What books have I recently enjoyed reading? What plays have I recently enjoyed seeing? This section offers recommendations of some of my current favourite literary and arts experiences. I look forward to frequently posting children’s literature book lists here.
This posting presents a list of great new Canadian picture books (plus one American title.) Shout Out to Groundwood Press for recent releases centred on culture, identity and diversity. Special Shout Out to 3 recent Canadian picture book award winners. I think we’ll see some of these 2025 releases on award lists next year.*
THE DAY THE BOOKS DISAPPEARED by Joanna Ho; Caroline Kusin Pritchard; Illus. Dan Santat / American
Arnold loves to read about airplanes and can’t seem to understand why any of his classmates would want to read about tomatoes, or ostriches or submarines. When he realizes he can POOF! make the books disappear. How will he ever bring the books back and let everyone read whatever they want to read. An amusing story about the freedom to read and the importance of choosing books that personally interest us, without the need for defending our tastes. Ho and Pritchard tell an amusing story and Dan Santat reliably adds humour and delight to each page.
Wait like a seed,
Cozy and small.
Wait like a seed
‘Til the spring rains fall.
NEW FROM GROUNDWOOD BOOKS
Recent titles from this publisher celebrate diversity, culture and belonging through engaging stories with engaging characters. Hooray for Groundwood!
HOME FOR MARGARET by Denise Davy; illus. Bergere Delaporte
Emma1’s mother, a social worker, introduces her daughter to Margaret, a homeless person living in a tent in the wood. Showing kindness, Emma gifts Margaret with a red hat, a scarf and mittens to keep Margaret warm during the winter months. Come springtime, there is no sign of Margaret, and Emma is concerned that she will not see Margaret again. Home for Margaret is a book that provides readers with insights into the world of homelessness and think about reasons why some people don’t have homes (losing jobs, health problems, no support services) and the possibility that they may come find place called home. This picture gook is a heartwarming story – a true story – that develops empathetic understanding of the plight of those who live outside without shelter.
THE LAST LAST by Wendy J. Whittingham; illus. Brianna McCarthy
When a young girl’s family is moving from their Island Home, a young girl is reluctant to leave things behind (“My stomach quivers like it’s full of hummingbirds.”). On the last day before departing, the girl takes a journey to help her preserve special ‘last last’ memories of the surroundings she grew up with: the cricket pitch, sugarcane, sweet corn, barking dogs, the tzee-tzee of a blackbird, salty air, a swirly shell. Whittingham effectively captures the sights, smells, sounds and tastes of the left-behind Caribbean island. For this girl (and many readers), a new home in a big city is the beginning of new firsts, new memories. The Last Last is a story of cherished memories from our past and new experiences in a new country. This is a special story about ‘moving on’ – especially when emigrating.
MY STREET REMEMBERS by Karen Krossing; illus. Cathie Jamieson / SHOUT OUT / nonfiction *
This nonfiction picture book traces the history of one North American city street from over 14 000 years ago to the present. The street remembers “everyone who travels our land now and everyone who once did.” The book carries readers through generations of First Peoples who lived off the land and the change that happened with the descent of the White settlers. The narrative is brilliantly framed by a timeline of events that capture the essence of time passing. The full-page spreads illustrated by Anishinaabe artist Cathie Jamieson exquisitely capture the people. places and things of the street’s history. An appendix outlines a brief history of a street adding information to what has appeared in the verbal and visual text that tells the story of a street’s ‘memories’.
My Street Remembers is a must-read* in classrooms because…
1.It illuminates the Social Studies curriculum by outlining the unfolding history of a land, past to present.
2.The text feature of timeline captions help readers to consider the passing of time.
3. The detailed visual images within each of the quality illustrations brilliantly conveys significant information.
4. It invites readers to think about the streets / the communities they live in, perhaps leading them to investigate the history of those locations, i.e., What might your street remember?
5. *For me, this is the very best picture book that brings to life the message of land acknowledgements that invite us to remember and respect all those who lived on the Traditional Territories of many Nations.
A SINGLE DREADLOCK by Xaiver Michael Campbell; illus. Eugenie Fernandes
In this delightful picture book we meet Lovie a young lad who moved from Jamaica to Newfoundland with his dads. All seems to be going well, except no one is able to tame Lovies’ curls as good as his Grandma could with hair-taming grease. Hair care is problematic when his hair dreads in one spot. Lovie enjoys the single dreadlock up until the kids at school make fun of him. Louie is an endearing character whose story helps young readers to that it’s important to believe in yourself. Eugenie Fernandes beautifully captures the setting of both Jamaica and Spruce Cove, Newfoundland as well as the joyous spirit and of the young boy (WOW! to the full-page image with Livie’s exploding springy hair!). The fact that Lovie has two dads along with his Jewish heritage are rather subtle elements in this lovely story about family and identity.
WORDS MATTER: The Story of Hans and Sophie Scholl, and the White Rose Resistance. Words: Anita Fitch Pazner; Art by Sophie Casson / nonfiction, free verse, picture book / ages 10 +
The White Rose Resistance was a German student movement that spoke out against the Nazis during World War II. Words and leaflets were the ammunition used by the members of the Resistance who worked in secret to plan the spreading of the word, even though it meant that there lives were at risk. Believing in the goodness that was inherent in the souls of German citizens and believing in the right to freedom of speech in fearful times, brother and sister, Hans and Sophie Scholl were instrumental members and eventual leaders of the White Rose Resistance. Words Matter is a brilliant hybrid of a publication – historical fiction, biography, free verse format. vividly strong art work throughout – making this a powerful legacy to words:Words, you see, are beautiful; Words you see, spread truth: Words, you see, have consequences; Words, you see, matte
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SHOUT OUT: WINNER!!
Congratulations to Thao Lam winner of 2025 Kirkus Prize ($50 000) for her sensational book Everybelly.
EVERYBELLY by Thao Lam
Everybody has a belly. Bellies may be small, big, flat, or shy. Some bellies grow, some bellies make great tables, some bellies feel like home. In this terrific picture book, artist Thao Lam uses coloured textured papers to illustrate a cast of characters each with a unique story, each with a unique belly (i.e., tattooed, stretch marks, six-pack, freckled, squishy, wobbly etc.). Readers view the world of bellies through the eyes of young girl, Maddie has a unique perspective on ‘everybelly’ that gathers together in the community pool. Why a wonderful story about self-acceptance by the author who shares her the pride she has for her own full belly! What a wonderful tribute to the diversity of the human body! What a wonderful wonderful picture book! Bravo to Thao! Bravo to Groundwood Books! Bravo to bellies!
SHOUT OUT: WINNER!!
MAD AT DAD by Janie Hao
On Oct 4, this picture book was announced the winner of the CBC Children’s Kids Reads
A young girl is MAD at her dad. She really is MAD. She then feels BAD. She feels SAD realizing she doesn’t really like being MAD and tries everything to help her be less MAD (counting, drawing, deep breathing). Eventually the DAD that she is MAD at helps her feel better. The words and pictures in this book explode off the page and , along with the lift-the-flap construct, seem to punctuate the angry feelings of this young girl. This is a great interactive picture book that beyond being entertaining, helps young readers think about their frustrating emotions and how to deal with them. I’m so glad, Janie Hao wrote Mad at Dad. Congratulations, Janie Hao on being voted a kids favourite.
SHOUT OUT: WINNER!!
Marilyn Baillie Picture Prize ($20 000) Canadian Children’s Book Centre
SOS WATER by Yayo
Any book that can help young readers think about climate change and their part in taking care of the environment is worth sharing. This picture book tells the story of a sailor named Lalo and a goldfish named Rosa in search of a safe place in the world for Rosa to be safe. However, every place they visit from the North Pole to tropical jungles, from deserts to Paris is is strewn with plastic bottles. The cover illustration is spectacular (Lolo rowing is rowing a boat in a sea of thousands of plastic bottles. Simple text, humour, imagination and a thoughtful message about recycling and glorious illustrations (often comic like) help to make SOS Water is a treasure of a picture book. This book is a winner! Thank you, Yayo.
I dreamed I had magical powers to clean the world.
“What can I do? ” I asked the sea.
RUNNERS UP
> I’M AFRAID, SAID THE LEAF by Danielle Daniel; Illus. Matt Jame
> MAD AT DAD by Janie Hao
> A FACE IS A POEM bny Julie Morstad
> IT BEARS REPEATING by Tanya Tagek, Illus. C. Putuk
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2025 CCBC Book Awards Celebrate
Excellence in Literature for Young People
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Toronto (October 27, 2025)—The Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) is excited to announce the winners for seven of its children’s book awards.
