels reach prominence as an appropriate medium for all interest-levels and abilities of readers.

The combination of print and illustration in comic-like style offers a number of different possibilities regarding story representation. Some graphic novels represent classic stories such as Black Beauty and Hamlet. Similarly, successful contemporary children’s novels, such as Irene Watts’ intermediate-age holocaust title Goodbye Marianne, and Brian Jacques’ Redwall, are now appearing in an alternative graphic format. A title for young adults that has begun to create interest with high school students is Nicki Greenberg’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Other graphic novels work with Canadian history from original perspectives, reviewing and re-storying non-fiction characters. Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography told by Chester Brown for grades six and up, is one example of these. Saskatoon’s Gabriel Dumont Institute has published the first graphic novel anthology in Saskatchewan: Stories of Our People, an innovative representation of Métis stories.

In addition to the variety of retellings available, many graphic novels are composed entirely as new fiction. The following titles are accessible and relevant as well as engaging for young readers ages eight to eleven. Composed by Canadian authors and illustrators, readers will be able to bring local context to their comprehension of these stories. Liam O’Donnell adds yet another graphic novel to his list with Food Fight (Orca, paperback, $9.95), an adventure story for ages eight to thirteen, illustrated by Mike Deas. While Nadia is spending summer vacation as a counsellor at a university camp for little kids and her brother Devin is an unwilling camp participant, their mother’s agricultural research project is vandalized and her integrity is questioned. An interesting marketing scheme temporarily offers this title as a free download from: http://orcabook.com/foodfight/download.html. Just another benefit of living in the digital age.

J. Torres and J. Bone, co-creators of the Alison Dare series, have two other adventure titles recently reprinted from 2002 editions: The Heart of the Maiden and Little Miss Adventures (Tundra, paperback, $12.99). The spare language carries the story at a rapid pace, but leaves room for word plays which add a whimsical quality to the text. The illustrations at times move the storyline forward without words, a sensation that links graphic novels to films in terms of their effect. These two books are rather glib in their portrayal of stereotypical villains and heroes, but this is perhaps a result of the genre of the books rather than their graphic form.

Because some graphic novels deal with mature subject matter, they are not necessarily geared towards junior readers in spite of what a quick look at the pictures may imply. For this reason, just as much care should be taken when selecting graphic novels for children’s reading as when selecting novels or non-fiction. Tamaki’s Skim, for example, Satrapi’s Persepolis, Thompson’s Blankets, and Spiegelman’s Maus are definitely young adult/adult fare.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people

Back to Index

Building bridges between diverse cultures is a theme found in a number of new books for young people, spotlighting the way that stories can support social change. South American author-illustrator Natalia Columbo’s picture book So Close (Tundra, hardcover, $19.99) relates for the youngest readers the tale of Mr. Duck and Mr. Rabbit, hurrying past each other to and fro work without taking the time to consider their similarities. Readers are left to consider the possibilities through the final lines: “What a difference one little word could make. Hello.” The remaining illustrations carry the story further, as if perhaps one of these universal characters—we’ll never know who—has spoken to the other in friendship and broken a dual tradition of loneliness. For ages four to seven.

Irene Watts, commonly known for her children’s fiction dealing with the Holocaust, has taken another tack with a new intermediate novel. No Moon (Tundra, paperback, $14.99) delves into layers of social class, embedded in British society in 1912, through the story of fourteen-year-old Lou Gardener, nursemaid to the young daughters of a wealthy, titled family living in London. Watts does a remarkable job of capturing historical details—the customs required when meeting various people in a big household, for example—although at times the narration may be a little too stilted for younger readers.

“Now don’t get your hopes too high, Lou,” Mother says. “There’ll be other girls interviewed, though you’re as good as any, if I do say so myself! Mind you, it’ll be hard work, and there’ll be strange rules to learn...

“Housekeeper and butler are at the top; the cook rules the kitchen; the nanny’s the queen of the nursery. Maids all have different duties: the kitchen maid answers to the cook, the scullery maid does the rough work...

“For the interview, you’ll bob a curtsy to the housekeeper and a deeper one to her ladyship. Answer when you’re spoken to, and things will turn out just fine. I want what’s best for you, Lou.”

The climax of the story contains scenes on board the Titanic, with Lou and her charges, sailing to New York on a family vacation, joining the few survivors of the marine disaster. While somewhat contrived to add action to a book that feels to be mainly about class distinction, the Titanic episode will certainly draw readers who may not otherwise discover this title. For ages nine and up.

Borderline (HarperCollins, paperback, $14.99) is a new young adult title by internationally produced and published Canadian playwright and novelist Allan Stratton. When the FBI descends on the home of a fifteen-year-old Muslim boy, Mohammed “Sami” Sabiri, Sami is at first not convinced his Iranian born father is innocent regarding the terrorist plot of which he is accused.

Stratton offers authentic characters divided by various lines including race, religion, gender, and sexual preference, in a seamless story of intrigue and coming-of-age. What is so compelling about this read is that its lesson—a call to judge individuals on their personal attributes rather than through stereotypes—is merely a byproduct of an excellent, plot driven tale composed by a master storyteller. Sequences regarding the abuse Sami tolerates at school are horrifyingly predictable, contrasting well with the book’s surprise ending. Mild profanity convincingly used in context elevates the reading age; for mature teens 13 and up.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Canadian author Marsha Skrypuch, recently a guest in Saskatoon at the Literacy for Life children’s conference, speaks candidly about her newest title Stolen Child (Scholastic, paperback, $8.99). “It was a difficult book to write,” she says, “especially differentiating between memories, flashbacks, and dreams”—aspects of twelve-year-old Nadia’s life through which Skrypuch builds a historical novel that reveals details of the Nazi’s Lebensborn program.

Skrypuch explains that the Lebensborn, or ‘Fount of Life’ system, was practiced during World War II to increase the number of Aryan children, so that the ‘master race’ could populate more of Europe. When it was determined that German women weren’t having babies quickly enough, Hitler’s secret police kidnapped blond, blue-eyed Polish and Ukrainian children from Eastern Europe and relocated them in special German homes where they were brainwashed into thinking that they were German. The fictional Nadia is one of these children, now safely immigrated to Canada at war’s end with Ukrainian friends Marusia and Ivan who have informally adopted her.

Although their new life in Brantford, Ontario has on the surface transcended the terrors of war, the jumble of Nadia’s past haunts her, a post-traumatic stress syndrome that, reports Skrypuch, required considerable research and expert assistance to “get right.” But get it right she does, producing what results as a gradual unfolding of Nadia’s backstory that serves to answer the question at the heart of this young girl’s tale: “Who am I?”

A message embedded in much of Skrypuch’s work is that individuals should be considered on their own merit, rather than narrowly interpreted through single aspects of identity such as gender or race. This is a lesson Nadia learns as she sorts through her own heritage, questioning her role as a child in a German home, and weighing her earlier Ukrainian memories against the negative labels cast by her Canadian peers.

“Every time a student at school would taunt me, calling me a Hitler girl or Nazi Nadia, I felt a tug of shame. I had met many kind Germans, both in Canada and during the war. I felt sorry for Mutter because she was always sad, but she was not kind to me. And Vater was almost a stranger. A cold, hard stranger. After the war, when I heard about the many evil things that Hitler had done, it made me feel ashamed of who I might be.”

Through gripping prose, and the grounding effect of sensory images cast by post-war life in small town Ontario, Skrypuch relates a story previously untold in children’s fiction, offering an original perspective on the Ukrainian experience during World War II. Highly recommended, for ages ten and up.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Canadian authors continue to put local settings on the landscape of books available to young readers, actualizing the adage “write what you know.” Familiar characters and contexts help children connect their background knowledge to reading material, boosting comprehension as well as motivation to read.

Regina teacher Lori Saigeon’s first novel, Fight for Justice (Coteau Books, paperback, $7.95) is clearly set in the familiar context of “Monarch City.” Ten-year-old Justice and his twin sister are bullied by a local kid named Trey, and attempts at revenge backfire. On a family visit to their home reserve, Justice helps his grandfather with various tasks. In return, Mushum offers stories and advice, providing a window into Trey’s life that helps Justice, as well as Saigeon’s readers, understand the dynamic of bullying and some of the complexities regarding the varying stances people take as bullies, victims, and bystanders. For ages eight to eleven; this is an authentic story from an author to watch.

Saskatoon’s Dave Glaze has published another strong title for a similar age group. Danger in Dead Man’s Mine (Coteau, paperback, $8.95) follows eleven-year-old Mac Davis through various mysteries when he visits relatives in Lethbridge during the summer of 1912. Mining history is embedded in the narrated lives of Mac’s extended family, and young readers will see positive aspects of mining culture as well as the dangers a miner’s life held in times past. The compelling plot revolves around the stories of a number of different characters, one of whom is Mac’s young cousin caught in an abandoned mine shaft:

Valerie Sherrard’s new novel Tumbleweed Skies (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, paperback, $12.95) is a historical look at “Weybolt, Saskatchewan” in the mid fifties. Nine-year old Ellie has come to stay on her grandmother’s farm while her father begins a new job as a traveling salesman, but her tough and bitter Grandma Acklebee is the last person in the world with whom Ellie wants to live, and the feeling is mutual.

“I could tell right away that this wasn’t a house that wanted me,” begins Ellie’s first-person narrative. “It was a bright, sunny day, but that didn’t help much. The place seemed cold and unfriendly. You could tell that the outside had been painted once or twice, but years of prairie wind and sun had stripped it almost bare. And even the barn and shed and all the fields around it couldn’t save the house from looking a little lost.”

The characters in this book are complex and dynamic, and the gentle story about transitions and family relationships is well told; an excellent choice for readers eight to eleven from an author whose voice from children’s perspectives is both genuine and poignant.

A title with a comparably complex relationship between granddaughter and grandmother is Rachna Gilmore’s The Trouble with Dilly (HarperCollins, paperback, $12.99). Dilly, like Ellie in Sherrard’s Tumbleweed Skies, is a Canadian girl who always seems to be making mistakes and who is often chastised by her large, stern grandmother who seems to rule the roost and who dresses in white as is the custom for widows in India. Dadiji’s bearing and attire has resulted in Dilly’s nickname for her grandmother—The Great White Hen—an aspect of the story that makes readers empathise with Dilly while at the same time enjoying the humour in her outlook on life.

Gilmore narrates Dilly’s story with keen attention to detail, drawing touching aspects of growing up into a story with delightfully comic overtones. Dilly catches the new immigrant kid, Gedion, shoplifting from her family’s store, and her accusation, and the subsequent reaction from her family, spirals Dilly’s quest for redemption. To atone for her impulsivity, she works with a couple of friends to throw a Canadian Christmas party for Gedion’s family, a party that develops in unexpected ways. Soon the whole community is involved, and Dilly is faced with the decision to dip into her savings for new skates to make the party possible or risk actualizing what people have always said about her—that the trouble with Dilly is that she’s always starting something she can’t finish. A book that skilfully weaves contemporary themes of ethnic diversity and hockey culture with the meaning of community; highly recommended for ages eight to twelve.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Felines figure felicitously in four new titles for children, and may inspire young cat lovers into reading particular texts just for the connection to a beloved pet.

Melanie Watt continues for ages five to eight the exploits of her megalomaniac cat in Chester’s Masterpiece (Kids Can Press, hardcover, $18.95). Some adults might find confusing the non-linear and dialogic text, presented in combinations of sidebars, italics, and bold and regular print, but kids in the digital age love Watt’s work and responses to this title are no exception. The comedy provided by a cat who commandeers a writer’s story in favour of his own design is fresh and original.

Mattoo, Let’s Play (Kids Can Press, hardcover, $18.95) is illustrator Irene Luxbacher’s authorial debut. Known for her illustrations in the Governor General’s Award shortlisted title The Imaginary Garden, Mattoo, Let’s Play uses a similar blend of acrylic ink and collage, following the story of a cat reluctant to partake in a little girl’s dramatic play but who is eventually engaged as the king of the jungle. Great fun for ages three to seven about a cat who offers a startling contrast to Melanie Watt’s Chester.

Regina writer Jean Freeman has again teamed up with Calgary illustrator Val Lawton to accomplish another gentle predictable picturebook for the very young: Where Does Your Cat Nap? (self-published through Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing, paperback, $12.95). This title is highly recommended for shared reading, where children ages two to six chime in the rhyming words. Freeman is also an actress, her endpage photo recognizable from appearances as the mayor’s grandma on the television series Corner Gas.

Another self-published picturebook for older kids five and up includes a great cat cameo within a modern tale of dinosaurs. Amanda Sage’s Dinostory, illustrated by Louisa Sage (www.amandasage.ca/publishing, paperback, $15.00) relates an alternative to scientific hypotheses through narrative that reveals dinosaurs still in existence—quite comfortably living underground and secretly making investigative journeys into human society.

Lesothosaurus, one of the dinosaurs, is particularly small—only one meter long—and his visit to Winnipeg during the summer months progresses quite without incident. His study convinces him that the cats of his chosen family “were a little more like dinosaurs in some ways” than the humans themselves. The cats “had tails, and sharper claws and teeth” but “instead of scales, they were covered in a soft fuzz that Lesothosaurus thought would make excellent wool for the Pearlodon.” In the corresponding illustration, readers will delight in the attitude of a very bristly cat stalking past Lesothosaurus, the artist having captured perfectly how a cat would indeed address a dinosaur—with disdain.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people

Back to Index

Young adult thrillers do not get any better than the uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones (Candlewick, hardcover, $19.00). A cleverly unfolding psychological drama, it carefully presents one scene after another in rich sensory detail, the characters of Mimi, Jay, and Cramer—siblings who find each other in a sleepy little Canadian town—realistically drawn through narration from alternating third-person perspectives.

