AND THE WINNER IS… Some Book Awards, 2024.

Most of the titles listed in this posting have been published within the past year. As it happens, each of these books have been nominated for a book award, or in fact was honoured with a book prize. As I’ve often said, a great award doesn’t necessarily make it a great read. That being said, 3 of these titles will be on Larry’s list of favourite grown up reads on my end-of the year list.  Mention of three award -winning books for young people is also featured below. 

 

DUCKS: Two Years on the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (2022)

In 2005, Kate Beaton graduated from university and was determined to pay off her student loan as quickly as possible. She left her seaside home in Cape Breton and like many East coasters, she headed out to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush.  For two years, Beaton brvely committed herself to life in the oil sands where she experienced isolation, despair, loneliness,  and  trauma. She dedicated her job working as a tool crib attendant in a number of camps and in the city of Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta.  Ducks is presented in graphic format, with monochromatic black, white and gray panels that expose the bleak environment, the strained relationships and  the harm done to the environment (including dying of hundreds of ducks). as well as uncovering  truths about Indigenous rights.  Most graphic pages are filled with speech bubble dialogue but stark interior and  landscape images that appear throughout capture the setting of this bleak life (I would have liked to have had some narrative captions included to help clarify time and place of events of Beaton’s experiences Overriding this saga, is Kate’s life living in a man’s world wh ere misogyny, harassment and rape abound.  Ducks is a harrowing account of the artist’s life between 2005 and 2008.  It is a story of perseverance, mental health. As outlined in the Afterword Beaton’s document  “the humanity of camp workers is often lost in the popular image we have constructed about what goes on there and why.” (Afterword). In 2023, Ducks was declared the winner of the Canada Reads. It wa also won the 2023 Eisner Awards for best writer of comics as well as the 2024Swiss-based Jan Michalski Prize for Literature

 

HELD by Anne Michaels

I did not enjoy this book. Too challenging. Too poetic. Too confusing. Too obscure. To elliptical. A fine writer, Anne Michaels is, but not for me.  Winner of the Giller Prize 2024. So what!

Excerpt

“We think of history as moments of upheaval when forces converge, teh sudden upthrust of the ground we’re standing on, catastrophe. But sometimes history is simply detritus: middle mounds, ghost nets, panoramic beaches of plastic sand. Sometimes both: a continental convergence of stories unfolding too quickly or to gradually to follow; sometimes too intimate to know.” (p. 216)

 

ORBITAL by Samantha Harvey

Orbital is a day in the lives of six women and six men travelling through space at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below.  How did the author do her  mammoth research to accurately depict the life of a space mission, without having joined on such a mission herself? How does her imagination to take readers on an ‘out of this world experience’ that the magical wonders of our environment and our planet intertwined with the philosophical musings of humanity.  The opening pages of the novel offer rapturous reviews for this short novel (207) page novel : “meditative”, “timely hymn to life on earth”, “ecstatic voyage” “soulful and haunting”, “radiant”, “profound” “dizzying” ,”remarkable”, ‘extraordinary”.  This is an extraordinary achievement of brilliant, poetic writing where I found myself slowing down and re-reading gorgeously written passages.  Orbital is a marvelous achievement that I can’t say was as ecstatic an experience that other readers have had. The book did indeed inspire meditational thoughts about Earth. Technical descriptions and the in-depth look at the mission of astronauts  intrigued me, but didn’t always interest me. For readers who are intrigued with what life travelling in space might be like, Orbital is a gem of a reading experience. Winner of the Booker Prize 2024. (Had I been on the Booker ocommittee and I would have voted for James by Percival Everett (see below) Just sayin’.

Excerpt (page 155)

“And yet, if he were offered a trip home today no way would he take it, and when the time comes to go in several months, he won’t wish to. An intoxication; the heigh-sick homesick drug of space. The simultaneous not wanting to be here adn always wanting to be here, the heart scraped hollow with craving, which is not emptiness in the least, more the knowledge of how fillable he is. The sights from orbit do this; they make a billowing kite out of you, given shape and loftiness by all that you aren’t.”

 

RAISING HARE by Chloe Dalton (Nonfiction)

During the pandemic lockdown, author Chloe Dalton leaves the city and returns to her chidhood home in the countryside where she encounters a newly born hare and becomes its faithful custodian. This book chronicles the journey of the relationship of human and animal. The story documents the challenges of providing safety and survival, nourishment and trust of an animal rescued from the wild. Chloe Dalton presents the story with exquisite writing about the natural world (I was reminded of the book H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald ). Her knowledge, through inquiry, of the life of a leveret is astounding. Her primary research method as she sensitively observes and questions the life of her visitor is a exceptional.  A fascinating memoir. Raising Hare is shortlisted for Waterstone’s book of the year, 2024.