Tonight’s winners include:
WOW! Here is a list of some great novels, most released in 2025. uncovering a range of tough topics. Three special titles are given ‘shout-outs’.
GROWING HOME by Beth Ferry; Art by The Fan Brothers
This illustrated novel was a nice diversion from the Tough Topic titles I’ve recently embarked upon. The story takes place in Number 3 Ramshorn Drive where a young girl named Jillian lives with her parents, Mr and Mrs. Tupper, antique dealers, who are looking for a big break to pay off some lofty bills. But the Tuppers aren’t the main characters. Beth Ferry has invented some endearing, comical plant and animal heroes: Toasty, a cheese puff, soccer loving goldfish (orange fish) who lives in an antique octagonal fish tank; a houseplant named Ivy who tends to be green with envy but shows great leadership; a singing violet plant named Ollie; Arthur a spider who can create messages on a typewriter. They are quite the foursome that take care of each other and together are able to solve problems, especially when it involves the scheming, thieving, Mr. Brookstone. Along the way we also meet Louise, the bee and Sunny, the Scary Canary. The black and white illustrations by The Fan Brothers help to make the story ‘pop’. Growing home is a delightful, quick-paced – and humourous adventure story that I highly recommend for lover of books featuring anthropomorphic characters, each with loads of personality. A fun read indeed!
THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE by Caolyn Keene / 1930/ 1959 / Mystery
This popular book was first published in 1930 and then updated in 1959. This is the second title in the Nancy Drew series. The title seemed to come up in some recent workshop sessions with teachers and so I decided to re=read a book, that I know I read and enjoyed over 65 years ago. I had no memory of the plot but the cover image, then and now, stands out in my mind. I don’t think I went on to read other titles written by Carolyn Keene (pseudonym). But the book has sold over two million copies worldwide so somebody must have enjoyed Drew’s amateur detective work. I did read several Hardy Boys books and these novels were some of the first novels i embarked upon. The plot of The Hidden Staircase entails the disappearance of Nancy’s father, a scheme to sell some property, the appearance of ghosts in the home of Nancy’s friend’s elderly relatives, an empty mansion, a robbery, a near fatal car accident and the shenanigans of the evil Nathan Gombet. Spoiler: We don’t actually meet The Hidden Staircase until the final pages of the book but knowing that we would helps to keep us guessing, I guess. Today, books in series explode on the shelves of bookstores and libraries and some homes (Dogman, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Magic Treehouse etc.) Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys an be attribued for setting the foundation for series literature that hase engaged so so may middle age readers as they developed their tastes and interests. I don’t think I’ll be joining Nancy in any more of her detective pursuits.
FYI
620 Nancy Drew books have been published as of August 2025. There are over thirteen series including the classic Nancy Drew Mystery Stories (1930 -2003) consists of 175 books. There have been several spin-offs: The Nancy Drew Files (YA), Nancy Drew Notebooks, Nancy Drew Diaries, graphic novels and comics. As of this writing, The Hidden Staircase has sold over 2 million copies worldwide.
KATIE CRUMBLE AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING UNDERWEAR by Oksanna Crowley. Ill. Lydia Ramsey / Chapter Book
A pair of underwear goes missing. Not just any pair of underwear but hard-to-get Pickles the Destroyer underwear that belonged to Kate Crumble;s Kindergarten Cousin. Katie is determined to solve the problem along with the help of her dog, Aggie. , even though it gets her into mischief with the school principal and her parentd. Will Katie keep getting into trouble? Will she be able to heed the warning from thegrown-ups in her life? Will she find those darn pair of missing underwear (and other missing items)? Will she let those school bullies get the best of her.Never-give-up Katie Crumble and the feistyRamona Quimby liley be good friends! A fun chapter book read with fun black and white animated drawings.
OTHER BOYS by Damian Alexander / 2021 / graphic memoir / gender identity/ grief / bullying
Damian Alexander’s debut publication tells the story about his years growing up feeling alone, worried and ‘different’. Most of the book is centred on his year as a seventh grade student in a new school where he refused to talk. Damian had been bullied at his old school and so he decided that at this onehe would be quiet as a ghost (“I would give hem nothing they could use against me. I would say nothing. I would be nothing.”). Except for a few girls in his class, he has few friends. Damian is an orphan whose mother was murdered when he was a baby. . He and his brother live with their grandmother who is caring parent. Drawing, video games and sitting alone in the library writing fantasy stories occupies Damian’s days. Bullyitaunts and homophobic slurs hang over his head. He comes to realize that he has special feelings for other boys in the school and at one point declares “I am gay!’. With the help of a school therapist he comes to accept who he is and that he “always felt like freak, but there were peole a lot like me out there. ” At thirteen years or age, he just hadn’t met them yet. This memoir is a poignant, honest story about a boy who is trying to find himself. It is a book that is cerainly relatable and will resonate with tweenagers who are trying to find their place in the world. With it’s LGBTQ+ content, the book has been sadly been banned in some libraries but Damian is a hero for baring his soul and share his story that many students, like want to read, and need to read. If I were to list this title in my book Teaching Tough Topics, Other Boys would appropriately fit in the chapter about Bullying, Death Loss and Remembrance, Gender Identity and Homophobia and Mental Health. Hooray for Damian Alexander.
ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING by Damian Alexander / 2025 / Graphic novel / Mental Health
During his years at school, Damian Alexander experienced many symptoms with ADHD but his scatterbraine, daydreaming, unfocused behavioiurs were dismissed by the adults in his life. It wasn’t until he was an adult that Alexander was officially diagnosed with ADHD. Marcella is a character invented by the author, writing many stories about her. Absolutely Everything is a ‘stand-in’ for Alexander’s experiences with ADHD. Sixth grader, Marcella is troubled. She can’t seem to get assignments done for school, she feels she is abandoned by her best friend, her two dads announce they are moving into a new apartment. How is a girl who has trouble organizing herself, paying attention, focusing on tasks, going to deal with all these distractions? (“Sometimes it feels like there’s a door and all my thoughts are locked behind it.”. The verbal text and the artwork provides vivid images that let’s Alexander get into Marcella’s head. Damian Alexander drew on his own experiences with ADHD but the fictional account has Marcella get the help that she needs (and that he didn’t when he was her age). This is a terrific story about a middle-years girl learning to cope with change and mental health, a story that many tweenagers can identify with.
Excerpt
“Sometimes I feel like my head is going to explode from all my thoughts. I can’t focus on any of them. Like there’s a bunch of people talking really loudly right next to me, saying a bunch of different things at the same time.. except they’re all me.” (p. 56-57)
THE SKY WAS MY BLANKET: A young Man’s Journey Across Wartime Europe by Uri Shulevitz / biography / The Holocaust
Uri Shuvelitz won the Caldecott medal in 1969 for his picture book, The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship and Caldecott honours for The Treasure (1980), Snow (1999) and How I Learned Geography (1999). In 2025, The Wall Street Journal selected Shuvelitz’s memoir Chance: Escape from the the Holocaust about the autors childhood as a war refugee as a Best Childre’ns Book from the past twenty years.
True stories about young people who struggled to survive under the threat of the Nazis are always harrowing. A young Jewish boy named Yehiel Szulewic was the real-life uncle of award-winning author and illustrator, Uri Shulevitz who decides to tell his uncle’s story about leaving his home in Poland at fifteen years of age. Yehiuel journeys take him beyond his homeland as he journeys, penniless, without papers, through Czechoslavoakia, Austria, Croatia, Italy, France and Spain. Fierce determination and the kindness of strangers keeps the adolescent thriving in the midst of the evil that spared across Europe as the fascists and Nazis rise to power. This short true story with stark expressionistic artwork is told in the first person. It completed shortly before the Uri Shulevitz’s death and is a testimony to a young Jewish man’s courage and resilience, never knowing where he would be sleeping, or fed and where he often depended on the sky to be his blanket.
Opening passage
When I was little, I couldn’t fall asleep unless I had a pice of bread under my pillow.
Why? you may aks.
Because I was born in 1915.
THE SUNSHINE PROJECT by Uma Krishnaswami / fiction/ activism
Anil is the protagonist of this novel, a karate loving boy prefers to stay quiet, that is until he learns about the city tha is planning to build a solar panel factory destined to threaten plan and animal species and force evacuation. It’s time to speak up and become an activist and so Anil becomes part of a campaign to do what’s right for the community. This book is the third title in the Book Uncle trilogy. Like her previous two novels, the story deals with young people taking action to make changes in their community, making The Sunshine Project another worthwhile engaging (and inspiring) read about the quest to make a difference.