Cramer’s backstory is the most poignant of the three, vividly reminiscent of Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle where children live with the trauma of parental mental illness. It is Cramer’s story that moves the uninvited into territory meant for older teens and adults, with graphic language throughout the book ensuring a realistic read.

Deservedly shortlisted for a 2009 Governor General’s Award, losing out to Caroline Pignat’s Greener Grass: The Famine Years, the uninvited plays on the suspense inherent with a repeated and mysterious home invasion, where clues from multiple characters begin to add up.

Absentee fathers is a theme also evident in Valerie Sherrard’s new young adult title Watcher (Dundurn, paperback, $12.99), illuminating a topic uncommon in books for young people: parental alienation. Someone’s been stalking Porter; could it be the father whom his mother says abandoned him and his sister twelve years ago? Sixteen-year-old Porter Delaney has his future planned out, until this stranger appears in his Toronto neighbourhood and starts him on a re-examination of past, present, and future. A realistic page-turner, except for minor sections of didactic prose where contrived characters attempt to teach psychology lessons. Geared for ages 14 and up although explicit references to drug use may influence the readership.

K. L. Denman’s Me, Myself and Ike (Orca, paperback $12.95) is an edgy first-person account of a teen’s journey into schizophrenia. With a frank, first person voice similar to Porter’s in Watcher, the story follows seventeen-year-old Kit as he plans with his friend Ike a bizarre expedition where Kit will allow himself to become the next Ice Man, frozen in time for future generations to study. As the story unfolds, however, readers catch hints that Ike may not be whom he seems, and Kit’s challenges grow greater with each turn of the page. In Denman’s Author’s Note, she offers a hope that as we come to a greater understanding of mental illnesses, we are as a society in a better position to help. Mature reading for ages 14 and up.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people

Back to Index

Two books for different age groups offer alternate perspectives on frozen landscapes.

Komako Sakai’s The Snow Day (Scholastic, hardcover, $18.99) is a gentle tribute to winter through the personified perspective of a little rabbit enjoying a day home from kindergarten. Reminiscent of Ezra Jack Keats’s classic The Snowy Day, and Werner Zimmerman’s Snow Day, this title is a good one to share with children ages three to five over hot chocolate and fresh cookies. Sakai’s muted illustrations and spare text depict the bond between mother and child as delightful discoveries unfold.

Marcus Sedgwick’s Revolver (Orion, hardcover, $18.95) is a carefully plotted Nordic thriller for ages twelve and up. It is 1910, and 15 year old Sig Andersson is tending to the body of his father, Einar, who died after falling through a weak spot on the ice-covered lake near their cabin north of the Arctic Circle.

“Dipping his head, he hurried across the newly-fallen snow to the log pile and grabbed half a dozen. On his way back, he saw the lake, shining in the light from a bright moon. Somehow he’d expected it to look different, marked by his father’s death, but it didn’t. He’d seen it look like this a hundred times, and then he understood what was hurting him. It looked commonplace when life had just become anything but. It didn’t even occur to him that come the spring when the ice melted, the place where Einar died would disappear completely, and become gentle wave crests of the wind-whipped lake once more. But then, when snow covers everything and the mercury shows dozens of degrees below, any season but winter is an impossible memory to summon.”

The entrance of Wolff—a rough looking man from Einar’s past—catalyzes a series of events that take Sig from childhood to manhood in a matter of hours, a time period summarized by his sister Anna: “even if you think you’re stuck between two impossible choices, there’s always a third way. You just have to look for it.”

While Revolver begins with an image of winter as the enemy, Wolff soon shoulders that role and, in the end, the snow and ice are clearly on Sig’s side. A clever and gripping read for tweens, also offering intriguing fare for older reluctant readers.

Interestingly, neither Sakai or Sedgwick grew up in cold northern climes, although their descriptions are vividly realistic. Sakai lives and works in Japan while Sedgwick makes his home in Cambridge.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Brenna Book Reviews, 2009

The digital age has prompted developments in children’s literature consistent with the changing forms and formats, changing perspectives, and changing boundaries that readers of all ages experience through connections with the internet. Described in terms of Radical Change theory by Dr. Eliza Dresang, a professor at the University of Washington, some of these changes within and among books are foregrounded in the five picture books shortlisted for the 2009 Governor General’s Award for children’s literature (illustration). The winner of this year’s award was Bella’s Tree, written by Janet Russell and illustrated with oil pastels on paper by Jirina Marton (Groundwood Books, hardcover, $18.95). A picture book for ages four to eight, Bella’s Tree is the most traditional of the five shortlisted books, with its chronological storyline and a nostalgic theme involving a child who cheers her grandmother at Christmas. What moves this title into modern appeal is its telling through Newfoundland dialect as well as forms that alternate between story and song.

Tim Beiser’s Bradley McGogg the Very Fine Frog (Tundra, hardcover, $19.99), illustrated by Rachel Berman, performs in rhyming couplets the story of Bradley’s quest for a suitable meal. Berman’s watercolor gouache on rag paper extends outside its given frames, a decision implying the story’s awareness of itself in an illustrative attempt at ‘metafiction’. Very traditional, however, is the perspective that different creatures eat different things, inspiring Bradley to criticize the choices of others as ‘strange’. Listed for ages two to five, the complexity of the language and the hints at mystery in the dark patches of background illustration may be more suitable for ages five and up.

New perspectives are found in the strikingly original My Great Big Mama by Olivier Ka, illustrated by Luc Melanson (Groundwood Books, hardcover, $18.95) and Andrew Larson’s The Imaginary Garden (Kids Can Press, hardcover, $16.95), illustrated by Irene Luxbacher. Both titles are for ages four to seven, although these are appropriate texts through which older children may practice critical literacy by examining the contradiction of stereotypes.

In The Imaginary Garden, Poppa’s move to an apartment brings his and granddaughter Theo’s gardening to an end, until Theo comes up with the idea to paint their way into spring. With pen and ink and multimedia collage, Luxbacher’s illustrations are vibrantly layered, playfully offering unique placements for the accompanying text. At times, the scenes depict an older gentleman and a little girl on an apartment balcony; at other times, however, the duo are swept into the meadow of their imaginings. One page offers an art lesson while simultaneously continuing the storyline. Definitely a title that doesn’t take itself too seriously, children will delight in the result. So will seniors: Poppa’s representation as an active world traveler is very refreshing.

My Great Big Mama also works against stereotypes through the story of a little boy who loves his mother just the way she is, in spite of “what people say” about her weight. Melanson’s digital illustrations offer diverse perspectives, from ant’s eye to airplane points of view, and alternate between the narrator’s real and imaginary projections.

Alego, written and illustrated by Ningeokuluk Teevee and translated from the Inuktitut by Nina Manning-Toonoo, is the simple story of a young Inuit girl who goes to the shore with her grandmother to collect clams for supper (Groundwood Books, hardcover, $17.95). Along the way, Alego’s discoveries of the natural world offer a specificity about the life of an Inuit child as well as an implied universality about families everywhere. This text is written in Inuktitut and English and includes a glossary of sea creatures as well as a pictorial map of Baffin Island. The illustrations, graphite and colored pencil on paper, will captivate the four to seven age group for whom the book is intended.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Unique perspectives on war appear in titles designed towards supporting young readers in the world in which they live as well as recreating the past. Lois Lowry’s Crow Call (Scholastic, hardcover, $21.99), a picture book for children ages seven and up, explores a young girl’s reunion with her soldier dad.

“I sit shyly in the front seat of the car next to the stranger who is my father, my legs pulled up under the too-large wool shirt I am wearing.

“I practice his name to myself, whispering it under my breath. Daddy. Daddy. Saying it feels new. The war has lasted so long. He has been gone so long.”

Father and daughter head into the woods this particular morning in late autumn to rid the area of crows, and Lowry’s fine language celebrates the fleeting season: &rlduo;Grass, frozen after its summer softness, crunches under our feet; the air is sharp and supremely clear, free from the floating pollens of last summer, and our words seem etched and breakable on the brittle stillness.”

What begins as a crow hunt, however, emerges from this finely crafted piece as a celebration of life. “My father comes down the hill to meet me coming up. He carries his gun carefully; and though I am grateful to him for not using it, I feel that there is no need to say thank you—Daddy knows this already. The crows will always be there and they will always eat the crops; and some other morning, on some other hill, a hunter, maybe not my daddy, will take aim.” A story that embraces the universal in family relationships as well as the specific, with stunning illustrations of watercolor and acryl-gouache by Bagram Ibatoulline. Highly recommended.

A simpler tale involving a conversation between a grandfather and grandson, preparing for the veteran’s parade, appears in Jane Barclay’s picture-book Proud as a Peacock, Brave as a Lion (Tundra, hardcover, $20.99), illustrated in watercolor and gouache by Renné Benoit.

“I help him fasten his medal above the pocket of his blazer. Sometimes my poppa’s hands shake, so he needs to borrow mine. He smiles as he gives me a poppy to pin on my jacket. He looks very proud. But beneath my poppa’s smile, I hear the bad dream that woke him in the night.” For ages six and up.

Linda Granfield’s Remembering John McCrae (Scholastic, hardcover, $16.99) is a fitting tribute to the life of the Canadian soldier and doctor who penned “In Flanders Fields” after the loss of a friend. In addition to including a select photo-history of the Boer War and World War I, this book reminds readers that behind every poem is a poet, and offers a strong message about the power of words. For ages eight and up.

Jim Murphy’s Truce (Scholastic, hardcover, $24.99) is a photo filled non-fiction narrative for older readers that focuses on December 25, 1914, when troops openly defied their commanding officers by stopping the fighting for a day of peace. Carrying a message of hope beyond the boundaries of politics, this is a well-researched title worth consideration by young historians. Murphy’s other non-fiction titles—including The Great Fire, and Blizzard!—are also noteworthy. For ages ten and up.

Monique Polak’s young adult novel What World is Left (Orca, paperback, $12.95) chronicles the experiences of a young girl taken with her family from Holland to Theresienstadt, a “model” concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Through the eyes of the teenage Anneke, Polak presents the fictionalized drama of the prisoners alongside a number of real historical events including the reception of a Danish Red Cross delegation that inspected the camp in June, 1944, when the prisoners were forced to fabricate fake shops and schools to ensure that the secrets of their tortured existence were kept from the world. Polak was inspired by the experiences of her mother, Celien Polak, who spent two years at Theresienstadt where her grandfather, a Dutch artist like the fictional Anneke’s father, did commercial art for the Nazis. One of the plot lines in the novel involves the dual work Anneke’s father creates: the work requisitioned by Hitler, but also vivid sketches that he somehow sends out of the camp to portray the real agonies suffered by innocent people. The novel ends with a compelling quote from the German romantic poet Heinrich Heine: “Think what world is left you still, /And how lovely is that part.” For mature readers ages twelve and up.

A short story in Deborah Ellis’s young adult collection Lunch with Lenin (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, paperback, $14.95) offers another perspective on war amidst tales whose themes focus on drugs and alcohol. “Pretty Flowers” unfolds in Afghanistan where twelve-year-old Tahmina is helping her father with the opium poppy harvest. In happier times, the family had owned pomegranate orchards, but since these were destroyed by warplanes, Tahmina’s family spent time in a refugee camp in Pakistan before repatriation and a return to farming in the opium industry. In a tragic turn, when the opium crops are destroyed due to new Afghani legislation, Tahmina’s father has no choice but to sell her as a wife to the local merchant to whom he is in debt. Difficult subject matter that offers complexity in its assignment of blame, this story, along with the rest of the collection, is suitable for mature readers ages twelve and up.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Two young adult novels with serious subject matter add important voices to the material available for teen readers from Canadian authors. Liane Shaw’s thinandbeautiful.com (Second Story Press, paperback, $11.95) is a fictional high school girl’s first-person account of experiences with an eating disorder. It is in diary format that Maddie’s life unfolds—from the events leading up to her “imprisonment” in a residential clinic, through flashbacks into childhood, and including the online chat among Maddie and her “new friends”—the girls she meets through a pro anorexia website and who convince her that her body obsession is normal. It is only through the personal tragedy of one of these friends that Maddie eventually begins to admit the truth and open herself to healing. With well developed characters in the mix of family and friends who engage with this young woman, readers have the opportunity to enjoy a strong story while at the same time learning about an illness that may hit close to home. Highly recommended.

Marthe Jocelyn’s Would You (Tundra, hardcover, $19.99) travels a difficult road in combining a teen’s upbeat and compassionate nature with heartbreaking family circumstances—Natalie’s older sister Claire is in a coma from a serious accident. How Natalie endures the days after the tragic event creates a page-turner that is heartbreaking yet engaging, reinforcing for readers that some stories do not have happy endings yet life goes on for those left behind.