Excerpt

“As the earth’s winter palette gave way to the lush green growth of spring, and the strenghtening sun dried out the land, deepening shadow and creating sharper contrasts, the leveret’s colouring shifted. Its fur lost its dark chocolate hue, until its paws, flanks and chest were the colour of spilt cream and only the fur on its back and ears still recalled its newborn pelt.” (pages 45-46)

 

SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE by Claire Keegan (2021) / novella

I decided to re-read this novella (110 pages) after seeing the wonderful small movie starring Cillian (Oppenheimer) Murphy.  The film beautifully captured the soul of Keegan’s book, portraying time and character with heart.  In an Irish town, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant is kept busy during the weeks leading up to Christmas. He dutifully makes his deliveries and strives to make ends meet to keep his dutiful wife, Eileen,  and  his five daughters  as comfortable as he can afford. It is a story of community. It is a story of the past memories rising up to haunt the hardworking man.  Filtered throughout the narrative, is the history of a small community controlled by the Church. In a note on the text, the author gives a short history of the Magdalen laundries where many girls and young women lost their babies. Some lost their lives. Brilliantly,  Small Things Like These encapsulates the history of Catholic institutions through the story of one young girl who was locked up in the coal room.  Keegan’s writing is precise in the telling, description and straight=to the-heart capturing of emotions.  This book was the winner of the2022 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and was a finalist for the Booker Prize, This was the title recently chosen for the New York Times Book Review Book Club as well as Oprah Winfrey’s 109th book club choice (December 2024). 

Excerpt

“… he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what ws there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?” (p. 108)

 

TELL ME EVERYTHING by Elizabeth Strout

Tell Me Everything reacquaints readers with characters we’ve met in earlier novels. Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge and Bob Burgess’s intertwine as Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine. Lucy is invited to sit with Olive living in a retirement community and tell stories about people they have known. It is these stories that imbues their ‘unrecorded lives’ with meaning. Lawyer Bob Burgess (married) and Lucy (divorced) enjoy a strong friendship where they feel they can tell each other anything.  Adding to the plot, a sad sack of a man, is accused of killing his mother.  Bob Burgess becomes involved with the unfolding murder investigation. Elizabeth Strout’s book Olive Kitteridge was a Pulitzer Prize winner (2009). I loved that book. Elizabeth Strout is a storyteller extraordinaire illuminating the heart and soul of her characters, shining a light on universal themes.  She first introduced readers to Lucy Barton in a hospital room in the novel My Name is Lucy Barton (2016), and this engaging character was central subsequent publications, Oh William! (2021), Lucy by The Sea (2022)   I loved meeting the cast of Strout’s fictional characters once again. In the end, the many stories add up to have readers consider “What does anyone’s life mean?” and dig deeply into the notion that “Love comes in so many different forms, but is always love.” Oh, Elizabeth, I love your books.  Always ‘winners’ with me!

 

Excerpt (p. 224)

Lucy Barton, the stories you told me -as far as I could tell – had very little point to them. Okay, okay, maybe they had subtle points to them. I don’t know what the point is to the story!”

“People,” Lucy said quietly, leaning back. “People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.”

“Exactly,” Olive nodded. 

 

SHOUT OUT!
 
JAMES by Percival Everett

I don’t remember reading Mark Twain’s classic book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)and was somewhat hestitent to dig into reading Percival Everett’s new novel, a re-imagining of Twain’s book told from the perspective of the slave Jim who accompanied Huckleberry Finn on his journey down the Mississippi. Accolades for Everett’s book lured me into picking up his novel. I’m oh-so-glad I did. It’s a brilliant piece of writing and for sure, one of the best novels of 2024.   Nigger Jim –  now James – escapes being sold as a slave which would force him to be separated from his wife and daughter forever. James joins Huck who has faked his own death to escape from his violent father. Readers join James and Huck on their harrowing raft journey down the Mississippi River each hoping to reach the promise of a Free State.  Everett creates a clever device by having James expertly read and write English (better than his enslavers)  but using Black dialect ‘slave talk’ to hide his literacy when encountering white folks. I rooted for James all along the way as he and Huck encounter  harrowing events on their joureney.   I am keen to read Twain’s novel. And I know I will re-read (or perhaps listen to) Percival Everett’s knockout of a novel once again. It’s an enlightening – and funny – fictional masterpiece. 

James was awarded the Kirkus Prize for fiction as well as the National Book Award for fiction in 2024.  It was recently announce as the winner of the Barnes & Noble book of the year. This title was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize.

Excerpt (page 99)

“Get on the raft, boy,” I said.

We climbed aboard and pushed off into the flow.

“Jim,” Huck siad.

“What?

“Why are you talking so funny?”

“Whatchu be meanin’?” I was panickking inside.

“You were talking – I don’t know – you don’t sound like no slave.”

“How do a slave sound?”

He stared at me.

“I only knows one way to talk, Huck, Naw you got me scared. What you mean, I sounds funny?”

“You don’t now, but I could’ve sworn you did.”

“How ’bout naw, Huck? Ho does I sound naw?

“You sound okay now.”

“Lawdy, that’s good.”

Huck cut me another suspicious look. 

 

SHOUT OUT!