THE TEACHER OF NOMAD LAND: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri / historical fiction / Refugees
I was intrigued by three things on the cover of the book; The word ‘teacher’ is in the title and i like reading stories about teachers; the author Daniel Nayeri is an Iranian-American author who’s autobiographical novel Everything Sad is Untrue (A True story) was a wonderful autobiographical story that i enjoyed a lot; the image of a child carrying a blackboard on his back reminded me of a wonderful Iranian film called Blackboards where a nomadic man wandered through the countryside seeking students to read and write. This book is set in 1941 and German Armies are storming across Europe and Iran, a neutral country is occupied by British anbd Soviet forces. Bahak and his Sana are orphans who made a vow to stick together, Babak, the older brother,devises a plan to carry a chalkboard strapped to his back to carry on his father’s job of being a teacher to the nomads as they make their annual trek across the mountains. Brother and sister find themselves on a treacherous journey struggling to survive through hunger and danger. Encounters with a British ally, a Nazi spy and a Jewish boy hiding from the spy, add to the two Iranian children’s race for survival. Daniel Nayeri has written a fine adventurous piece of historical fiction where languages, literacy, perseverance and resilience are central to a story set in World War II.
Excerpt (p.103)
“They are scorched by the sun. Afer long evening of hiking, when they’re sore and their tongues lol in their mouths desperate with thirst, as the sun gutters behind a hill they finally spot a spring-fed channel of cold, clear waer down ina narrow valley. And at the same time, they realize they are all alone in the wilderness – Baba help them – and they’re being followed.”
WILL’S RACE FOR TIME by Jewell Parker Rhodes / historical fiction / Race and Black Culture
The year is 1888, twenty five years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Will Samuels and his father have just about given up on working as sharecroppers on a land they don’t own and when they hear about an upcoming land rush in Oklahoma, father and son set out, with the help of their loyal donkey, Belle – on a journey from Texas with hope in their hearts. In the race for time, they encounter a number of perils bandits, dangerous terrain, a rattlesnake, a bullet wound, a rushing river. An encounter with a mysterious stranger named Caesar whose friendship, courage and stamina propel the Samuels men forward to freedom, land ownership and a place called home. This novel is an adventure story, a survival story and a story of fighting all odds to fulfill a dream. The subtitle for this book : “A Western” suits the genre well. Jewell Parker Rhodes is a great storyteller who writes historical fiction with sound research, verve and heightened emotion. Will’s Race for Time has been designated a Global Read, 2025.
Excerpt (p. 27)
Reins lax, Father mutters, “Got to get land, Got to get land.”
Even the rumbling wheels echo, “Land, land, land.”
SHOUT OUT
THE FINAL YEAR by Matt Goodfellow; Ill. Joe ToddStanton
Mental Health / Poverty / Bullying
Here’s why I bought this book: 1) It won a batch of awards in Britain, 2) it received stellar reviews (“profoundly moving”… “outstanding”… “incredibly powerful”…”heartstoppingly brilliant”) 3) it’s a verse novel. You had me at verse novel. The protagonist of this novel is Nate who is about to enter year 6, which in the UK is the final compulsory year in primary school. Nate and his peers have been warned that it is an important year of transition that is tough and they better be prepare for it. Nate’s life however is rather gloomy: His mother is bonkers (“She says it herself’) who relies on drinking and Bingo games to get her through life. She doesn’t seem to take any initiative to change even though her love for Nate and his two younger brothers is strong. But Nate must also contend with school bullies, a best friend who abandons him, anxiety attacks (The Beast) and a family tragedy that sets Nate’s world topsy-turvy. Two things in particular help Nate to gain resilience. He is dedicated to writing poetry about the life he is living. Mr. Joshua, a first year teacher is a special mentor whose motto in life and for the classroom is a line from the Bob Marley song, “Three Little Birds;” EVERY LITTLE THING GONNA BE ALRIGHT. Mr. Joshua helps Nate find the light in the darkness and readers are sure to feel for Nate, cheer for Nate, as he struggles to find that light. Matthew Goodfellow is a performance poet and former school teacher. The Final Year deserved it’s awards. The dedication to the book reads, “This is a book about family and love and life.” Goodfellow lives up to this expectation. I agree that is a ‘profoundly moving’, ‘incredible’, ‘outstanding’ book that fills the heart. We don’t want to say good-bye to Nate but lo and behold, Goodfellow has written a sequel entitled The First Year when Nate enters secondary school.
Excerpts
“Mud is just mud, / so wipe yerself clean.’ And don’t hate, Nate, / yet a dreamer so dream.” (p, 127)”
“…in order to really find yousrelf/ you firsat have to be lost out there in the wilderness,” (p. 210)
“Sometimes I’m concrete/like every pore/ every cell of my body is solid/ and I just can’t feel/ anthin/ but The Beast.” (p.224)
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SHOUT OUT
WAYS TO LIVE FOREVER by Sally Nicholls / 2008 / 2015
Death, Loss and Remembrance
I hadn’t heard of this debut novel by British author Sally Nicholls but an article about the Children’s books in the 21st Century raved about it’s place in children’s literature After being published in 2008, it received a dozen or so Awards, including being he winner of the Waterstone’s Children’s book prize) and was shortlisted for as many. I was intrigued.
The opening page lists five facts about the central character: My Name is Sam / I am eleven years old/ I collect stories and fantastic facs, I have leukemia/ By the time you read this I will probably be dead. The story is written as Sam’s biography where he recounts his day to day trials living with cancer. He and his best friend, also with leukemia, are home schooled. The two share a common bond of dreams and questions and are each realistic about their fate about imminent death. Sam is true to his promise on page one: he enjoys preparing lists and writing stories and raises questions about dying. His family including his mother father and sister work hard to make the best of Sam’s circumstances. When tragedy strikes, Sam has an especially hard time carrying on and finding answers to questions nobody will answer (‘Why does God make kids get ill?’ ‘Does it hurt to die?’ ‘Why do people have to die anyway?’ This book deserved its raves and awards. It is a powerful story, an honest, funny and deeply moving novel about acceptance and grief. To dig deep into the tough topic of ” Death, Loss and Remembrance”, Ways to Live Forever is a must-read.
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SHOUT OUT
POCKET BEAR by Katherine Applegate
kindness and belonging
Katherine Applegate has done her research to learn about tiny sfuffed bears that were stuffed into the pocket of soldier’s jackets. Bear’s eyes always gazed upward so that when the soldier gazed down, he ould see a token of love. Pocket Bear was one of those mascots who served as a good luck charm for the soldier he served during World War 1. A cenury has passed and Pocket Bear was discovered in the cupboard in a house. He has been deemed he official leader of the Second Chance Home for he Tossed and Treasured where stuffed toys are freshened up and passed on to others for a second chance to be loved. Oh-so-clever Applegate has invented a rascally character named Zephyrina, who burgles abandoned toys to be rescued a the Second Chance Home. What a character Zyphyrina is – cocky, arrogant, wise and resourceful. He is described in the book as “the Robin Hood of Felines.” I quite admire anthropomorphic characters and this smarmy cat is up there with the best of them. (Zyphyrina would could easily sit on a shelf keeping Applegate’s Ivan, Ruby and Bob good company). He commandeers a group of wayward toys waiting for a new home; he rescues a bear from the garbage bin outside a restaurant, he cleverly. helps solve a plot when the prized toy, Bearwon, is stolen; he helps care for a mother and daughter who escaped from the Ukraine. . What a cat! I really really liked this novel with 93 short chapters and lovely black and white illustrations spread throughout.
Katherine Applegate is a great writer. She writes great books. Pocket Bear is a great great book by a great author. I love stuffed bears. I love Katherine Applegate. I love Pocket Bear. This book is funny, adventurous, and as feel-good as, well, a favourite stuffed Teddy Bear.