The message in this title is clear: stuff happens, things change, and people do the best they can to cope. “I stare at Claire. She’d never, ever want to know that this is where she is. It’s time to find something new to hope for.” An optimistic slant for a book that in a lesser writer’s hands might have been sloppily sentimental; recommended for mature readers.

In his debut novel Leaving Fletchville (Orca, paperback, $9.95), René Schmidt, tackles issues of social justice and prejudice in a way younger readers ten to fourteen can process. Brandon’s new friend seems reserved and mysterious until the secret’s out—thirteen-year-old Leon is actually parenting his two younger siblings as a result of difficult life circumstances. Although the ending is too pat, the exceptional dialogue and characterization in this title predict future successes for this new author—definitely someone to watch.

Saskatoon author Arthur Slade’s new title, The Hunchback Assignments (HarperCollins, paperback, $18.99), is the first in an exploratory series championing “steampunk,” a genre increasing in popularity with young teens. Steampunk is a sub-category of fantasy and speculative fiction that emerged a couple of decades ago and denotes a world where steam power is still widely used but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy—in this case an alternative Victorian London. Reminiscent of Kenneth Oppel’s Airborn series, The Hunchback Assignments, unfolding in a gothic style that will engage a particular readership, marks the flexibility of an author always eager to explore new territory. For ages twelve and up.

The Mystery of the Moonlight Murder: An Early Adventure of John Diefenbaker is the first attempt at literature from Fireside Publishing House—a new group bent on fictionalizing the past lives of all twenty-two Canadian prime ministers. Unfortunately, author Roderick Benns succumbs to hallmarks of ineffectual writing including ponderous pacing, the narrative telling rather than showing, and hackneyed description. Possibly of interest to history buffs, although the fictionalization takes a wide berth, at times, from Diefenbaker’s actual past; this title is not stylistically appropriate for the intended audience—ages ten to fourteen.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Frank Edwards’ biography Robert Munsch (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, paperback, $9.95) offers straightforward insight into the life of one of Canada’s most prolific children’s writers and the recipient of an Order of Canada. Young readers who have grown up on Munsch texts will be intrigued by the journey of a struggling daycare worker who is now “pretty rich and very famous” and yet “seems like a most ordinary kind of guy. When you see him walking down the street, it is easy to forget that he sells about a million books a year and that tens of thousands of kids and parents line up to see the storytelling shows he gives across Canada and the United States.”

Raised in a family where Dad loved to tell bedtime stories, Robert and his eight siblings were, from an early age, exposed to rich oral language. Edwards indicates that Robert was a voracious reader but did not do well at school; were it not for a special school librarian, his gifts might have been overlooked in favour of his shortcomings. Bouts of depression made social life difficult for Robert, and he left highschool determined to become a priest. It was on Robert’s path towards priesthood that volunteer work with young children led to successful storytelling sessions, inspired by his father. Eventually, Robert began a doctorate in anthropology until an assault in a rough neighborhood left him with serious brain injuries that affected his ability to study. When Robert decided upon a career as a daycare worker, his dream was to “change the world, one child at a time.” Now, with over fifty published titles, and more drafts awaiting the final stages of printing, it appears that Robert’s dreams of connecting with kids have definitely come true.

Well organized and crafted to inspire as well as inform, simple without being condescending, Edwards’ biography earns five stars out of five. For ages eight and up with particular appeal for adult literacy learners.

A new Munsch title is Down the Drain (Scholastic, paperback, $6.99), illustrated by Michael Martchenko and full of characteristic repetition and zany humour.

Munsch’s typical writing process involves listening to children’s own lived stories and then researching these stories much as an ethnographic anthropologist might do by visiting the child in his or her family context and exploring the roots of the tale. Down the Drain, for example, is dedicated to Adam and his sister Janna, the real life models for the story and who, like Munsch himself, live in Guelph, Ontario.

Following a lengthy research process, Munsch usually spends a great deal of time telling a new story before finally committing the text to paper. A year ago, Munsch suffered a stroke that affected his ability to use language. While not yet able to work on fresh material, he has since returned to storytelling, and details of school visits are available on his website: www.robertmunsch.com.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Susan Juby’s new novel Getting the Girl: A Guide to Private Investigation, Surveillance, and Cookery (HarperCollins, paperback, $14.99) walks a stylistic line between explicit teen soap reminiscent of Gossip Girl and witty humour the likes of Richard Scrimger.

Sherman Mack, an unlikely grade-nine hero enamoured with cooking classes and detective stories, confronts hierarchies among scholars, jocks, and Trophy wives to save the girl he loves from being categorized as one of the Defiled. Some readers may find descriptions of Mack’s mother—a burlesque dancer who sews her feathery costumes at home—somewhat over-the-top, but deeper than surface level are interesting comparisons between conformist teen culture and adults who have developed an acceptance for diversity. There is more here than meets a first glance.

With strong messages about bullying and bystanders, this title may use its pop surface- structure to lure readers out of less substantial texts and into more literary reading. Content and language for mature teens 14 and up.

Of a similar crossover nature is Sarah N. Harvey’s The Lit Report (Orca, paperback, 12.95). It deals openly about sex and teen pregnancy from the perspective of Julia, the best friend, who helps Ruth through her darkest hour and the months to follow as the girls hide Ruth’s pregnancy from her one-dimensionally strict parents and eventually, with the help of Ruth’s brother, deliver the baby in a remote cabin at the lake.

What makes this book different from other teen confessionals is the introduction of literary themes: Julia is a reader, and nothing in her life occurs without a connection to the classics. Not to be overlooked as a potential steppingstone from Gossip Girls to Jane Austin; content and language for mature readers 14 and up.

A new title from a fantasy writer worth noticing is Patricia Wrede’s Thirteenth Child (Scholastic, hardcover, $21.99). The book makes an interesting comparison to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books for this, too, is a frontier story, but with a difference. Instead of battling familiar elements, the homesteaders here battle mammoths, steam dragons and other natural dangers, and their tools primarily involve magic. A gentle introduction into fantasy for ages 11 and up that weaves glimpses of real American history into its imaginings; sadly, however, images of native Americans are lacking.

A companion read for Thirteenth Child is Eileen Kernaghan’s Wild Talent: A Novel of the Supernatural (Thistledown Press, paperback, $15.95), although its age range is 14 and up. The rich and rambling story, set in the late nineteenth century, is told from the perspective of sixteen-year-old Jeannie Guthrie, a Scottish farm worker who possesses a psychic energy that in the course of the book she must learn to control, just as Eff, in Thirteenth Child, learns to control her magic. Cameo appearances from William Butler Yeats chronicling his interest in mystic societies add historical detail to the fiction. With Wild Talent shortlisted for a 2009 Young-Adult Fiction Sunburst Award for the best Canadian literature of the fantastic, Kernaghan is another author to watch. Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother is another of the five shortlisted titles, and Saskatoon’s Arthur Slade received honourable mention alongside six other titles including Kenneth Oppel’s Starclimber.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

The Mealworm Diaries by retired Ontario teacher Anna Kerz (Orca, paperback, $9.95) is a warm juvenile novel highly recommended for ages 9 - 12. The landscape of a new school for Jeremy and a science unit on mealworms offers a strong backdrop for this heartfelt tale about coming to terms with loss.

Back in Nova Scotia, Jeremy had been riding a borrowed motorcycle with his dad, and wearing the only helmet, when the accident happened that took his father’s life and left Jeremy with desperate dreams and a sensitivity that at first isolates him, and then, at last, allows him to reach out to someone else just as desperate.

Aaron is Jeremy’s science partner, but Aaron’s special needs at first make Jeremy confused and angry. “ ‘I’m not his friend,’ Jeremy said stubbornly. He didn’t want to give in on this. ‘You know I’ve been complaining about Aaron since the first day of school. It’s not my fault that he’s weird. He drives everybody crazy. Why do I have to be his friend?’ ” Jeremy’s eventual answer is finely crafted, the children’s voices in this novel ringing absolutely true.

Calgary author and illustrator Georgia Graham’s new picture book starring a young flower girl has appeared just in time for wedding season. The Lime Green Secret (Tundra, hardcover, $21.99) follows Gloria’s understandable need to try on her new wedding finery before her sister’s big day, with predictable results involving an encounter between the little girl’s satin gown and lime soda pop. A fun read for helpers ages 4 - 8 involved in wedding tasks this summer.

A breezy non-fiction title for ages 4 – 7 is Etta Kaner’s Have You Ever Seen a Duck in a Raincoat? (Kids Can Press, hardcover, $14.95). Encouraging simple facts about animals while developing comparative thinking skills, this title, with its simple, repetitive language patterns, is a good choice for parent-child shared reading.

A great text for someone who may be involved in cleaning the family fridge this holiday is Allan Peterkin’s Chill: Discover the Cool (and Creative) Side of Your Fridge (Kids Can Press, paperback, $9.95). A wacky combination of refrigeration history and creative art ideas, this title opens wide the big white door with Mike Shiell’s cartoons and a distinctly interactive format. For ages 8 and up.

Musician Bob King’s juvenile songs are illustrated by emerging young artists from schools across Western Canada and self-published in The Royal Collection by Saskatchewan-based King through Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing (paperback, $14.95). With representation by students in the Saskatchewan towns of Rouleau, Pense, Neudorf, Gravelbourg, Bethune, Kincaid, and the city of Regina, the venture is a fabulous idea, however some of the songs don’t easily scan as poetry—the absence of the music matters. The student learning behind the production, however, is definitely a redeeming quality.

Norma Dixon’s Focus on Flies (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, hardcover, $19.95) will be a favourite with budding entomologists as it combines interesting facts with learning activities. For example, in July, 2006, the space shuttle Discovery took off with 100 fruit flies aboard. They were aloft to assist scientists in studying how space travel affects the immune system. It’s hard to sneak up on a fly because its senses are always alert. To catch a fly, it’s important to know that when flies take off, they start by leaping up and backwards before flapping their wings. You have to nab them in mid-leap. (Don’t forget to wash your hands). The inclusion of photography and Canadian content in this text earn extra points; for ages 8 – 12.

Another Canadian non-fiction notable is Diane Swanson’s You Are Weird: Your Body’s Peculiar Parts and Funky Functions (Kids Can, paperback, $7.95). Tackling questions everybody’s curious about—What does your appendix do? What exactly are goose bumps and why do we get them? Why can some people wiggle their ears?—this is a good selection for car travel or for browsing at the beach. P.S. Did you know that a rabbit’s appendix is larger than a human’s? For ages 8 – 12.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Two novels for ages 9 – 14 are worth a look, for very different reasons. Maxine Trottier’s The North West Resistance Diary of Josephine Bouvier (Scholastic Canada, hardcover, $14.99) is so rich with detail that the history of Batoche comes alive. Readers are carried back to 1885 when Josephine, a 13- year-old Métis girl, finds herself caught in the tensions of the Northwest Resistance as the Métis people struggle for their rights.

“Half-breed,” writes Josephine in her journal, responding to a Toronto newspaper article that treats as ludicrous Louis Riel’s request for a fair land deal for the Metis and Indian people. “In our family, only Moushoom is half of one people and half of another, his mother having been Cree and his father a Kanayah from Quebec. And what about me? Mama’s great-grandmother was of the Sarcee people. Is one of my ears then Kanayaen and the other Cree, and if so, which is which? Do I have a Sarcee nose or a French nose? I am certainly not half of one thing and half of another, but that is what I will always be called, it seems. If I have children some day, I wonder if it will be the same for them?

“Mama once said that we Bouviers are like threads in a long, tightly woven sash—and as difficult to unravel. One thing I do know. I may be made up of many things, but I am entirely Métis.”

The story doesn’t pretentiously try for glory by involving Josephine in any of the historical details except as an onlooker whose family is seriously impacted by the English soldiers. She also serves to retell the intergenerational stories of her grandfather, preserving in this way a very personal side of history that many other historically situated texts neglect.

For example, one night, as the family sits down to dine on the heads of boiled sucker fish, Josephine listens and then records as Moushoom tells a tale from his grandmother, respectfully naming from whom the tale had originated: “She had heard it from a cousin who once spent two winters among people who lived by the western ocean. In the cousin’s story, one day a sucker fish made a bet with an eel. All either of them had to bet was their bones. Guess who won? It is why the sucker fish has so many bones and the eel is boneless.”

Without a cohesive plot line, this novel is not a quick page-turner and some young readers will find it difficult. Yet the style is very appropriate for the story’s purpose: to portray a significant period in Canadian history and attempt to preserve understanding about a time and a people well worth documenting. A title highly recommended for school curriculum due to the rich and poignant subject matter it portrays.

Reviewers have not been particularly kind to Anne Louise MacDonald’s second novel, Seeing Red (Kids Can Press, hardcover, $18.95) due to its large number of characters and difficulties in pacing, however the book’s redeeming qualities should claim it a position in libraries, if not on personal bookshelves. 14-year-old Frankie discovers he can dream the future, his only claim to fame, and yet even such a talent cannot prevent bad things from happening. Caught in confusing circumstances, this character portrays feelings common to many young people as they strive to control unpredictable situations.

MacDonald’s crisp, immediate prose brings scenes up close and personal, the dialogue convincingly realistic, with chatter between Frankie’s parents especially original. Descriptions of Joey, a kid with autism who Frankie babysits and eventually chaperones during riding therapy at a local stable, are rendered with care, as are other characters with special needs who shift in and out of the therapeutic riding context.