LONG ISLAND by Colm Toibin 

Irish author, Colm Toibin wrote the novel Brooklyn, published in 2009, where we first meet Eilis Lacey a young Irish girl who emigrates to New York hoping to find a new life for herself. At first, she is very homesick, but she soon comes to make friends and settles in to her being a clerk at a classy department store. She falls in love with a handsome Italian plumber named Tony and they decide to secretly get married. The death of Eilis’s sister has her to return to Ireland where once again she falls in love with a man named Jim. She keeps the secret of her marriage to herself and in the end abruptly returns to Brooklyn. The movie version of this story stars the beautiful Saiorse Ronan who gives a terrific performance. A great love story indeed. Pass the Kleenex.

In the recent publication of the novel Long Island, a sequel to Brooklyn, twenty years have passed in Eilis’s life. She is a mother to teenagers Larry and and although she seems to be rather settled into her marriage to Tony and accepts the the community of Italian in-laws who live in neighbouring houses. We learn right away that Tony has impregnated another woman and her husband threatens to leave the child on Tony’s doorstep when it is born. Eilis will have nothing to do with this and so she returns to Enniscorthy to stay with her mother who will be celebrating her 80th birthday. She is reunited with Jim and lo and behold they once again fall in love and keep this a secret.  Jim has another secret. He is engaged to Nancy, a widow, who was once a good friend to Eilis.  Will Jim cancel his engagement to Nancy. Will Eilis stay in Ireland? Will Jim follow Eilis if she returns to Long Island. A great love story indeed and Toibin adeptly puts readers inside the hearts and minds of each character.  I’d say we become part of the community and partake in visits to the fish and chip restaurant,  visits Jim’s pub, visits to the seaside,   being a guest at wedding, and secret ventures down dark streets and  hotel rooms.  I loved this book because of Toibin’s brilliant narrative and authentic dialogue invites us to care about the characters. The reading was quick paced (especially the last 50 pages). It is not essential to have read Brooklyn beforehand but those who venture into Long Island will have an unforgettable read about marriage, family, loyalty, betrayal, secrecy living inside a story of leaving behind and moving forward.  More Eilis, please. A five star read  Long Island was recently honoured as the “Irish book of the Year” by Waterstones book store. 

 

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SHOUT OUT

Award-Winning Books: Children’s Literature

 CRASH LANDING by Li Charmaine Anne

Jay Wong is entering her final year of high  school. Throughout the novel, we enter Jay’s world of skateboarding (The world of skateboarding is a highlight of this story), her talent for creating remarkable videos, her battles with her mother who has high expectations for her, her lies to her parent as she schemes to join her friends,  and her of her lesbian sexuality. Problematic, too, are Jay’s dreams and concerns  about the future and whether to enter university or not.  When she meets up with Ash,  an independent, talented skateboard, the friendship opens up doors for Jay’s truths about herself as well as the dreams she has for living an independent life. (“It’s like my coordinates have changed in the past few weeks. I’m not where I used to be and my destination is shifted.” (page230)  Li Charmaine Anne has done a fine job of capturing the  life and sexual identity of an Asian teenager, of the relationships (and partying) of senior  high school students and the the stress of meeting family visi0ns. Many teenagers will identify with the authentic experiences that the author presents through a compelling narrative and engaging characters. This novel is the winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Young People.

 

KAREEM BETWEEN by Shifa Saltagi Safadi (Verse Novel)

Life in grade seven can be challenging. For Kareem, he feels that he is caught in the middle as a Syrian American boy who dreams of being a star football player. Austin is a racist bully (he calls Syrian citizens (cereals) who traps Kareem into doing his homework. Kareem is also voluntold to  host to a Fadi, new Syrian refugee with an embarrassing accent but does not provide him with the friendship that the boy needs.  When Kareen’s mother returns to Syria to help her family, things get chaotic in Kareem’s life and for Muslim U.S. citizens who are under threat of the  exec utive order to  banMuslims  in 2017.  Safadi tells an important, compelling story in verse about a Muslim boy who is stuck between his Syrian American Syrian identity,  stuck between friends and family and  stuck between what is right and wrong.  This novel is the National Book Award Winner for Young People’s Literature, 2024.

 

SHOUT OUT / A picture book

SKATING WILD ON AN INLAND SEA by Jean E. Pendziwol; illus. Stewart (2023)

Two children wake up to the winter song sung by Lake Superior. They venture out into the cold and encounter tracks set by fox, deer, hair, mink, otter and wolf. Ravens croak, a blue jay scolds  before lacing up their skares and venture off to the surface of theice where the voice of Lake Superior vibrates beneath their feet and “hums a haunted meoldy, the song of water, held captive by winter, mysterious magical music as old as teh earth, rising up from her depths, echoing up and up”.  This is a staggering picture book achievement, a hybrid of lyrical poetic writing, narrative, and informational text. The art work by printmaker Todd Stewart is the best of the best of recent picture book illustrations. Skating Wild on an Inland Sea  is the perfect marriage of words and visuals. Staggering.  Winner of the 2024 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award.