Excerpt
Zephyrina is afraid of absolutely nothing. She does not like to be touched, with the possible exception of an occasional ear scratch. She does not like to leap onto bed. / She is independent and always will be. / Zephyrina is brave. She has been through a lot. Bu she is willing to hunt a like a tiger and fight like a puma. She is a hero. Not a big, important her. but here are many kinds of heroes.” (p. 173)
This fall has brought me some wonderful new picture book sources to add to my collection. Of note is that some titles bring attention to the world of animals and nature. Shout outs are given to Plumleaf Press’s new releases, a tribute to: Robert Munsch and a list of nominations for The Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award
DO NOT EAT LIKE A SHARK: Wacky Ways Animals, Slurp, Chomp and Gulp by Etta Kaner / nonfiction
Yahoo! to Etta Kaner who has written a number of entertaining and informing titles that illuminate the world of animals. Featured booksin the Orca Workshop series include: Animal Talk, Animal Defenses, and Animals at Work.The titles of her books alone bring attention the mysterious characteristics of animals, big and small: Do Frogs Drink Hot Chocolate? (How Animals Keep Warm); Friend or Foe (The Whole Truth about Animals That People Love to Hate) Do Not Eat Like a Shark: Wacky Ways Animals Slurp, chomp and Gulp and If You meet A Barfing Bird (How NOT to help animals) are two new Etta Kaner publications that connect well to the STEM curriculum. Morevoer, they are fun to read.
FISH by Brendan Kearney
Fish is an engaging story with engaging illusrions a ou two friends, Finn and his dog, Skip who meet some new friends who teach them about the problem of pollution in the ocean. It is Kearney’s hope, that this picture book invites readers to think about the amount of trash we throw away and what we can do to reduce our own waste. Mission accomplished Mr. Kearney Like SOS Water by YOYO this is an important story about sving the ocean. Fish is part of The Finn and Skip series of books about helping readers to think about nature and the environment (Forest, Bee, Arctic, Moon). These are terrific – important – picture books.
HANSEL AND GRETEL, Stephen King, Ill. Maurice Sendak
What a publishing coup. This book connects to literary giants. Stephen King, master of horror was invited to write a new interpretation of the story told by Jacob Wilhelm Grimm. The art work to accompany King’s text, was created by the iconic picture book artist, Maurice Sendak. (1928 – 2012) who has left the world with designs for sets and costumes that he had designed for the Humperdink opera of the story. The result: A dark retelling (of course) of brave and resourceful brother and sister smothered by an evil stepmother who wishes to get rid of them and he lure of a candy-decorated cottage which proved to be a threat to their lives and the brilliant – and dark-ish – illustrations, of ‘reacting to the text. In a New York Times review (August 31, 2025), illustrator Jon Klassen writes: I do like how seriously everyone seems to have taken this project. Sendak was a serious guy, and everyone took that cue, tonally,. I feels reverent. Is’ full of tricky problems to solve, but there is a grandeur to it.”
Excerpts
“The white bird, its evil job done, flew away from the roof. The children turned to look at it so did not see the kindly face turn into that of an ugly old hag with yellow, half-blind yees, snaggle teeth, and a wart on her nose.”
“Get up you lazybones! Fetch water and cook something good for your brother! He’s too skinny! Whenhe’s fattened up, I’m going to eat him.” / Gretel began to cry but it did no good: the witch enjoyed the tears of children, as witches always do.”
INSPIRING QUOTES FROM CHILDREN’S CLASSICS, Annie Sara (ed.); Ill. Ruth Barrows
I think I would have liked to write this book. I have been collecting quotations about reading and from reading to educators and young people to think about why good books matter. Annie Sarac (editor) has selected quotes that have been excerpted from over 170 children’s literature. Snippets are arranged into a dozen or so sections that connect each of the quotes (e.g. Curiosity, Family, Forgiveness, he Impossible, Truth, You Matter) The colourful illustrations both compliment the words and decorate the pages. These quotes are indeed ‘inspiring’. inviting us to pause and ponder about their significance, even if isolaed from the complete text. Moreover, this collection might inspire readers to pay attention to narration and dialogue from books they enjoy reading, perhaps recording these personal snippet choices to savour. I would have liked to write this book.
Sample quotes
“Setting out on an adventure is thrilling, but coming home is even better .”~ Where The WIld Things Are, Maurice Sendak
“Through curiosity, I forget my failures and sorrows, and I feel great happiness.” Monday with a Mad Genius, Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House)
“Of course they needed to carew. It was the meaning of everything.” The Giver, Lois Lowry
“I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called now.” Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson
“The best person I know is myself.” Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney
KEEP OUR WORLD GREEN: Why humans need gardens, parks and public spaces by Frieda Wishinsky; Illus. Sara Theurerkauf / nonfiction
This super nonfictin title brigns to life the worldwide communities, large adn small that provide habitats for plants and animals. The resource is a loving tribute inviting readers to respect these green spaces around us are accessbile to all, bring food to communities and serve as inspiration for art and literature. Especially noteworthy are the books text features that includes vivid illustrations, cartoons, photographs, and maps..Wishinsky reports the history of public spaces and how they evolved. or importantly caution is given to the risks on these communities due to the climate crisis. Keep Our World Green is a fine speceimen of nonfiction writing: It engages, it informs, it inspires, Hooray for Frieda Wihinsky. Hooray for Green Spaces.
THREE NEW GEMS FROM PLUMLEAF PRESS
AKEMI’S SONG Joanne Kwok; Ill. Yiting Hui
It is Lunar New Year. The elders have chosen, Akemi, a young Flamecress to sing her special song. But the young bird cannot find her voice to sing her song and so sets off on a journey where she gains strength to discover more about herself, her home and the natural world that surrounds her. Having gained confidence, Akemi, eventually raises her voice to show appreciation of those around her and the beautiful world she inhabits. The wonderful watercolour paintings that appear throughout capture, the of the young bird’s adventures as the glorious natural forest environment of Taiwan that she travels through. This beautful picture book sings a story of courage, self-confidence, hope and home.
Excerpt
“Sweet Akemi, do not lose hope. Fly off and search our island for inspiration for your song. Then come home in time for the Lunar New Year celebrations with the song in your heart.”
JANE AND THE BLUE WILLOW PRINCESS, Catherine LIttle; Ill Sae Kimura
This beautiful book is a commemoration of the birth of Jane Austen, born 250 years ago. Catherine Little has done a beauiful job of imagining Jane Austen as a young girl who enjoyed making up stories to entertain her family. The discovery of a blue willow plate dug up at Steventon Rectory in the United Kingdom (Jane’s birthplace,) provided an impetus for writing this picture book. The story also conveys the loyal love beween Jane and her sister, Cassandra (Cassy). Sae Kimura’s artwork helped to illuminate the life of Jane Austen, her family and friends and the environment she grew up in. jane Austin was born in 1775 and died in 1817 (41 years). She is the author of six classic novels, including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma).
REACH FOR THE SKY: How Two Brothers Built an Airplane in Chinatown; Evelyn Sue Wong; Ill. Sarah Ang
During the depression, two brothers hold on to dreams of flying, despite having little money, and becoming aware fo racial discrimination surrounding them. Robert ShunWong and his brother, Tommyu, hold on to their dreams and built a single -seat plane (Pietenpol Sky Scout) and that dreams sometimes do come true, if you reach for the sky. Evelyn Sue Wong tells an inspirational story, based on real experiences is set in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The art work capures, home and community and the eventful journey of two inventive Chinese Canadians.
Excerpt
“No one in China twon could believe their eyes. Their world was grounded in their community, but Robert and Tommy were reaching for the sky.”
SHOUT OUT
ONE DAY: A True Story of Survival in the Holocaust, Michael Rosen: ill. Benjamin Phillips
Acclaimed British author and poet, Michael Rosen was commissioned to write this story to honour the 2022 commemmoratiobn of Holocaust Memorial Day. The title One Day (repeated throughout) was chosen as the title since the phrase was the motto for that year. Assuming the voice of Eugene Handschuh, Rosen tells the tstory of French citizens who deported Jews From Paris to Auschwitz. Based on research and interviews we learn yet another story about the horrors of the Holocaust when French Jews were being deported not knowing and the people in France had no news of what was happening to the Jews. Eugene Hanschuch was one of those Jews who, along with his father survived teh war. Michael Rosen’s aunt and uncle were on the very same convoy as Handschuh but they didn’t come return from the prison camp. Michael Rosen tells this story with clarity and poignancy. The monochromatic art work by Benhamin Phillips is staggering by capturing images of arrests, starvation, harsh work, attempts to escape through a tunnel interrogation and massive crowds of scared and screaming men, women and children whos lives were changed ‘one day’ and get through’ the day and then on to he next. One day at a time. One day after another”. Writing these words is giving me goosebumps. This isa masterful picture book publication by a masterful author a illustrator and about a true story about the Holocaust catastrophe. What a book!