It’s clear that MacDonald knows her way around therapeutic riding facilities. As well, she is savvy enough to create a world that embraces complex characters of differing abilities—an uncommon tendency in traditional children’s fiction, and still relatively uncommon in contemporary work. For readers daunted by past reviews of Seeing Red, give it a try: if you are looking for an original and thought-provoking read, you will be happily surprised.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

Three new young adult books with female protagonists emphasize cultural identity while at the same time establishing a context through which complex issues are addressed. Pieces of Me (Kids Can, paperback, $8.99) is the English translation of the Governor General’s award-winning novella La Liberté? Connais pas… by Charlotte Gingras. Translator Susan Ouriou retains the French place names in this version, a good choice, and the first-person present-tense text is immediate and compelling.

Mira is almost fifteen and has no friends due to her shyness and the difficulties she has living with a mother who is domineering and mentally unstable. Catherine, a new girl, is drawn to Mira because of the artistic talents they share, but proves not to be the friend Mira at first thinks she is. With the death of her father, Mira sinks into a depression so deep she is not sure she will recover, but she does, with the help of a school counselor and her own inner strength. A minor flaw is the description of the counselor, who is blind, yet helps Mira see: this is an old stereotype not worth repeating. Sexual content rates this title for mature teens.

Seventeen-year-old Mimi in Francis Chalifour’s Call Me Mimi (Tundra, paperback, $14.99) also has issues with identity and belonging. She, too, is friendless, beginning a summer in Montreal when she would rather be in Toronto tracing the identity of her unknown sperm-donor father. Much of the first-person narrative revolves around weight, and Mimi describes herself in no uncertain terms: “Big Beluga,” “a chubbette,” and “a Cabbage Patch Kid, but not as cute.”

In an attempt to actualize her plans to go to Toronto, Mimi tells one lie after another until eventually they catch up with her and she realizes that just as people have hurt her all her life, she too has the power to injure others. While readers will empathize with Mimi, the minor characters, while developed with original traits, are not thoroughly believable: Mimi’s mother seems overprotective, yet suddenly decides to leave her daughter alone for the summer while she takes a job as a live-in caregiver for an elderly woman. Tante Amélie is a brilliant astronomy professor with an obsessive compulsive disorder who naively believes every word Mimi tells her. Peppered with French phrases, the setting is prominent in this story and adds richness to the telling. For ages 12 and up.

Winnipeg author Eva Wiseman illuminates a heartbreaking episode in history with her new novel Puppet (Tundra, hardcover, $19.99). Based on a real court case that took place in Hungary in 1883, the story follows corrupt authorities who coerce a young boy into testifying that fellow Jews, including his own father, murdered a Christian girl for her blood. The story is told through the evocative first-person voice of Julie, a friend of the missing Esther, and explains why, in Hungary, the name Morris Scharf is synonymous with “traitor”. Readers 12 and up will appreciate the vivid detail and emotional choices explored in the course of this gripping read.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people.

Back to Index

American cartoonist and novelist Lynda Barry is the kind of artist who detests self-censorship. Her writing instruction manual for older teens and adults is proof that the muse is varied and rich. What It Is (hardcover, Raincoast Books, $24.95) provides, in collage format, strategies which allow artists to pull ideas from the inside out. On visually stunning pages, Barry offers readers a glimpse of what she herself has pulled out...things which most people would be too reserved to share. There is, in some, a suspicion that if we share the artistic process, it will disappear. Not so with Barry, who offers her inner workings for readers to examine. She also sends explicit thanks to teacher Marilyn Frasca at The Evergreen State College, on whose techniques much of this book is based.

Not a book to be read sequentially, or even much in one sitting, What it Is provides a great deal of food for thought, but readers who attempt to digest it as a more traditional writing guide will get a headache.

Assumptions which Barry contradicts in her book include the notions that artistry requires particular time, space, phase of the moon, or nutrition break. She also quashes the idea that writers must be particularly talented. Instead, she offers, through words and graphics, the philosophy that everyone has an inner writer and artist, and that the requirement for production is simply to engineer its release. She also hinges much of her advice on embracing the life of an image, a recommendation that definitely shows up in her own work.

As Barry delves into her storied past, she provides recollections that offer insight into her definition of imagination. “When I was little, I played a certain staring game that seemed to have invented itself. I would hold myself as still as I could and make my eyes like a toy’s eyes that don’t move—and I would wait. I would wait for the other things in the room to forget about me and begin to move...I believed there was another world that would show itself to me in the smallest ways.” She goes on to describe how it is up to us to bring back the illusions, the realities of that other, earlier world. “Where is the past?” she asks, and then answers, “Everywhere, nowhere, somewhere, anywhere, elsewhere, and here.”

Barry relates, in autobiographical terms, a childhood swelling with doubts and fears, and four books that made it into their house. Four books and a radio became her map and her compass, because although they had TV, “both misery and joy seemed to perish in its light.” How do images get inside of us? How do they get out? These are questions that connect to the personal and social demands that make writers want to write.

“Why don’t you write?” she asks. The answer to this question can be explored in terms of place. Stories have transformational capabilities. “They can’t transform your actual situation, but they can transform your experience of it.” Yet if we are in a place where we see no reason for writing, or in a place where the reason for writing is overshadowed by a feeling that we can’t write, we don’t. Barry implies that school is a place that often gives many reasons for writing, and sometimes, at the same time, no reasons for writing. That reasons are contrived may be enough of a detriment to the writing process to make students disinclined. And imagine building a house, where every strike of the hammer caused the foreman to yell, “Too hard! Too soft! Too loud! All wrong!”

Some of the pages separate the book from a younger audience, including Barry’s very dark exploration of monsters. “Why are monsters in so many old stories?” she queries. Her response is that it’s perhaps because we need them when we are children, as a way of helping us come to terms with the monsters we face in real life. “That I had a very gorgon-like mother never occurred to me, and if it had, I would have been lost. Did the (fictional) gorgon help me love my mother? I think she helped me very much.”

In her artistic work, Barry certainly tackles a great number of monsters. Her characters in the weekly comic strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek offer views of family life from the perspectives of marginalized groups. In her novel The Good Times are Killing Me, she describes an interracial friendship between two girls, and in Cruddy, she offers a gritty and at times hilarious portrayal of an adolescent girl caught in drug subculture.

Straddling the divide between advice for teachers and advice for writers, What it Is provides an inspiration to consider what gives form to the images we keep inside us, the purpose for giving these images voice, and the autobiography of a woman whose artistic life is a memorable tribute to good teachers everywhere.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people. Her junior novel The Moon Children is currently shortlisted for a Silver Birch Award from the Ontario Library Association.

Back to Index

Two literary young adult novels, both told in male voices, grapple with difficult issues very relevant to teen readers. John Ibbitson’s The Landing (Kids Can Press, hardcover, $17.95) won last year’s Governor General’s Literary Awards for Children’s Fiction, and deservedly so. This book takes readers to the Ontario Muskoka region of the 1930s, and, as an evocative interpretation of time and place, it never wavers. In its Prelude, the novel outlines how music stole Ben Mercer’s heart when he was very young. As he grows older, and passionately practices violin amidst the farm chores, he yearns to escape the daily grind.

With strong references to The Great Gatsby, through a plotline which includes a newcomer to Cook’s Landing, widow Ruth Chapman, the book has definite literary appeal. Chapman arrives on Pine Island and hires fifteen-year-old Ben to fix the cottage she and her husband bought before his death. United in their powerlessness (she, through the loss of her husband, and he, through his seemingly indelible path following his uncle into labour), they develop a bond through classical music. Then there is a kiss, and the agony of misunderstanding, and a surprising ending that readers will appreciate. What is so striking about Ben involves the agony of self-discovery, and the manner in which his struggle for identity unfolds before our eyes. Highly recommended.

Another novel, set on the prairies, fictionalizes events reminiscent of those surrounding the James Keegstra affair. Keegstra was a high school teacher in the town of Eckville, Alberta, when, in 1984, he was charged under the Criminal Code of Canada with wilfully promoting hatred by teaching his social studies students that the Jewish perspective of the Holocaust was a fraud. David A. Poulsen’s Numbers (Key Porter, hardcover, $19.95) is a tale told skilfully by fifteen-year-old Andy Crocket, a grade ten student in Mr. Retzlaff’s class at Parkerville High.

Andy, like most of his peers, is enchanted by the charismatic history teacher, and wants to make a positive connection. But when Retzlaff’s version of the Holocaust threatens to change the course of Andy’s life forever, decisions have to be made. Frank scenes about sexuality and alcoholism are alternately funny and poignant, and the gritty language at times reminds us of the modernity of this tale. A thoughtful book, but one that never forgets its narrative potential to entertain.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of six books for young people. She is launching her new collection of young adult short stories, Something To Hang On To, on Saturday March 28, 1pm, at McNally Robinson.

Back to Index

A collection of multi-cultural picture-books for ages four to eight offers young readers a chance to glimpse their own lived stories in print and admire the diversity of others. The Drum Calls Softly (Red Deer Press, hardcover, $24.95, including a CD in English and Cree) illustrates the beauty of Native Culture, and is created by Métis author David Bouchard in collaboration with Cree poet Shelley Willier alongside the musicianship of Northern Cree and the vivid paintings of Saskatchewan born illustrator Jim Poitras. “Dance in circles around the drum/Seek the magic and it will come./ Shut your eyes so you might hear/ That song is sung to draw you near.”

Christoph Niemann’s The Pet Dragon is a simple story about friendship and includes an introduction to Chinese characters, sure to intrigue (HarperCollins, hardcover, $18.50). Niemann has also illustrated for adults, creating covers for The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times Magazine.

Anne Millyard’s retelling of an old folktale in The Emperor’s Second Hand Clothes (Smith, Bonappetit & Son, paperback, $10.95) is a delightful romp. Josée Bisallon’s artistry, a mixture of collage, drawings, and digital montage, was a finalist for the 2008 Governor General’s Literary Awards for children’s illustration. Millyard knows what kids like—her experience co-founding the publishing house that became Annick Press has taught her acuity— and since her retirement in 2000, she has been working on her own writing.

Robert Munsch’s new title, Just One Goal (Scholastic, paperback, $6.99) is dedicated to Ciara Mapes, Hay River, Northwest Territories, and immortalizes the story of young Ciara who started a hockey rink on the river by smoothing the ice with a spoon and warm water. Soon she and her friends are playing, and Munsch captures, albeit fantastically, a Northern Canadian rural winter where wild animals and snowmobiles disrupt the fun. With Michael Martchenko illustrations, of course. Robert Munsch has put many of his speaking engagements on hold this year due to a stroke he experienced in the summer. Further information about his health is available on his website: www.robertmunsch.com.

A story that celebrates the world from the perspective of a traveling chicken is found in Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo and illustrated by Harry Bliss (HarperCollins, hardcover, $19.50). Best known for her novels, including The Tale of Despereux upon which the 2008 movie was based, DiCamillo’s warmth and humour are just as strong in picture-book format.

Brenna is a Saskatoon author of five books for young people. Her new title, Something To Hang On To, a collection of young adult short stories, will be available from Thistledown Press in March.

Back to Index

Here in Saskatchewan we have a lot of things to boast about, and the beginning of a new year is a good time to take stock. One thing to be proud of is our growing population of children’s writers, which implies that reading for young people is alive and well in our province.

A number of new books published in 2008 by prairie writers are well worth a backward glance as they illuminate our setting for the rest of the world. The first is Myrna Guymer’s self-published picture book The Canadian Shield Alphabet (hardcover, Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing, $24.95) for ages 5 and up. Vividly illustrated by Ontario artist RoseMarie Condon, and full of rich details that spotlight, letter by letter, the vast regions of the Canadian Shield and the people who live there, it can be purchased at various local bookstores or by contacting heather@yournickelsworth.com. Guymer currently lives in a log cabin at Denare Beach.

Two other self-published books available through Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing (www.yournickelsworth.com) are also worth a look. Regina author Jean Freeman’s charmingly repetitive picture book Where Does Your Dog Sleep? will appeal to ages 3 – 5. In addition, Saskatoon author Mercedes Montgomery has produced an original, environmental fantasy with an intriguing title: www.walkwithapolarbear.com. A third self-publishing venture by Saskatoon author Jared Blackwell can be explored on his dynamic website: http://jaredblackwellbooks.com/SeeInside.html.

Saskatoon’s Arthur Slade concocts a wonderfully quirky hero in Jolted: Newton Starker’s Rules for Survival (paperback, HarperCollins, $14.99). Fourteen-year-old Newton has arrived from his lightning-proofed home in Washington to study at the Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival, a private school located in Moose Jaw; his goal is to defy the curse that over the last two hundred years has seen almost everyone in his family killed by lightning. With cameos on hilariously drawn secondary characters and prairie traditions such as truffle and gopher quiche, Jolted’s comic timing and cleverly unpredictable plot will appeal to young readers ages 10 to 14.

Judith Silverthorne’s new title Dinosaur Blackout (paperback, Coteau Books, $8.95) is the fourth title in her dinosaur adventure series for ages 9 to 12, and takes place in southwestern Saskatchewan’s Frenchman River Valley. As in Silverthorne’s previous books, a helpful reference section at the back is included to assist with difficult vocabulary and pronunciation, as well as to offer young palaeontologists further directions for study. Silverthorne lives in Regina.

Saskatoon’s Mary Harelkin Bishop, author of the Tunnels of Moose Jaw adventure series, offers her first self-published title Seeds of Hope: A Prairie Story (paperback, Emmbee Ink/DriverWorks Ink, $10.95). Danny is a young boy whose greatest loves are the farm and the prairie, and, like his father and grandfather, he wants to be a farmer. Hard times make his dream seem improbable, and the town bully provides a distraction Danny would rather be without. A story that celebrates the rural setting, for ages 8 to 12.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon author of five books for young people. Her most recent, The Moon Children, has recently been shortlisted for an Ontario Library Association Silver Birch Award.

Back to Index

Brenna Book Reviews, 2008

Books new and old that resound with layers of meaning, unfolding as one matures, make for good gifts. The following picture-book titles are highly recommended.

Imagine a Place by Sarah L. Thomson, illustrated by Canadian artist Rob Gonsalves (hardcover, Atheneum, $19.99) is a companion to the critically acclaimed Imagine a Night and Imagine a Day. With gentle, lyrical text and the stunning magic realism of Gonsalves’ paintings, the story helps young readers four and up envision all kinds of places including a place where each turn takes you home...

Ish by Peter (The Dot) Reynolds (hardcover, Candlewick Press, $16.50) tells the story of Ramon, an aspiring artist who is despondent after hearing criticism of his work. Thanks to a supportive little sister, he recognizes that his own work is, at least “...ish” (tree-ish, house-ish, excited-ish...) and so, undaunted, he continues his creative endeavours. About the power others’ words can have over us, the messages within this children’s story transcend age and context.

For nature lovers 7 - 12, Canadian artist Robert Bateman’s new title Polar Worlds (hardcover, Scholastic, $19.99) invites young readers on a journey to the Arctic and Antarctic. With facts about the creatures he encountered while traveling, Bateman covers interesting details about wolves, polar bears, whales, seals, penguins, and snow geese as well as discussing migration, breeding, and climate, celebrating how animals manage to survive in their habitat—as long as we leave their habitat undisturbed.

This Land is My Land by Canadian artist George Littlechild (paperback, Children’s Book Press, 11.95) is a picture book for older readers, and celebrated for its use of color, its native themes, and its playful, evocative spirit. Deliberately provocative, both painful and joyous, the narration across richly illustrated pages offers serious food for thought. First published in 1993, but still current.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (hardcover, Scholastic, $27.99) is a remarkable book that will appeal to gifted as well as struggling readers, its open address a combination of picture-book, graphic novel, and middle to upper grade level text. The storyline involves young Hugo, trying to survive in Paris as a train-station clock watcher, and his connection with a filmmaker/shopkeeper, his daughter Isabelle, and a strange notebook. At 533 pages, this title has haunting, charcoal illustrations that move the plot forward like a film storyboard. Finalist for a National Book Award, 42 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and winner of the Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children: simply a masterpiece.

Recommended for the under five set is Jean Little’s The Sweetest One of All, illustrated by Marisol Sarrazin (hardcover, Scholastic, $19.99). About barnyard babies—lambs, foals, goslings, piglets—whose mothers think that each is the sweetest one of all, it provides a warm context for parent-child read-alouds where children hear again how special they are.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people. Her most recent title, The Moon Children, has recently been shortlisted for an Ontario Library Association Silver Birch Award.

Back to Index

While John Wilson’s 2007 title The Alchemist’s Dream is shortlisted for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction, with a winner announced November 6, his new title, Germania (hardcover, Key Porter$19.95), is already receiving rave reviews.

In Germania, Wilson has chosen to split the story of Lucius Quintus Claudianus, a Roman soldier in a centuria of the 19th Legion, between the third-person narration of Lucius’s life, and a first-person narrative inquiry of an older Lucius remembering his youth. This dual framework serves to support a complicated storyline which contains rich historical detail reminiscent of the great Rosemary Sutcliffe, as well as universals about war and cultural identity.

Thirteen-year-old Lucius is an apprentice signifer who relishes the chance to become part of something bigger than himself by joining the army. He becomes friends with Freya, a red-haired Cherusci from Germania who, along with her uncle, fights as a “barbarian” alongside the Romans. When Lucius and Freya end up on opposing sides, they must come to terms with their personal feelings for each other as well as loyalty to their respective cultures. Freya spares Lucius, but kills his companion, saying, “You are a Roman and my friend. He was just a Roman.”

Lucius trades farming for war and becomes a historian, inquiring into his youth in order to explore and understand the complexities of the world around him. Before his life ends on the slopes of an erupting Vesuvius in AD 79, he puts the finishing touches to the account Freya has demanded. “Stories die with the storytellers,” she tells him. “But a story that is written down will last forever.”

Geoffrey Bilson was an avid reader from an early age, and wrote historical novels for children as well as several books for adults. Before his sudden death in 1987, he taught as a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan. The annual Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction was created in his honour in 1988. Shortlisted alongside Wilson’s The Alchemist’s Dream (Key Porter) for the 2008 Award is Christopher Paul Curtis’s Elijah of Buxton (Scholastic), Shane Peacock’s Eye of the Crow: The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His First Case (Tundra), Henry T. Aubin’s Rise of the Golden Cobra (Annick), and Shannon Cowan’s Tin Angel (Lobster Press).

Previous Winners of the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction 1988 to 2007

2008	TBA November 6, 2008
2007	Eva Wiseman Kanada. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2006.
2006	Pamela Porter The Crazy Man. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2005.
2005	Michel Noël Good for Nothing. Translated by Shelley Tanaka. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2004.
2004	Brian Doyle Boy O’Boy. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2003.
2003	Joan Clark The Word for Home. Toronto: Penguin Books Canada, 2002.
2002	Virginia Frances Schwartz If I Just Had Two Wings. Toronto: Stoddart Kids, 2001.
2001	Sharon McKay Charlie Wilcox. Toronto: Stoddart Kids, 2000.
1999	Iain Lawrence The Wreckers. New York: Delacorte Press,1998.
1998	Irene N. Watts Good-bye Marianne. Toronto: Tundra Books, 1998.
1997	Janet McNaughton To Dance at the Palais Royale. St. John’s: Tuckamore Books, 1996.
1996	Marianne Brandis Rebellion: A Novel of Upper Canada. Erin, ON: The Porcupine’s Quill, 1996.
1995	Joan Clark The Dream Carvers. Toronto: Viking, 1995.
1994	Kit Pearson The Lights Go On Again. Toronto: Viking, 1993.
1993	Celia Barker Lottridge Ticket to Curlew. Illustrated by Wendy Wolsak-Frith. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 1992.
1991	Marianne Brandis The Sign of the Scales. Erin, ON: The Porcupine's Quill, 1990.
1990	Kit Pearson The Sky is Falling. Markham, ON: Viking Kestrel, 1989.
1989	Martyn Godfrey Mystery in the Frozen Lands. Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 1988.
1989	Dorothy Perkyns Rachel's Revolution. Hantsport, NS: Lancelot Press, 1988.
1988	Carol Matas Lisa. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1987.

Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

The Unexplained, edited by Janet Lunn (Scholastic, paperback, $7.99) includes fifteen shivery stories by some of Canada’s most celebrated writers for young people, including Brian Doyle, Monica Hughes, Jean Little, L.M. Montgomery, Kit Pearson and Sharon Siamon as well as Lunn herself.

Within the pages of this collection we meet many ghosts. Some, such as Pearson’s Miss Kirkpatrick, and Joyce Barkhouse’s young woman in “Haunted Island,” want the young protagonists to find something, a something which will allow the deceased to rest in peace. Others, such as the skeleton in Ken Roberts’ “The Closet,” Montgomery’s spectre in “The Return of Hester,” and the dead twin in Little’s “Without Beth,” want someone to do something, while the uncanny creature in Lunn’s story, “Webster’s Roof,” wants someone to stop doing something. The remaining stories are simply tributes to real or imagined ghosts from the past, and one—Hughes’ “The Haunting of the Orion Queen,”—offers a panacea for fearful images from books: shared reading of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, a story which apparently works like a charm. A somewhat uneven collection due to its many genres and styles, but fine for casual bedtime haunting. For ages ten to twelve.

Norah McLintock is a force to be recognized in the field of crime fiction for teens. Right from the first chapter of Dead Silence (Scholastic, paperback, $7.99), the fifth in her Mike and Riel series, she makes sure her audience connects with the story’s first person narrator, along with a sense of urgency and suspense—a deft hook, particularly for readers who are more reluctant to engage with a story.

After Mike skips out on his friend Sal, he discovers that Sal has been stabbed to death near their high school. Bystanders give mixed messages, so Mike starts asking some deeper questions of his own. Various suspects are considered and cleared, including a young man with a cognitive disability whose own family expect he’s guilty. Eventually the mystery is solved, in a way that leaves readers satisfied and able to backtrack over the clues. Fast-paced reading for young teens.

Younger readers grades two and up, who enjoy Frank Asch’s Cardboard Genius Journals, will be intrigued with the third in the series: Time Twister (Kids Can, paperback, $6.95). Based on the story of a boy who has invented a spaceship from cardboard boxes, the character’s exploits with time travel will delight even the weariest of parents who choose this title for bedtime read-alouds. Some famous lines include, “Is that a time machine or a makeup kit?”, “Please play quietly and try not to disturb your father,” and, “Everyone messes up once in a while.” Will Alex send his little brother into another dimension, never to return? When Star Jumper returns from its voyage, will fifty earth years have come and gone? And, once time is twisted, will the Cardboard Genius be able to twist it back? A good escape, including imaginative science and family humour.

Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

Non-fiction has provided economical fuel for many young explorers, and the following titles may make even the most reluctant of readers take notice.

Paulette (Franklin the Turtle) Bourgeois and Martha Newbigging offer a clean image for The Dirt on Dirt (Kids Can Press, hardcover, $17.95), a picture book for ages five and up. Fun facts, experiments, and recipes add to the mix, and there’s even a quiz on earthworms: do some earthworms grow very long and make gurgling noises when they move? Yes! In Australia, earthworms four meters in length slither underground and make sounds like draining bathtubs. A short glossary and an index add to the usefulness of the book, and the visuals are definitely child-friendly. Dig in (but wash your hands)!

Did you know that people have battled rats since 2400 B.C.? That invading cane toads, once introduced as beetle exterminators, are threatening other animal populations in Australia and Guam? That purple loosestrife, planted as medicine for diarrhea and ulcers, spreads impenetrable strands that change the nutrient and water flow of the wetland? Jane Drake and Ann Love’s Alien Invaders (Tundra, hardcover, $24.99) introduces readers to real-life threats affecting our ecosystems. Kids determine if they themselves are invaders or savers, and focus on ways to help. Coloured drawings by Mark Thurman seem rather muted, but possibly he was on a budget. For ages seven to ten.

Ben Hillman’s How Strong is It? (Scholastic, hardcover, $17.99) carries it all: vivid, breathtaking illustrations, catchy language, creative comparisons. In Spiderweb, readers learn that if a spider could make a web where each silk strand was as thick as a pencil, it would stop a Boeing 747 in midflight. There is no other substance that comes close to this stopping power. In Black Hole, we’re introduced to the scenario of standing in a black hole with a flashlight. The light wouldn’t go anywhere because nothing escapes the power of gravity in a black hole. Not us. Not Harry Houdini. Not even light. In Hair we learn that Rapaunzel definitely had something going on. The average human hair can support two to three-and-a-half ounces without breaking. Multiply this by the average number of hairs on a human head, which is 100,000, and then count in the fact that blondes have about 40,000 more than most...so how many princes can Rapaunzel support? Hillman claims at least 17,500 pounds of them. Highly recommended for ages seven and up.

Two charming picture books which make use of visual adventures through photographs are Frank Serafini’s Looking Closely Through the Forest (Kids Can Press, hardcover, $16.95) and Arlene Arda’s Here a Face There a Face (Tundra, hardcover, $18.99). Both use gentle rhyme to nudge kids towards looking and thinking, highly recommended for language development in ages three to seven.

Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

For young adults seeking intricate fantasy reading to fill these final summer weekends, a couple of titles rise to the top of the list. Elizabeth Knox’s Dreamhunter Duet, two intriguing crossover novels (also billed as adult reading), combine the buoyancy of teenage characters with the wide border of omniscient narration to produce a navigable and yet intelligent journey for readers. Both titles have won Best Book awards from the American Library Association as well as a variety of honours in New Zealand, Knox’s home country.

The first, Dreamhunter (also titled The Rainbow Opera; Viking Canada, hardcover, $20.00) introduces the alternate New Zealand-like republic in which gifted artists catch exotic and inspirational dreams in a mysterious territory which exists in a fold of the map. The dreamhunters reproduce these dreams for the paying public in large theatres called dream palaces. Although a bit thick with early setting and character advances, once the plot takes hold it’s a gripping ride as Laura discovers a message from her absent father and decides whether she is strong enough to publicize an underworld where nightmares are bought and sold. Quite obviously a book with a sequel, this is still a viable independent read although the ending by itself is somewhat unsatisfying.