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LOVE YOU FOREVER, MR. MUNSCH
The New York Times Magazine wrote a beautiful piece about Canadian Picture book hero, Robert Munsch (September 14, 2025). Munsch is currently living with dementia and Parkinson’s disease and the article pays tribute to his sifnificant work as a storyteller and the author of more than 70 picture books that will be loved FOREVER.
Here is the link to the article:https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/magazine/robert-munsch-author-children-books-dementia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk8.noUJ.mWNa1MaIDXSA&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
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FYI
The CBC has put ou a lis of 30 Canadian books for Young Kids That We Are excied about this fall. Diversity reigns.
https://www.cbc.ca/books/30-canadian-books-for-younger-kids-that-we-are-excited-about-this-fall-1.7616173
FYI
The 25 Greatest Picture Books of the Past 25 Years
Slate Magazine, September 22, 2025, Dan Lis and Rebecca Onioin,
A recent article has been released that outlines the impact of picture books yesterday and today. The authors have offered a list of 25 titles from the past 25 years. I wonder which 25 titles would be on my list. Your list?
Source: Slate Magazine
https://share.google/9yGD8XrbgTkwjw2nn
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As a diversion from immersing myself in children’s literature, I chose to spend summertime GROWN-UP reading with a batch of hardback titles, fiction and nonfiction. These were some WOW 2025 reads indeed! Half of these memorable titles are from the British Isles. Just sayin’
ABSENCE by Issa Quincy / fiction / British
An unnamed character guides us through his life, mostly by telling stories about others who were part of his life. Each of these characters has a story to tell (don’t we all?) and this book unfolds as a series of ventures into memories recounted by each of these characters. These narratives are often set off in italicized print as ‘told stories’ but we also learn about someone’s past through his journal entries, another through letters. Stories are told of a beloved schoolteacher, a woman who sets a spot at the dinner table hoping her son will return home, a family who shuns their young son, a black and white photograph, a strange women, dressed in black who visits the seashore nigh by night, Each sentence of this novel is beautifully but I crafted on the whole, the book is really a series of short stories, linked by the rather elusive protagonist. Two of the testimonies on the back cover of this debut novel commented that the book is Proustian. Google tells me that the term Proustian ‘is often used to describe a writing style characterized by long, complex sentences, detailed descriptions and a focus on memory and subjective experience. Absence is a languid, melancholy, Proustian novel.
Excerpt
“As I watched him there, I thought of the words that returned to him in moments like these, the words marked with echoes of freedom, of an inescapable desire for something, anything else entirely, and the want that pinched at him when the earth felt at its most contracted.” (p. 61)
“… there was always the quietly steaming away, latent and invisible truth of memory which sat waiting, predacious and shadowing each thoguht and action with an irrevocable melancholy. And upon occasion, without warning it would seize him by the neck again to reveal itself in fits of anger and violence, long periods of absence and frenzied paranoia.” (p. 91)
ACTIVE BRAVE CONVERSATIONS, Andrew Campbell / professional resource
I was fortunate to have co-written the book Stop The Hate (2023) with Dr. ABC (Andrew Campbell) an OISE colleague. I have total respect for Andrew’s expertise and commitment to support and advocate for belonging and inclusion . Dr. ABC has just released a new Pembroke publication, a rich – important- resource – for educators who want to deepen their understanding and practice with DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging. Andrew has assembled a fine cast of authors providing information and narratives to help teachers, leaders, instructors, administrators and community partners to have brave conversations about issues that may be uncomfortable. However, each of the fifteen chapters brings insight to help foster courage, growth and action to help navigate anti-oppression, equity and social justice. Noteworthy features, Stories from the Classroom and Voices in the Field offer readers show, don’t tell insights into significant teaching of DEIB The authors words help readers to think about what they can do to promote and maintain a sense of belonging where each student can feel recognized and safe. Dr. ABC opens the book with the words “Every Child Needs.A Champion.” Amen! Bravo to you Andrew and your team for this important, timely resource.
ACTRESS OF. CERTAIN AGE: My Twenty Years to Overnight Success by Jeff Hiller / memoir
Jeff Hiller had a big dream to have a reputable career in acting. His break came at a ‘certain age’ when he got a call from Bridget Everett which led him to be cast in the role of Joel for the HBO 3 season series Somebody Somewhere*. It was, however a long journey of struggles, conviction, perseverance and goal-setting that led to the turning point in Hiller’s career. Bullied at school, moving to New York, temp jobs, volunteering as a social worker, committed to participating and teaching Improv ]\, regional theatre, acting in commercials, working as a waiter and coming out add to a varied resume of blood sweat and tears. Jeff Hiller’s story is one of humiliation and determination but you can’t help but be charmed and cheer for him as Hiller shares his journey with honesty and with humour. Hiller has a passion for reading celebrity memoirs (each chapter is the title of a celebrity biography (e.g , ‘Finding Me ‘by Viola Davis; ‘Little Girl Lost’ by Drew Barrymore). and Actress of a Certain Age is up there with the best of them. Funny, funny, funny. Hooray for Jeff Hiller for achieving success with the television series. He’s terrific as a hilarious, heartbreaking gay best friend. Somebody Somewhere is at the top of the list of my television viewing this year. Jeff Hiller’s memoir is at the top of a my list of celebrity biographies I’ve encountered in recent years. Bravo!
Opening sentence (p.1)
Hello. Welcome to my memoir. My essay collection? My celebrity autobiography with a really loose definition of the word celebrity? which sounds the least pretentious and navel-gaze-y? Let’s call it that.
Last page (p. 256)
In my own life, I am constantly focused on reaching the destination, but life is the journey. I am not paying attention to the journey, I am not living life. There is no job, no person, no piece of real estate or perfect family that will make someone happy forever.
THE GIFTS OF READING FOR THE NEXT GENERATION: Essays on Nurturing a Passion for Reading, inspired by Robert Macfarlane and curated by Jennie Orchard / essays / British
How could I not buy a book with the title The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation. What insights could I gain from this collection of 25 essays intended to provide a testament to ‘nurturing a passion for reading’. My work as a classroom teacher, university instructor, workshop presenter and author is centred on supporting teachers to choose and use literature in their classrooms that will hopefully inspire their students to partake in the joy of reading today and tomorrow. Thought the numbers keep changing (downward?), statistics tell us that young people (eight to eighteen) do not enjoy reading in their free time. This is grim news. What can we as teachers promote reading as a pleasurable activity?How can we do it? Promoting good books matters. Sharing our own passion for reading matters. There is no one simple answer but the essays in this book provide food for thought about the importance of books in the lives of authors and help us consider the roles we can play. I did not read these contributions chronologically but four pieces in particular drew my attention: “The Gift of Being Read To” by Horatio Clare, “Picture Reading” by Nicola Davies, “Perchance to Dream” by Michael Morpurgo and “(There Are No) Rules for Reading” by Nikesh Shukla. Tthe following passages serve as thoughtful gems that foster the love of reading in the young people in our lives.
“The National Literacy Trust’s Young Reader’s Program found that children and young people were more likely to read if they had support from role models who read and loved reading, access to books, and a ‘quiet place to read in’.”(Robert Macfarlane, p.3)
“Read the world. It is the most mysterious book of all.” from Ben Okri “Ten and a Half Inclinations” (2022)
“When you read aloud to your partner or your child (children?), the room and the world byeond it seem to still, and the spirits gather to hear the story. Words uttered are more than words heard in the silence of the mind; they are things in the world, and the world responds (Horatio Clare, p., 45)
“… young children may not have much command of language, but their inner lives are complex and epic, with big ideas and emotions shifting like waltzing tectonic plates. I am motivated by wanting to write to that complexity, to honour and acknowledge it. That’s why I love he challenge of writing picture books, writing important big stuff but doing it with little words, carefully placed, accessible to small vocabularies. This doesn’t mean tha these texts are superficial; the right small words can suggest deep rich, hinterland that opens under the gaze of a child and is expanded, deepened and set alight by the pairing of words with illustration.”(Nicola Davies, p. 57)
“We will because of these sgtories, go on learning, wondering, dreaming, and searching for wisdom and truth. And if he search for wisdom and truth and creativity is not at the heart of the education of our children, hen surely we are wasting our tie and ours, and we are most certainly not enriching their lives. That is why stories and storyelling of all kinds should be at the centre stage of education. ” Michael Morpurgo, p. 157)
While preparing to write his essay “The Words Made Flesh”, National Book Award-winning author, Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin) asked his son, JohnMichael, what sort of books he thought young people should be reading, his son was quick to answer – ‘”whatever the hell they want.” (pp. 8-9)
HOW TO SHARE AN EGG: A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty by Bonny Reichert / memoir
Bonny Reichert is the youngest daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Stories of her father’s starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau were woven throughout her childhood, teenage and adult years, but Reichert found herself unable to confront her legacy. The author recounts life events with her friendships, education, a crumbling marriage, a beautiful second marriage, motherhood and a quest to find a satisfying occupation that included journalism, training to be a chef. It was a life-altering visit to Poland where she came to absorb the truths of her father’s past. Food is an essential character in Reicharts’ life story. (So many of the 56 chapters of the book are titled with the name of a food (e.g., Lox, Blueberries, Noodles, Waffles, Strawberry Butter, Coconut Cream Pie, Sour Cherries, Scrambled Eggs etc. ). Her father, who ran a successful restaurant businesses and her cherished time cooking with her grandmother planted the seeds for Reichart’s joy and commitment to cooking and to becoming the best chef she could be. This memoir is a story of heritage, inheritance and looking hard into a mirror to discover an authentic identity as a loving daughter, a devoted wife and a strong woman. Her father knew that one day, his daughter would have the courage and strength to tell a story of how the Holocaust impacted one family. How To Share An Egg is that beautiful, honest story.