Dreamquake (Puffin Canada, hardcover, $20.00) begins with the aftermath of Laura’s act of misguided psychological terrorism, and plunges forward into the darkness of antagonists desperate to claim power in a world where dreams can be harnessed to control the dreamers. The plot continues to hold, and readers become disturbed by what seems more and more plausible within the context of Knox’s fine writing. Rising above a simple mystery into an intense myth of place, some challenging questions are raised about power and freedom, artistic license, and the role of the storyteller. One particularly telling line is when the Grand Patriach says, “This society cannot continue in its callous willingness to base its wealth on suffering,” and Doran laughs, “Oh, yes, Your Eminence? And what are you going to give up?” ...a question which could be applied in modern contexts, which is the value of fantasy literature: allowing readers to explore intensely personal issues from a safe distance.

The Dreamhunter Duet is highly recommended for mature readers; with these books, Knox takes her place beside fine fantasy writers Susan Cooper, Mollie Hunter, Lloyd Alexander, Kenneth Oppel, Philip Pullman, and Garth Nix.

M.T. Anderson produces an even darker view of society in Feed (Candlewick Press, paperback, $11.99), a story about the relationship between Titus and Violet and the cost of resisting the establishment. The novel occurs in a futuristic world where the teen rumble spot is on the moon and technology dominates humans from implanted transmitters. Communication and entertainment are instantaneous, just a thought away, but is this actually progress? Kids are seduced by pop channels continuously feeding into their heads, smart advertising tuned in to brain waves and individual preferences, and even the lesions which develop on their skin have no warning power, thanks to the even larger “embellishments” appearing on the skin of pop idols.

Scary stuff, particularly for those already concerned about the power technology has on our society, and, if anything, a little heavy handed, but defiantly a convincing and heartbreaking look at a future where technology rules. Winner of a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and a National Book Award finalist, Feed makes a fine parallel with George Orwell’s 1984. Themes of peer pressure and individuality will definitely resonate with older teens; recommended, but be aware of mature language and content.

Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

Freefall by Wendy Lewis (Key Porter, paperback, $11.95) is a remarkably gripping book for older teens, set in the exhilarating context of skydiving. The prose is both confident and lyrical, deftly establishing the separate voices of sixteen-year-old Airin Marks, and Ry Truman, the owner of the Skydive Gottanotter School, both of whom have weighty issues to share in addition to a growing attraction for each other. Ry’s long-term girlfriend has just taken off, leaving him the unwelcome parting gift of an STD. Airin is in the process of recovering from a childhood of sexual abuse, and, to make matters worse, the perpetrator of the assaults is her biological father who may or may not be stalking her again.

The addition of a few over-the-top details, such as the mysterious stranger who turns up with colored contacts, and the discovery that Ry is Airin’s childhood acquaintance who witnessed with her the life-changing, brightly colored Cessna, distract from the story, easing it towards melodrama, but there is enough realism here to keep the momentum. Definitely a page-turner, with a strong message about the power of life over death.

A more gothic melodrama for ages 11 – 14 is Darcy Tamayose’s Katie Be Quiet (Coteau Books, paperback, $8.95). Reeling from the death of her composer father, thirteen-year-old Katie Bean is having a difficult time adjusting to life at a new school until friendship with a couple of other kids, including the son of the detective working on a local case not unlike her own father’s death, propels her towards the idea that there is a murderer on the loose.

Snippets of backstory appear in italics: a thwarted composer, his childhood filled with abuse at the hands of a father who demands perfection, designs the perfect crime: hire John Bean, his nemesis, to write an opera, and, after Bean’s death, advertise the score as his own. A death craftily arranged, thanks to a detailed knowledge of herbs...But he doesn’t account for the daughter. The widow he can handle, charm, even. But the daughter must be dealt with, once and for all...

Dead in the Water by Robin Stevenson (Orca, paperback, $9.95) is a fast-paced sailing adventure for ages ten and up that begins and ends with the high drama of a man overboard. Simon “Spacey” Drake is a competent narrator and divulges just enough information about himself and his cabin-mates to whet interest. Rich contextual detail adds to a plot involving poachers and a sea chase, and the book is a good choice for reluctant readers who like their chapters short and action-packed.

Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

Out on a Limb (Key Porter, paperback, $11.95) is B.C. Crown prosecutor Gail Banning’s first novel, and a good place to begin a writing career. The characters are original and finely drawn, the voice authentic, and the plot very suitable for the nine to twelve audience for which the book is intended.

The story begins with a family climbing out of house troubles by living in a treehouse on property left to them in a will. We’re not talking spindly prairie trees here, but apt descriptions of the giant oak make things clear. In September, experiences in a snobby new school alter Rosie’s take on treehouse living, and a little white lie complicates things until at last Rosie’s survival instinct offers her an alternative to the slow social death she is imagining. A fun book that doesn’t take itself too seriously, highly recommended as a light summer read, about a family who tries to be kind to the planet and each other.

Three non-fiction titles for ages nine to twelve focus on the environment. Jacquie Wines’s You Can Save The Planet (Scholastic, paperback, $5.99) challenges some common ideas about being green and staying healthy: “washing dishes by hand after a big meal will waste more energy, water, and detergent than turning on a fully loaded, energy-efficient dishwasher;” and “bottled water is not tested for impurities to the same high standards as tap water.” It also outlines some standard practices for Eco-warriors—fifty, to be exact—and is printed on recycled paper, which just makes good sense.

Laurie David and Cambria Gordon have created an informative and entertaining book in The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming (Scholastic, paperback, $19.99). Filled with child-centred metaphors and definitions, websites, and further reading suggestions, this is a rich resource book every library should have. Check it out!

Try this at Home, by the editors of OWL Magazine (Bayard Books, paperback, $14.95) provides a combination of do-it-yourself activities supported by facts about why it’s easy and smart to be eco-chic. Green tweens will put their energy to action with projects such as organizing a book swap and calculating their eco-footprint. Reduce, reuse, and recycle: yeah!

A reprint of Celia Barker Lottridge’s picture book One Watermelon Seed (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, hardcover, $17.95), first published in 1986, is a livelier, digital version of the original. This title for ages four to seven makes a stellar counting book, but it’s also a strong simple story which offers basic facts about gardens and gardening. Highly recommended.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

Penny Draper’s Terror at Turtle Mountain (Coteau Books, paperback, $8.95) contains fascinating historic narrative fiction, but its themes may be too mature for the nine to twelve age range for which the book is marketed.

At 4:10 a.m. on April 29, 1903, when one hundred million tons of limestone rock crash down Turtle Mountain and onto the town of Frank, Nathalie is forced to confront her fears in the resulting devastation of Canada’s worst slide disaster. As she joins the search for survivors and her missing friends and neighbours, she manages to rescue Baby Marion and prove herself a courageous heroine. In among the uplifting aspects of the tale, however, are passages which must be included to prove the impact of the crisis, but which could distress younger readers. Death, destruction, families separated and grieving—these make for a story powerfully told and important within the context of our country’s past.

Carol Matas and Perry Nodelman’s collaborative junior fiction novel The Proof that Ghosts Exist (Key Porter, paperback, $11.95), first in The Ghosthunters trilogy, is certainly well-suited for the ages nine to twelve set. Reminiscent of the glib Goosebumps novels for a similar age group, Matas and Nodelman’s title operates on a premise similar to one used by Alan Gibbons in the Blue Peter award winner Scared to Death: that a particular force of evil is capable of bringing on whatever it is that frightens people the most.

For Molly, it’s the sensation that she’s trapped in a small, close space. For her younger brother Adam, it’s creepy crawly things. For their father, Tim, who lives under the shadow of an approaching thirty-fifth birthday and the knowledge that both his father, and grandfather, died on their thirty-fifth birthdays, it’s his wife!

Humorous passages, including segments about an odd lakeside neighbour named Reggie who initially appears to nurse Tim’s strained ankle, keep this a light read for kids who like to be scared—but not too much.

First-time author Caroline Pignat provides a fast-paced, emotional read in Egghead, a young adult novel about bullying and peer pressure.

Will Reid is a gawky kid who wears fake turtlenecks, is obsessed by his ant farm project, and is lousy at gym. He becomes a target for Shane, a grade nine bully with problems of his own, and the story spirals into a nice mix of angst, compassion, and regret, told from the three differing perspectives of Will, his friend Katie, and Shane’s cohort, Devan.

Although the ending offers what may seem as a trite escape hatch for Will, the rest of the novel is satisfying and provocative, leaving readers with much food for thought. Hopefully more titles are on the horizon from this gifted writer.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

The theme of freedom resounds in two stellar new books for children. Ellen Levine’s true story from the Underground Railroad, Henry’s Freedom Box (Scholastic, hard cover, $20.99) is a picture book for ages eight and up. Its more mature themes make it a suitable read for older reluctant readers as well as the senior end of a more traditional picture-book audience.

Henry Brown wasn’t sure how old he was. Henry was a slave. And slaves weren’t allowed to have birthdays....the story begins with a depiction of a childhood vastly different from today’s youth. Readers will react to the struggles of a mother and son who are separated with the death of their master, the son sold into factory service where he is beaten for even the smallest mistake. After he grows up, Henry marries a young woman named Nancy, and they have three children. When Nancy’s master loses a great deal of money, she and the children are sold. As Henry powerlessly watches his children disappear down the road, he searches for his wife.

The spare text makes a fine contrast to the emotions it inspires. This is a story of a man who loses everything, and manages to endure. Eventually, he designs a plan for his escape to a place where he will be free. The plan involves sending himself, in a wooden crate, through the mail. The journey would be a difficult one.

“What if you cough and someone hears you?” asks his friend.

“I will cover my mouth and hope,” Henry says.

The day Henry arrives safely to friends in Philadelphia, is the day he at last has a birthday—March 30, 1849, his first day of freedom! And from that day on, he also has a middle name: Henry “Box” Brown.

Levine discovered the story of Henry’s great escape in William Still’s 1872 publication of The Underground Railroad. She was awed by Henry’s ingenious idea and moved by his incredible courage. Kadir Nelson’s evocative illustrations—created by crosshatching and then layers of watercolor and oil—are a rich accompaniment to the text, creating a book that is highly recommended.

Also worthy of high praise is Christopher Paul Curtis’s Elijah of Buxton (Scholastic, hard cover, $19.99). This junior novel for ages 11 – 14 follows the story of the first child born into freedom in Buxton, Ontario, a settlement founded in 1849 by a white Presbyterian minister. The mission was first shared by Reverend King, fifteen slaves whom he had inherited through his wife, and six escaped slaves. King purchased land on which he and the freed slaves could live, and developed rules which created an economically viable settlement. Even into the twenty-first century, several hundred descendants of the original settlers still live in the area, farming the land their ancestors hewed from the once thick Canadian forest.

Readers meet a likeable hero in eleven-year-old Elijah. Given to what his parents call “being too fra-gile,” he strives to transcend a label that makes him squirm with embarrassment. Taking the initiative in planting a “toady frog” in Ma’s knitting basket, he hopes to prove that everyone has their fears. Ma handily repays him a few days later when he discovers a snake in the cookie jar, an event which brings even greater pandemonium. These humorous scenes move us quickly into a series of lighthearted adventures that nicely set the stage for the more serious events to come.

A local man has saved money to buy the freedom of his wife and children, who are still enslaved in the south. How this plan goes awry, and Elijah is enlisted to help, makes for a gripping finale to the book. Never again will he initiate silly games with his friends, play acting around slaves and abolitionists. Real life is much more horrifying than he had ever imagined, the plight of slaves so dire that what he sees will remain forever etched in his memory. And Elijah learns that his conscience and Ma’s cookie-jar snake are pretty much alike.

Conscience, however, can be a good thing. It carries Elijah past his shortcomings, supporting him in a heroic act that will forever change the destiny of a little girl called Hope.

At first the dialect Curtis uses in his narration makes for somewhat difficult reading, but after a little while the story takes hold and young readers will appreciate an authentic and gripping read. Elijah of Buxton is an Honor Book for the 2008 Newbury Medal.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

Prince Albert writer Kelly Fournel has produced a noteworthy collection of short essays in Great Women From Our First Nation (Second Story Press, paperback, $10.95). Ten outstanding women leaders are profiled, including Inuit singer songwriter Susan Aglukark, Metis broadcaster Suzanne Rochon-Burnett, Professor Lorna Williams, Governor General’s Award winning Sandra Lovelace Nicholas, and poet-performer Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake.

The subjects of this collection are presented clearly and respectfully.

Fournel’s voice is straightforward, offering carefully chosen details about her subjects’ childhoods, responses to challenge, and their emergence as international role models. Numerous black-and-white photographs add lots of appeal. Highly recommended non-fiction for readers ages ten and up.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown and Company, hardcover, $19.75) contains few positive role models, but lots of heart. Told with a voice reminiscent of Holden Caulfield’s in Catcher in the Rye, Alexie’s young adult novel has been both criticized and lauded for its portrayal of cultural stereotypes, adolescent sexuality, and teenage angst.

Junior is a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation. His quest to leave school on “the rez” in Wellpinit and survive in all-white Reardon high school combines gritty and heartbreaking life experiences with a fairy tale plot: boy is bullied in his home community and realizes he needs to leave, boy endures great trials in the transition to his new school, boy becomes date of cheerleader, Penelope, and befriended by football jock, Roger. Moments of exquisite poignancy are juxtaposed with crude humour, Alexie’s background in stand-up comedy always on the alert.

Alexie himself grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. Like Junior, he was born hydrocephalic, and, at six months of age, underwent surgeries to correct the condition. After a grim prognosis, and suffering numerous seizures, Alexie developed into a very capable student, bullied by his peers, who eventually opted to attend Reardon high school, twenty miles from Wellpinit, where he became a star basketball player. Believable in real life, but more difficult to buy in Junior’s case.

The novel starts with a description of Junior’s special needs, giving readers a clear picture of a young man with a speech impediment whose “brain was a giant French fry,” “drowning in grease.” “My brain damage left me nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other, so my ugly glasses were all lopsided because my eyes were so lopsided...And my skull was enormous. Epic. My head was so big that little Indian skulls orbited around it. Some of the kids called me Orbit. And other kids just called me Globe. The bullies would pick on me, spin me in circles, put their finger down on my skull, and say, ‘I want to go there.’” Initially, Junior draws as a way to talk to the world, and because drawing might be his “only real chance to escape the reservation.” As he so eloquently puts it, “I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.”

Somehow through the course of the story, Junior’s character morphs from an artist into an all American basketball star on the varsity team as a freshman. “Coach said I was the best shooter who’d ever played for him. And I was going to be his secret weapon.” He also handles interviews with ease: “I have to prove that I will never give up. I will never quit playing hard. And I don’t just mean in basketball. I’m never going to quit living life this hard, you know? I’m never going to surrender to anybody. Never, ever, ever.” Is this Junior talking, or Alexie?

And then, after a big game against his old team from the reserve:

All at once, it doesn’t really matter who’s talking. The message resounds, and the book is nearly over. Parts of it brilliant, parts of it less so. Parts of it comic, profane, poetic, stereotypical and yet highly original. Accompanied by the drawings of Ellen Fornoy, this novel is the Winner of the American 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. For ages 14 and up, with a language and content warning.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

Love in many of its forms can be found in a new armful of picture books for ages four and up. Rachel Vail’s Righty and Lefty, illustrated by Matthew Cordell (Scholastic, hard cover, $20.99), tells the story of two feet who learn to appreciate each other in spite of their differences. Good thing, because they belong to the same person! Cordell’s clever addition of a bandaid on Lefty helps kids tell them apart, and Vail’s witty characterizations will make even older readers laugh out loud.

For example, when they race, sometimes Righty wins; sometimes Lefty wins. It is always close. Later, they help each other out of their sneakers. “Ew,” says Lefty. “You stink.” “You stink, too,” says Righty. “I know,” says Lefty. “We are quite a pair.”

Michele Marineau’s modernized Cinderella, illustrated by Mylene Pratt (Tundra, hard cover, $14.99) adds yet another version of this classic tale. Leaning towards humour rather than melodrama, we meet a girl who lives in a little house in front of an asphalt jungle and whose fairy godmother gives her some good advice: “Smile! Without a smile, all the other stuff doesn’t count.”

A wonderfully varied collection of would-be princesses line up to try on the lost shoe: Pratt must have had particular fun with this page, offering the young, the middle-aged, even a granny, the chance of a lifetime. And then one morning, a delicate little foot slid gently into the shoe. The prince looked up and instantly recognized the smile that had won his heart at the ball. How could Cinderella resist those brown eyes, that noble profile, that speckled shirt? Romantic love, after all.

Love’s power to transform is evident in the late Phoebe Gilman’s The Blue Hippopotamus, illustrated by Joanne Fitzgerald (Scholastic, hard cover, $19.99) and nominated as a finalist in the 2007 Governor General’s Awards for children’s literature illustration.

When a little hippo falls head over heels for the Pharoah’s daughter, he hopes that a great magician can turn him into a boy. Alas, it isn’t possible, but Hapu instead becomes a beautiful blue hippo on wheels, and Mery-Am is enchanted... for a time. When he sees that she is lonely, Hapu puts her happiness above his, using his one wish to make Mary-Am’s dreams come true. And, in return, he finds himself transformed, not into the boy he once wished to be, but into a baby, born to Mery-Am and her handsome husband. A little Freudian, perhaps, but charming, nevertheless.

Grandma’s affections for Nellie in Betty Waterton’s A Bumblebee Sweater are clearly demonstrated by her knitting (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, hard cover, $19.95). A black-and-yellow striped garment is inspired by Nellie’s upcoming role in the spring concert, but, at first, it is a little large.

“That’s all right,” said Nellie. “I like it big. It’ll keep my knees warm.”

The sweater is eagerly worn ahead of time, and washed, and worn, and washed, until it isn’t so big after all. In fact, it won’t go over Nellie’s head. But when her role is changed from bee to flower, the sweater becomes an important costume after all...for her dog. Kim LaFave’s exuberant line-and-watercolor illustrations are a perfect fit for this child-centred tale.

Mr. Gauguin’s Heart by Marie-Danielle Croteau and translated by Susan Ouriou (Tundra, hardcover, $22.99) is reportedly based on the true story of artist Paul Gauguin who, when he was small, traveled from Denmark to Peru with his family. On the journey his father dies—“carried off by his heart—” and the text illustrates how an old man models for Paul the art of giving life to memories through painting.

“Years later, Paul would become one of the greatest painters of his time. It is said that his art resembles that of Japan. But what no one knows—other than you and Mrs. Gauguin—is that the red sun he painted all those years ago does not represent the flag of a faraway nation. The little boy’s painting of the big red sun is really a picture of Mr. Gauguin’s heart.”

Substantial text makes this a possibility for older, less fluent readers who require visual cues, and, correspondingly, the themes of love and loss will appeal to more mature children. Illustrations by Isabelle Arsenault are clever and complex, but without representations of Gauguin’s work the book doesn’t quite seem complete.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

With the authentic, child-centred feel of Susan Patron’s The Higher Power of Lucky, Canadian author Iain Lawrence brings us Gemini Summer (Delacorte, hardcover, $21.00), winner of the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Awards in the Children’s English Text category. Lawrence deals with loss in the same, sensitive way as Katherine Patterson’s classic Bridge to Terabithia, however a touch of magic realism carries Danny, the lead character, past the anguish of his elder brother’s Beau’s death and into a world where maybe, just maybe, Beau has come back as Danny’s new dog, Rocket.

Set in the mid sixties in a neighbourhood pieced together from places and people Lawrence used to know in “Hog’s Hollow,” Toronto, although the storyline takes place across the border, the book has the comfortable feel of nostalgia and yet one element rankles. The antagonist, developed as a local bully and described as a boy with a great hollow head and a pudding of a face, whose speech only his father can understand, is presented as a one-dimensional character for whom readers will have scant empathy. The stereotype of someone with special needs being innately dangerous is allowed to blossom with very little attention until the end when Danny briefly acknowledges Dopey’s accidental, rather than intentional, role in Beau’s misfortune.

Humour is one hook which consistently catches young readers, and a number of new books are out to prove it. Melanie Watt’s Chester (Kids Can, hardcover, $18.95) is geared for ages four to eight, but older kids will be interested in the dual narrative , told from the perspective of Watt herself, as she attempts to write a story about a mouse, while her text is altered by Chester, the cat, who constantly “interrupts” to tell his version.

The change in narrators is flagged by red ink, as the cunning cat uses his own marker to cross out what Watt writes and replace it with his preferred text. Even the dedication is altered, becoming, “For Chester because I couldn’t have made this book without him. He’s the smartest most handsome cat in the world. I wish I could be like him someday!” By Chester, of course.

Natasha Friend’s Bounce (Scholastic hardcover ,$20.99) is the story of a young teen whose life is spinning out of control. Her father, “Birdie,” moves Evyn and her brother from Maine to Boston to live with his new partner and her six children, and Evyn struggles to make sense of it all through “conversations” she has with her mom:

“At night, I talk to my mom. I know what people would say. Talking to a dead woman? She must be nuts. But I’m not.”

Sensitive and honest, the story works so well because the main character has a strength that will convince kids ten to fourteen that no matter how bad things get, she can handle it—and so can they. The only drawback with the plot is an uneven passage of time which sometimes leaves readers scrambling to catch up.

Ten Ways to Make My Sister Disappear by Norma Fox Mazer (Scholastic hardcover, $20.99) begins as ten-year old Sprig is in constant competition with her older sister, Dakota. But when Sprig’s father is away, working in Afghanistan, her favourite neighbour is ill, and the class bully is acting like a boyfriend, Sprig discovers that allies are sometimes related to you. Mazer is a prolific realistic fiction author whose body of work is worth a look.

One other title worth mentioning is Zoe’s Extraordinary Holiday Adventures by Christina Minaki (Second Story Press, paperback, $8.95). Although the narrative is at times a little bumpy, the main character—a delightful young girl who explores the world from the confines of her wheelchair—reminds readers of the common ties that bind us together. For ages eight to eleven.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

Brenna Book Reviews, 2007

Seasonal titles for ages four to eight warm the heart this December. Rebecca Upjohn’s Lily and the Paper Man (Second Story Press, hardcover, $14.95) outlines the story of a little girl and her mother who encounter a homeless man in their neighbourhood. At first Lily is afraid, but compassion triumphs, inspiring a gift that truly makes a difference. Poignantly illustrated by Renne Benoit.

Bunny Wishes by Michaela Morgan and illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church (Scholastic, hardcover, $20.99) is a richly worded tale of two bunnies who pin wish lists to a hollow log. The wind whooshes the papers onto the heads of baby mice who nibble and chomp and chew the notes into all sorts of winter toys. A fun romp kids will want to share more than once.

Barry Ablett’s Dear Polar Bear (Scholastic, hardcover, $19.99) vividly illustrates the story of a lonely bear who writes letters to his friends. A bit weak on the narrative, but kids will enjoy the actual letters enclosed and perhaps be inspired to write some of their own.

Monica Devine tells a tale of friendship in Hanna Bear’s Christmas, illustrated by Sean Cassidy (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, hardcover, $19.95). The little bear wants to wake up when Christmas arrives, but she can’t do it without the help of her pals who must work together to achieve their goal.

Pippin the Christmas Pig, Jean Little’s fresh Christmas classic of 2002, is now available in paperback (Scholastic, $8.99). Accompanied by Werner Zimmerman’s exquisite paintings, this gentle story illuminates how it feels to be small and insignificant, only to discover one’s own true worth.

Richard Unger’s Even Higher is a picture book for older children ages seven and up. Every year, on the day before Rosh Hashanah, the rabbi of the village disappears until nightfall. What is he doing? Is he soaring up to heaven to beg forgiveness for the sins of the townspeople? A small boy follows him, only to discover that the rabbi has been cutting wood for a poor widow.

Unger’s jewel-toned watercolors and coloured-pencil illustrations beautifully capture the essence of this timeless Jewish folktale.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

Speechless, a new young adult novel by Valerie Sherrard (Dundurn Press, paperback, $12.99), is a good choice this Remembrance Day for readers who wish to increase their emotional intelligence regarding world affairs. Griffin’s 115 day “protest of silence,” under the guise of raising awareness about child soldiers, begins as an attempt to escape an oratory assignment in school. How he deals with his ever-growing guilt over the ruse, and eventually turns in earnest towards this international cause, makes for a psychologically intriguing read.

Somewhat contrived is the confession of a teacher, who tells Griffin the story of a Ugandan sponsor child conscripted into battle at age eleven and not heard from since, and yet it serves its purpose, giving Griffin an authentic reason to be the leader many already believe him to be. In the end, after a million signatures, Griffin is asked again to give a speech; this time, he has something to say.

The wartime setting is gently understated in Alice Walsh’s A Sky Black With Crows (Red Deer Press, paperback, $12.95), and yet it offers a genuine background to the book’s characters and the choices they make. Raised in Dr Grenfell’s orphanage after the death of her parents “on the Labrador,” Katie is bound to seek her youngest sister while trying to finish her education at the Halifax academy. “We are a family,” she tells herself. “We belong together.”

Her quest to become nurse, and a blossoming romance with a young soldier who was once a childhood friend, combine to make this a page-turner for girls twelve and up. With historical information about the International Grenfell Association, the novel combines fiction with important facts about one of Canada’s early medical leaders.

Where Soldiers Lie by John Wilson (Key Porter, hard cover, $15.95) brings battle to life. India, 1857, provides an exotic background as sixteen-year-old Jack O’Hara finds himself fighting for his life alongside soldiers, women, and children, in an inadequate entrenchment surrounded by the mutinying Indian army. Fast-paced and vivid, this title for ages twelve and up deftly presents the grim realities of war in contrast to the optimism of youth.

Much of the story seems very authentic, and yet a few things jar: passages where Jack waxes romantic about the commander’s daughter are clearly fiction, and, in one scene, the weakened mother of a newborn baby deftly steps out of the room with her husband to discuss names, only to see the new father blown to bits. Choices geared toward drama, to be sure, but many in the intended audience will see the writer’s hand behind these scenes rather than realism.

Barry McDivitt’s The Youngest Spy (Thistledown, paperback, $12.95) is also an authentic read, with its author doing a remarkable job of piecing together varying perspectives related to the American Civil War. McDivitt’s main character, George Duguay, is a fourteen-year-old Canadian farm boy working as a spy to protect his community from US invasion. Although the historical research seems sound, rapid transitions between setting and character make navigation difficult. Older teens interested in this particular period in history may find the effort worth it, but the complex storyline may evade the intended audience of ages eight to twelve.