Excerpts
“The most important thing is to enjoy life. Just marry a nice boy and be happy. That’s all. That’s the secret.” (p. 68)
“I climbed into bed feeling like I swallowed a lead anchor. I couldn’t get rid of the sensation that I was sinking into the ground. Dad couldn’t have known what his stories ere doing to me because I didn’t tell hem. Just like when I was little, I thought absorbing what he had to say was simply my job.If I’d shown him my distress, hje would’ve changed the subject immediately.” (p. 75)
LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY, Elaine Finney / fiction / Irish
When Claire O’Connor’s mother dies she is distraught and decides to leave her life (and her boyfriend) in London and move back to her family home in West Ireland, where she is soon faced with the death of her father. Alas, Tom has decided to unexpectedly moves nearby and Claire finds herself in love with Tom once again. This Second Chance love story, and Claire’s adjusting to a new ‘normal’ life in Ireland, takes up much of the novel’s narrative, but the author drops in narratives from the past where we learn of Claire’s family history: 1920 = violence on the family by the Black And Tans during the Irish War of Independence; 1990 + the potential sale of the family’s Black Mare to the Queen of England and recounting Hunt Day that young Claire experienced. The back and forth telling was at times distracting, but if it were a movie, I suppose flashback scenes would make better connections of past to present. This book didn’t match the emotional punch that I had anticipated, but I rather admired reading about descriptions of life rural life in Ireland, family tensions, romantic encounters, working at a university, a Christmas celebration. Elaine Finney has written a multi-layered novel about women living with guilt, about memory and madness (“We had been taught, generation after generatiuon, to internalize our madness. We were experts in quiet suffering.”)
MY CHILDHOOD IN PIECES: A Skokie Elegy. by Edward Hirsch / Memoir
Edward Hirsch, author of ten poetry books, has written a unique memoir about his life growing up in a middle-class Jewish family around the area of Chicago. The book is subtitled “A Stand-Up Comedy” and if said/ performed out loud this is exactly what this book could be – a comedy routine. Hirsch brings to life memories of people, places and things, each remembrance told in short pieces, sometimes one sentence, sometimes one page in length. Each piece is labelled with a title that encapsulates a snapshot of Hirsch’s life (e.g., Portrait of My Granfathr, Marriage Proposal, A Competitive Sport, Uncle Harry and Aunt Moly, Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair). Recounts add up to a deadpan, sharp and funny collection ‘steeped in Yiddishkeit’. This stream of consciousness collection of recollections stands on the shoulders of Joe Brainard (i.e., I Remember). David Sedaris (funny) essays and Woody Allen (funny films). Everyone has memories that light the corners of their mind, but as a writer Edward Hirsch is able to illuminate his world of divorced parents, siblings, school, dating, summer jobs, baseball, having a Bar Mitzvah and a cast of crazy relatives and neighbours that we all know. I really admired the ‘pieces’ format of this biography and enjoyed when Hirsch’s tellings reminded me of stuff lingering inside me. Maybe I should write a book!
Some pieces
>Brain Sale (p.33)
“if we sold everyone’s brains,” my grandmother said to me, “I’d charge the most for yours. / “Why, because I’m he smartest one in the family?” “No, because yours have never been used.”
> Back-Alley Anti-Semitism (p., 51)
“The insults flew over my head. Why would someone call me a kite?”
> How to Get Sent to Detention (p,. 193)
“Write on the board: “The difference between a comma and a period is that your girlfriend does not have a comma every month.”
> My Feelings (p.205)
“My feelings were so srong I couldn’t control them. They did what they wanted. Sometimes we traveled in different directions. Whenever they got too far away from me, I ran after them.”
THE NAMES by Florence Knapp / fiction / British
The names centres on one boy’s life story which unfolds over 35 years. The book is sectioned off into 7 year time periods and within each period the boy’s story is determined by a different name he was given by his mother at birth. The father is set on having the baby named Gordon because the name has been passed on from generation to generation. Cora, the mother prefers Julian which means ‘sky father’. On the way to the registrar, Cora asks her daughter Maia what name she prefers and the young girl suggests Bear because it sounds soft and cuddly, brave and strong. The Names is fascinating reading, especially because of the original , intriguing format in which the story unfolds over decades Bear, Julian and Gordon. The names is essentially three stories in one with the premise that a name can change the course of a life? This novel is essentially story about family connections but still, is a grim story about wretched spousal abuse and the capacity for a mother and children to endure and move forward. This book was a “Read with Jenna” (Bush) book club choice for May 20125. It is a Larry choice for the summer of 2025.
STREAMING
SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE (Crave/ HBO)
I recently watched the three-season series and loved it. A lot. I loved the characters struggling to find love and acceptance and honesty.. I loved the rural community (Manhattan, Kansas). Great writing. Great ensemble acting. Great depiction of gay and trans lives finding happiness. Each episode dealt with characters struggling to fit the hometown mold and family and community expectations. Season 2 was a bit better than Season 1. Season 3 was even better than season 2. I laughed and yes, I wept. I’d give this series awards all around. (Alas, it hasn’t been renewed for a fourth season.) Hats off to leads, Bridget Everett (Sam) and Jeff Hiller (Joel).
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SHOUT OUT! SHOUT OUT!
MY FRIENDS by Fredrik Bachman
One day, this summer, my good friend, Adrienne, told me that I ‘must read’ MyFriends. That night I turned on TV to watch The Tonight Show and Jimmy Fallon declared My Friends to be his summer book club read. The book had been on my ‘to-read’ pile( I loved Backman’s A Man Called Ove) and so decided to finish off my summertime reading by picking up this Swedish writer’s newest publication. I loved loved loved this book. A lot. I’ve read some great books in the last few months but My Friends is at the top of the list and will likely be so by year’s end. I’d make this a desert island choice, a book that I want to read again. And again. I loved this book.
The narrative unfolds in two time frames. We learn about the life of four teenagers about twenty-five years earlier and the deep loyal friendship that helped them to cope from their bruised lives at homes. In the present a senior citizen, Ted, encounters a bold, feisty, troubled and loveable character, Louisa , who just inherited a famous painting (but that’s another story). Much of the book unfolds on a train ride with Louisa hounding Ted to tell her the story of the infamous painting and she listens to the special time where Joar, Kimkim, Ali and Ted played together and kept each other together. My Friends is a story of profound friendship. of dreams, of fate, of spousal abuse, of taking dares of being an artist, of fitting in and not fitting in of how the past informs our present and future lives. That is just an encapsulation of this brilliant book. It is Backman’s great humour, description of wild and brave mischievous s adventures, philosophical statements (hundreds), a microscopic look at everyday events, a microscopic look at what fills our hearts, unparalleled depiction of a special adolescent friendships, and critical insights about the meaning of art that made this a very special read. I shall soon be gifting book to my friends and I thank my friend Adrienne (and Jimmy Fallon) for their high praise of this novel.
I found myself folding down page after page with brilliant, moving storytelling and precepts. I will re-read this book, perhaps with a highlighter marker in my hand to help shine a light on Backman’s wordsmithing. I will need n bucket of markers. I laughed. I wept. I loved this book. JUST READ IT!!!
Some excerpts from so many turned-down corners of the pages of this book. So many gems!
“Art isn’t chronological, Everything the artist drew from a place in his head that could only get to if he wasn’t looking for it.” (77)
“A lack of self-confidence is a devastating virus. There’s no cure.” (p. 77)
“You’re an artist if you create something! You’re an artist if you don’t see the world the way it is, if you hate white walls! No one else decides what art is, no one can stop you from loving whatever you like, the cynics and critics can have control of all the other crap on the planet.. but they can’t decide how your heart beats.” (p.212)
“You can’t love someone out of addiction, all the oceans are the tears of those who tried. We’re not allowed to die for our children, the universe won’t let us, because then there wouldn’t be any mothers left.” (p. 215)
“Human beings are capable of such unbelievable stupidity. We speak of the birth of a child as a miracle, but really the miracle is everything that comes after.” (p. 275)
“It isn’t like it is in the movies, Ted. It’s different in real life. But Dad once told me, when he was really fucking drunk, that he and Mom weren’t like two magnets. They were like two colors. Once they were mixed together, there was no way of separating them.” (p. 319)
“It’s hard to tell a story, any story, but it’s almost impossible if its your own. You always start at the wrong end, always say too much or too little, always miss the most important parts.” (p. 323)
SHOUT OUT
THIS BRIGHT LIFE by Karen Campbell / fiction / Scottish
When I finished reading The Names by Florence Knapp I theb turned to the novel This Bright Life and was surprised to read the opening lines, “He hates his name. Flucken hates it. Hates the way it plops like an old turd.” In this way, we are introduced to 12 year old Gerard, who if truth be told, has a life that ‘plops like an old turd. Gerard a dyslexic, twelve year old with anxiety disorder and anger issues who is responsible for taking care of his younger two siblings because his mother is a down-and-out druggie who is useless as a mother. An incident that injures a senior citizen (he robs her purse) is a turning point early in the novel as Gerard is forced to deal with the consequences (and he guilt) of that event. We learn that the elderly lady is Margaret, a widow is dealing with grief, regrets, living alone and dealing with symptoms of being a senior citizen. Another character, Claire, a divorced lawyer is responsible for Gerard’s arrest, becomes part of the story when, after returning Margaret’s lost false teeth, she comes to provide comfort and care for Margaret. As the novel unfolds, the narrative switches from Gerard to Margaret to Claire and we come to learn about their connections, But it is Gerard who is at the centre of the story who is forced to live with foster parents but is desperate to be reunited with his younger brother and sister and his hopeless mother. It seems that the lives of these characters are anything but ‘bright’ but Scottish authorKaren Campbell brilliantly tells a heartbreaking story, set in Glasgow, layered with compassion and hope.
I am fond of novels with young characters which is what drew me to this book in the first place. In recent years there have been a number of resilient characters in novels for young people whose lives deal with anxiety and or troubled family circumstances (e compare to Gerard’s (e.g., And Then Boom.. by Lisa Fipps Tig by Heather Smith, Popcorn by Rob Harrell, and Finding Harmony by Eric Walters). Gerard is one of the most unforgettable characters I’ve spent time with in adult fiction. Following along with his gloomy life, his survival skills, and his dreams makes for a compassionate read some mighty fine novels this year. This Bright Life is a mighty fine novel that is at the top of the list of 2025 favourites. I flucken loved it. I highly recommend it.
Excerpts
“And Margaret knows how to live unseen. When nobody knows hat you know these things. How we dwell alone. Because you can never truly know how this world feels for anyone else. You, looking out of your cage, all the bony vast hollows of your skull, your achig lumpy legs, the curvature of your sine, the frame of you brittle grey hair which rims your vicion. Peering at folk, thinking: what makes you, you? or me, me? / How do we ever know?” (p. 5)
“Oh, it’s fatiguing being old. Too quiet, and you are ignored entirely. Too loud and ;you are irritant. Too dribbly, slow or unfragrant and you’re a harbinger of death.” (p 132)
“He wonders how it would feel just to give in to it. He kept trying to be good, he does. But he’s so tired. It would he a relief to stop fighting it. Because it feels so brilliant, when he lets his fists fly. To spit and scream and feel his feelings, and not just not care.” (p. 233)
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SPOTLIGHT
DANIEL PINK’S TIPS FOR BEING A BETTER READER
YouTube link
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhZ6QAYlA_g
Because my office is being renovated, i need to tidy up and downsize the hundreds of books that fill my shelves. Really, it wouldn’t be wise to buy more books. Alas, I’ve come across some mighty fine picture books that have recently been published and so my book shelves will continue to grow. And grow. This posting presents a baker’s dozen of recent Dr. Larry acquisitions. I couldn’t resist.
2025 TITLES
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SHOUT OUT! SHOUT OUT!
CLARA and the Man with Books in His Window by Maria Teresa Andruetto; illus. Martina Trach
2018 / 2025 (Translation)
Clara is the daughter of a poor laundress. When Clara delivers laundry to a wealthy neighbour who lives a secluded life surrounded with books and books to keep him company. Books bring Clara together. This exquisite picture book ,translated from the Spanish, is based on a true story of the author’s mother. It is told with simplicity and clarity and sophistication. Any book about how books bring people together and how we find courage to move forward through books and friendship is worth sharing. With few words words and haunting images, this book gave me a punch in the heart. As I write these words, I am getting goosebumps. Clara is a picture book masterpiece.
Excerpt
“What does courage mean?
“Courage is being brave enough to live the way you wnat to, the way you believe…”
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ANOTHER MONKEY? by Dr. Susan Schwartz
The author draws on experiences of her son Michael’s love of his monkey puppet, Monkein, when he was four years old to tell a story about children’s devotion to their favourite toys. Michael comes to acquire ‘too many monkeys’ that he eventually chooses to give to his friends. Young readers will identify with stuffed toys and dolls they carry with them everywhere. This is a story of devotion, generosity and family. A bonus of this story is the fact that Susan’s six grandchildren collaborated to create colourful full-page illustrations for this story. This self-published story is a charming tale that provides educators with the opportunities for educators to teah about manners, numbers, counting, toy stories and diversity. There is no doubt that Another Monkey? is a labour of love, a love that Susan Schwartz is proud to share with others. Mazel Tov to you, Susan! (and the Schwartz clan). Also in French-English and Spanish-English. For more information see: Linktree website: ssconsulting_author_editor.
DON’T TRUST FISH by Neil Sharpson; illus.Dan Santat
Quick… what are three things you know about Mammals; What are three things you know about reptiles; What are three things you know about birds. Answers are given on the opening pages of this humourous – and informative- picture book. But as the title of their book suggests, “Don’t trust fish.” There is no one kind of fish. “Some live in salt water. Some live in fresh water. Some lay eggs. Some don’t. They are rebels and outlaws”. Fish facts abound in this funny funny resource. No, you mustn’t, shouldn’t every trust fish – especially Jeff who may look harmless but just may be the craftiest fish of all. I repeat “Don’t Trust Fish!” but you sure can trust that Sharpson and Santat really know a lot about fish – and what makes a sensational nonfiction picture book!.
DRAWING IS… Your Guide to Scribbled Adventures by Elizabeth Haidle
This book is a guide that provides budding artists with ‘everything you wanted to know about drawing’ support. It’s a jam packed collection of tips, inspirations. ideas and art work that inspire creativity and guide readers to ‘scribbling adventures’. Some page headings read: Drawing is Traveling, Drawing is Wondering, Drawing is Growing. Other pages and consider such important elements as Lines, Tone, Conrast and Pattern. Elizabeth Haidle provides hundreds of monochromatic drawings that spill from her mind and offer a treasure trove of art pieces. The back cover reads “This book is for you if you can.. Breathe, Blink, Ponder, Wonder, Hold a Pencil!’
I AM STRONG by Todd Parr
You can never ever go wrong with a Todd Parr title. I Am Strong, is an affirming tribute to believing in yourself, trying new things and never giving up. Brightly coloured page feature a happy animal characters, each with an important message about being positive and staying strong, even when feelings get hurt. (e.g., “I fix my mistakes.”; I can say I’m sorry.”; “I share when something is bothering me.” Mr. Parr you are a srong artist. Your books are strong teachers.
A LITTLE SAILING LESSON by Srea Stefanini / 2023/ 2025
This book, translated from the Italian is a beautiful lesson about the up and down journeys everyone goes through in life. And what matters most is the journey and not the destination. This story is an extended metaphor about mentorship letting us know that we all need to have “an experienced sailor by your side / someone you can trust, someone who knows all about the winds, the waves, and the fish. The persuasive text and the remarkable art work depicting the wonders of ocean life helped to make A Little Sailing Lesson a hugely successful picture book.