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s new title, Prisoners in the Promised Land (Scholastic, hardcover, $14.99) does a stellar job of presenting the perspective of a young Ukrainian girl interned in the Spirit Lake work camp during World War I. The diary format allows Anya’s heart and soul to be spilled onto pages outlining her family’s journey from the village of Horoshova in Austria-Hungary, 1914, to Montreal, where they begin to make a new life for themselves. Their steps toward a brighter future, inspired by Canadian advertising to encourage immigration, is short-lived when they are viewed as possible “enemy aliens.”

The War Measures Act labelled 8679 new Canadians as potentially dangerous, interning them in twenty-four camps across the country. Approximately 6000 of those held were Ukrainians despite the fact that the British government proclaimed that these people were not “Austrians” and thus were not the enemy. During and after the war, hysteria against foreigners resulted in poverty, homelessness, and, for some, death.

Yet Anya’s story, in addition to outlining times when her heart is “wrapped in sadness,” is full of a young girl’s hopes and dreams, her ingenuity in helping her family, and the universal themes of growing up. It will appeal to young people for its direct and honest voice, and in addition to a great story, it contains an important lesson: never again should we deny people their basic rights and freedoms because of where they come from. For ages eleven to fourteen.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

The Paleocene epoch provides a clever setting for Kenneth Oppel’s new title, Darkwing (HarperCollins, hard cover, $21.99). A prequel to Oppel’s previous bat books (Silverwing, Sunwing, and Firewing), this fantasy is definitely a flight of fiction, and yet all of the characters are based on real species living during this time period, making this an especially intriguing read.

Readers will strongly identify with Dusk, the lead character and a youthful “chiropter” who discovers that he is a more evolved form of the arboreal gliders who raised him. Much to the horror of his clan, he can flap as well as glide, using his sails in the same way that birds use their wings. In a poignant conversation with his sister, Dusk asks, “Is different wrong?” and much of the storyline is spent exploring this point, to great advantage. Herein lies the value of fantasy literature—allowing readers to explore, at a safe distance, issues which very clearly arise in present day reality.

Later, when Dusk discovers other outcasts, he rebels at the thought of the new name—bat—which they have given to creatures such as themselves. “It doesn’t matter what you’re called,” his sister says firmly, obviously more generous than earlier in the story. “You’re different, we always knew that. But you’re still you. You haven’t changed.” Wise words from one so young...or rather, old: sixty-five million years old, to be exact.

The plot line following Dusk and his clan, through dangers created by their own ethical choices as well as the changing world around them, is clear and strong. Interwoven is a secondary, less successful plot, tracing the progress of two carnivorous “felids” as their story crosses in and out of the path of the arboreal gliders. Oppel’s sketches flag changing points of view as readers move between chapters, transitions which may prove a stumbling point for less skilled navigators. On the whole, however, this title, geared for ages ten to twelve, will likely appeal to an even wider age range, and especially to those who have previously enjoyed exploring with Oppel his unique viewpoints on the delicious appeal of flight.

Saskatoon author Arthur Slade has a new title out just in time for Hallowe’en: Villainology (Tundra, paperback,$12.99 ) is a witty and compelling read, a rogue’s who’s who, for ages nine to twelve. Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the most villainous of all? From Attilla to the Invisible Man to memorable characters from Shakespeare, all are described within, and spookily illustrated in black-and-white by Derek Mah. For those who dare, join Slade himself on October 29, 7pm, at Saskatoon’s McNally Robinson for a hilarious look at the likes (and dislikes) of villains through the ages.

A seasonal non-fiction title geared to ages eight and up is Jeff Szpirglas’s Fear this Book: Your Guide to Fright, Horror, and Things that Go Bump in the Night (Maple Tree Press, paperback, $12.95). Witty and succinct, it includes a dissection of all things even remotely frightening as well as an examination of parts of the human body connected to fear such as the amygdala, the section of the brain that, as a result of learning, signals reactions to danger. Szpirglas himself used to fear sharks, dogs, and stinging insects; now he fears bills and income tax.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance author who has five published books for young people.

Back to Index

Two visually appealing new picture books celebrate Canadian history with pizzazz . Jamie Bastedo’s Free as the Wind (Red Deer Press, hardcover, $19.95) illustrates the story of the wild horses of Sable Island, animals whose origin there is somewhat of a mystery. Some may have been survivors of the many shipwrecks that occurred on the island’s rocky shores. Others may have belonged to Acadians deported by British authorities from the area now known as Nova Scotia. It is reported that Thomas Hancock, a Boston merchant whose ships were used to transport the Acadians to the British colonies in America, took about 60 of their horses and left them to graze on Sable Island.

In the early 1880s, many of these animals were rounded to up sell at auctions in Halfax. In the mid 1900s, remaining horses were being captured and sold for dog food. Children across North America wrote letters to Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker, pleading that he save the wild horses. And within a month, the government issued a protection order. The children had won their cause! Free as the Wind follows the story of one young boy who loves the horses and assists in the bid for their freedom.

These animals are a national treasure, not only because their history dates back to the early settlement of Canada, but also because their preservation demonstrates the difference children can make. A story well worth sharing, with magnificent paintings (acrylic on watercolor paper) by Susan Tooke, a Halifax artist.

A child’s viewpoint is also the center of Lynn Manuel’s The Summer of the Marco Polo (Orca, hardcover, $19.95). Adapted from the journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the story takes place in 1883 when the famous clipper ship ran aground off the coast of Prince Edward Island near the Cavendish home where a young Montgomery lived with her grandparents.

I was only eight years old that summer, the narrative begins, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. We were in school when we heard the great crash. It had been storming in Cavendish for days, yet we could still hear the crash through the wind. The Nelson boys said it was a tree blown down, and we all looked out at the old spruce woods. But I knew it wasn’t a tree.

The child’s instincts were correct. The crash was the sound of a great, black ship stranded among the breakers. Townspeople painted signs warning the sailors not to leave the ship—they would drown for sure if they tried to make it through the raging sea—and, in the morning, a rescue boat went out.

Captain Bull stays with the story’s narrator and her grandparents, and tells tales of the ship, built in Saint John, New Brunswick. The Marco Polo made her first trip to England in fifteen days, beating all records. Then she raced other ships to Australia. A twisted keel was the captain’s explanation for her terrific speed.

Another storm came up while the wreckers were on the ship. By the next morning, the sea was raging worse than when the Marco Polo ran aground, and the ship split apart, with the men still aboard. Finally a seine-boat made it out, with barrels lashed to the sides, and rescued men who had survived by clinging to bits of wood. Not all, however, were so lucky.

Kasia Charko’s watercolor-and-pencil illustrations make detailed, inviting counterparts to the text. Coincidentally, Charko herself met L.M. Montgomery’s great-grandchildren where she lives in Caledon, Ontario, a short distance from Norval where Montgomery lived for many years.

Both these picture-books, although intended for younger children, will likely be best-suited to capable readers seven and up who can handle the not-so-happy details as well as the rather weighty historical context which, in the case of Bastedo’s title, best comes through in the endnotes. These books would also make excellent material for older, less capable readers, who might appreciate the simpler language and picture-cues along with the mature story ideas.

For kids six and up reluctant to let go of summer, Diane Swanson’s non-fiction Bugs Up Close (Kids Can Press, hardcover, $18.95) will keep the bees buzzing and crickets chirping a little longer thanks to Swanson’s clear, informative text and Paul Davidson’s stunning photos of common North American insects and their cousins. Did you know that some insects molt more than 50 times, shedding their exoskeletons as they grow...that a grasshopper can travel a distance 15 times its body length in one leap...that some small flies flap their wings 1000 times a second? And that spiders and daddy longlegs, because of their unique body parts, are not insects? For a swarm of fascinating facts, this title is highly recommended.

Local literacy activist Katrina Ham supports early language development in her preschool boardbook A Wish For You (lifetime productions, $9.95). Teaming up with illustrator Carey Rigby-Wilcox, Ham’s gentle rhyming text (...you may want to be a fireman, a dancer, or a website designer/an engineer, a lawyer, a waiter, or potash miner...) has a strong prairie theme and very young children, always intrigued by babies, will be drawn to the kid-centred and humorous illustrations. Katrina Ham runs her family-based business from a farm north of Brock, Saskatchewan.

Missing family time now that kids are back to school? Jean Pare’s new Kids Do Snacks cookbook (Company’s Coming Publishing, coil bound, $15.99) can help reunite everyone at the kitchen counter. Although not everything’s made from scratch, and much of the fare is high on sugar, these recipes are fun and kid-friendly, and the included riddles and jokes will tickle the funny bone (...What starts with t, ends with t and is filled with t? A teapot! Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide...).

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

Mary Woodbury’s Flight of the Tiger Moth (Coteau, paperback, $10.95) is a youthful variation on World War II historical fiction, celebrating the west’s contributions related to the training of aircrew. The important thing about this book for Saskatchewanians is the mention of local colour associated with the base near Moose Jaw, the related fanfare of young British pilots, and the general impact of the aerodrome on the war, which, through the stories of Jack’s elder sister and her fiancé, sometimes seems all too close.

The historical elements of this novel appear detailed and well-researched, and many readers will enjoy the descriptions of the planes and all they imply. Difficulties appear with the age of the main character, for, although he is sixteen and entering grade twelve, Jack often appears too young for his age, and there are contrasting characterizations of someone who eagerly takes the drivers’ seat, yet a little later builds model planes and concentrates on saving an abandoned pup with the naivety of someone years younger. This, unfortunately, impedes the book’s impact and will affect its readership.

In a similar manner, Eric Walters’ new title Sketches (Puffin, paperback, $12.00), while very appealing in terms of its themes and setting, sometimes feels contrived. The language at times doesn’t ring true for characters experiencing the grit of the streets as do Brent, Ashley, and Dana, limiting the emotional level of the book and bringing its age range close to the eleven and twelve-year-old minimum. In spite of this, the book is a viable read for middle-grade kids who want a safe context in which to consider difficult issues related to urban problems, and may inspire some interested readers towards volunteer work or other future endeavours related to community support.

Mariana Cohen’s Shadow of the Moon (Vanwell, paperback, $9.95) is an unusual blend of early Gordon Korman humour and Lloyd Alexander-esque high fantasy. Because it’s too flippant to quite fit the latter, it will miss a larger audience, appealing in a limited fashion to ages ten to twelve. It, and its sequel, might just fit the bill as quick, beach books, and hopefully Cohen will continue to write because she does show promise. She might consider requesting more input into the covers Vanwell is using for her books—this one in particular does not well represent her content, nor does it say anything of meaning to the readership she intends to draw.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index

For young readers avidly awaiting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and last book in the series by J.K. Rowling, a few other recommended titles are worth examining in the interim.

Children who enjoy lighter fare will appreciate Matt Duggan’s The Royal Woods (Key Porter, hardcover, $16.95), a contemporary running-away-tale set in big-box metropolis. Twelve-year-old Sydney and her nine-year-old brother Turk find themselves in a strange and confusing new world: the subdivision known as The Royal Woods. Rich with storytelling language and quick wit, capable readers eight to eleven will find this title fun to read independently.

Reminiscent of E.L.Konigsburg’s 35-year-old Newbury award classic, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E.Frankweiler, the two books would make good companion reads. The latter is an adventure spotlighting characters of similar ages and angsts, Claudia (twelve) and Jamie (nine), but instead of hiding in suburbia, these two run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Both books play on common themes of childhood and are told from the perspectives of rather unexpected narrators.

For readers eleven and up who are set on epic fantasies, a number of series’ books are available to whet willing imaginations. When asked how to develop intelligence in young people, Einstein is reported to have answered, “Read fairy tales.” Fairy tales and fantasies supply the imagination with room to grow and create a basis for the sciences as well as the arts. In addition, children can safely explore, in the distance of a fantasy world, problems that may be too difficult to endure in a context of real life.

American author T.A. Barron’s Great Tree of Avalon series, beginning with Child of the Dark Prophesy, and The Lost Years of Merlin epic, beginning with the title of the same name, are two worthwhile reads. For more information, consult the author’s website: www.tabarron.com.

Another New York Times bestselling author is twenty-four-year-old Christopher Paolini. His trilogy begins with Eragon (on which the recent movie was based), continues with Eldest, and extends into one other title yet to be published. For more details on Paolini’s writing, go to www.alagaesia.com.

A British author to consider is Alan Gibbons, whose Shadow of the Minotaur catapaulted him to fame with a Blue Peter Award (run by a BBC children’s program of the same name) seven years ago. This title contains the first part of the Legendeer Trilogy, discussed further on www.alangibbons.com.

Australia boasts Garth Nix, whose Keys to the Kingdom series starts with Mister Monday and extends, so far, through five titles. For more details, see www.garthnix.co.uk.

An author to watch in Canada is Kenneth Oppel, who is extending the bat theme (which began with Silverwing in 1997) to Darkwing: a brand new title expected in August. Oppel’s absolutely brilliant website can be accessed at www.kennethoppel.ca.

Lloyd Alexander, a stalwart fantasy writer for this age group, passed away in May at the age of 83. Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain series is a good one to start with, beginning with The Book of Three. More information about this author’s work can be found at www.lloydalexanderbooks.com. His legacy includes over forty published books for the enjoyment of young readers.

Beverley Brenna is a Saskatoon freelance writer and the author of five books for young people.

Back to Index