MORE OR LESS by Alison Hughes; illus. Oge Mora
We gather things more and more until we have plenty of pletnty Then, atime comes to clear out our spaces, downsize and live with less and less by sharing, donating and spreading kindness more and more. There aren’t many words in Alison Hughe’s picture book but the important story of passing our ‘stuff’ on to others fills the pages with colourful cut-page artwork by Caldecott Honor wiiner, Oge Mora.
ONE CAN by Lana Button & Eric Walters; illus. Isabelle Malenfant
A boys class is participating in a food drive with the goal of collection 100 cans. The boy is honoured to be the one to contribute the 100th can (his favourite Zoodelicious) but soon. comes to find out that his family will be on the receiving end of food donations (“Mom, are we the people in need?”) This is a lovely story to inspire conversaions about wants and needs – and sharing.
SAY MY NAME by Joanna Ho; illus. Khoa Lee
Each character shares a succinct personal history of how their names came to be thus presenting a powerful tale about the power of names. Children of Chinese, Tongan, Persian, Navajo, Mexican and Ghanian descent proudly celebrate their names, cultures and heritage helping readers to understand that understanding our names – and pronouncing names correctly – is essential to knowing each other. Presented with poetic text accompanied by astonishing rich full page illustrations. Appendix includes a pronunciatoin guide and historical references.
Excerpt
My names is Bijan Hosseini.Once a jewel cradled in my mother’s arms, I look to Allah for guidance and walk with angels over my shoulders and prayers to sustain my steps.
A FEW TITLES BEFORE 2025
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THE BOY WHO TRIED TO SHRINK HIS NAME by Sandhya Parappukkaran / 2021
Our names are artifacts of our identities and I was thrilled to add this title to my collection of books about names. Many students (and adults) with long names will identify with Zimdalamahkermishkada who thinks that he will have to shrink his name down to a shorter simpler one that teachers and classmates won’t trip over. It’s good to have a nickname (i.e., Zim). but it shrinking names just doesn’t feel right. Zimdalamashkermishkada’s name ‘explodes like a crack of thunder’ and celebrates the imptorance of being our authentic selves, a lesson that the author, Sandhya Parappukkaran, knows very well.
COLOSSAL WORDS FOR KIDS: 75 Tremendous Words – Neatly defined to stick to the mind by Colette Hller; illus. Tor Freeman / vocabulary / poetry /2024
Page by page, this book offers a celebration of ‘colossal’ words. Readers are introduced to 75 rather unfamiliar vocabulary items. Cleverly, each word is defined with a simple rhyme that bring meaning – and joy – to the wonder of words. I love the display complete list of the chosen words that are featured in the fly jacket. (e.g., herculean, inconspicuous, discombobulaled, disingenous, hirsute, capacious and magnanimous. The select words are presented alphabetically and are highlighted in coloured font within each rhyme. Quotations, fun facts and comical illustrations add to the power of this book. This book is a jovial, scintillating collection that offers an epiphany to newly acquired tremendous words. For classroom teachers this book offers a terrific and extensive spelling, vocabulary, morpheme lessons that can be carried over a month’s time – and then some.
A sample
TESTY
It doesn’t take much
to irritate Betsy
She’s annoyed easily,
Betsy is testy.
MAD AT DAD by Janie Ho
A young girl is MAD at her dad. She really is MAD. She then feels BAD. She feels SAD realizing she doesn’t really like being MAD and tries everything to help her be less MAD (counting, drawing, deep breathing). Eventually the DAD that she is MAD at helps her feel better. The words and pictures in this book explode off the page and , along with the lift-the-flap construct, seem to punctuate the angry feelings of this young girl. This is a great interactive picture book that beyond entertaining, helps young readers think about their frustrating emotions and how to deal with them. I’m so glad, Janie Ho wrote Mad at Dad.
THE MEMORY TREE by Britta Teckentrup / 2013
I recently asked the teachers in my Children’s Course which tough topic in my book Teaching Tough Topics seemed to be especially tough for them and many suggested that the issue of Death Loss and Remembrance is somewhat problematic because it strikes and emotional core and they sometimes aren’t comfortable handling children’s grief. With each of the tough topics in my resource, I argue that ‘starting with a book’ is the way to help students make connections, reveal their stories and learn about themselves and others. The Memory Tree is a worthy addition to my bookshelf of picture books that deals with death and celebrates life through memories that live on when a loved one dies. The animals of the forest come to honour their friend, Fox who took his last breath and died (no, he didn’t fall asleep). When each of he animals shared a remembrance of Fox, they are giving tributes thus helping young readers understand that our memories need to be cherished.
Excerpt
“One by one, Fox’s friends came to the clearing,. First Squirrel adn Weasel, then Bear, Deer and Bird and,. finally, Rabbit, Mouse and ohers came to sit by Fox. Fox had been loved by everyone. He had been kind and caring. No one could imagine life in the forest without him. The animls sat in silence for very long time.”
I’ve always admired the work of British artist David Hockney. I was lucky enough to have visit the Louis Vuitton Museum in Paris to see the most recent exhibit of Hockney’s work. I have been quite keen on finding out more about the life and work of this extraordinary, prolific figure and have sought out a number of resources to augment my understanding of his talent and to help make a bigger splash on the way I look at art.
A BIGGER MESSAGE: Conversations with DAVID HOCKNEY with Martin Gayford / 2011 / 2025
This illustrated book presents transcripts of a decade and a half of conversations that David Hockney had with Martin Gayford. The transcripts provide comprehensive insights whereby ‘Hockney reveals the fruits of his lifelong meditations on the problems and paradoxes of representing a three-dimensional world on flat surface. (jacket blurb). This book confirms that not only is Hockney an artistic genius but is a wise and witty thinker about the complicated act of creating and of looking. The book is organized under Twenty-six essays with such topics as ‘The Trap of Naturalism’; ‘Scale: a bigger studio’; ‘Painting with memory’; ‘ Drawing on an iPad’; ‘The Arrival of Spring’; ‘Finishing a Picture’. This is a marvellous resource forgetting to know all about tje creative act, the art of looking at art, and the sublime art of, Mr. Hockney I’m grateful to have this book in my collection.
DAVID HOCKNEY 25: Fondation Louis Vuitton / 2025 / Exhibition catalogue
This catalogue is a comprehensive display of the work exhibited in the 2025 exhibition at the Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris. At 305 pages, this coffee table book offers a stunning artifact of Hockney’s output using a variety of media in the past twenty-five years. As expected the colour reproductions are staggering. The text that introduces each section provides useful commentary to enhance the pleasure of understanding Hockney’s evolving style. (e.g., ‘From Bradford to the Hollywood Hills’; ‘Portraits and Flowers’; ‘Hockney Paints the Opera’, ‘The Vindication of Pleasure’, ‘David Hockney’s Yorkshire’, ‘Paintings of Normandy’, “DAVID HOCKNEY: Less is Known than People Think.’. Page by page I am reminded of the voyage through the gallery looking at these brilliant pieces up-close helping me to look and see art – the world – better. This is a coffee table book that I’m sure I will return to again and again, each page filling my should with awe and joy.
DAVID HOCKNEY by James Cahill / 2021 / Biography
This title is one in the “Lives of the Artists” series presenting biographical accounts of the lives of great artists, past and present (i.e. Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Friday Kahlo). Books provide information of the the personal and artistic journeys of these heroes of the art world. This book gave me the story that I needed to understand the timeline, the relationships, highlighting significant examples of Hockney’s extensive work over seven decades. We travel with Hockney back and forth from England to Los Angeles including several trips then worldwide (e.g., Egypt, Italy, France, China) for research. The book not only provides insights into the visionary outlooks, the techniques and technologies in which Hockney immersed himself but appropriately documents Hockney’s friendships, loves and losses. At 136 pages, this is the resource I needed to learn more about this remarkable celebrated life of the artist that I’ve come to be more and more enthralled with. The book also inspired me to further investigate resources to provide additional insights into Hockney’s life and work.
“The world is very very beautiful if you look at it. But most people don’t look very much. They scan the ground in front of them so they can walk, but they don’t look at 5hins incredibly well, with an intensity. I do, and I’ve always known that.” (p. 136) (excerpted from a video recorded in 2021).
DAVID HOCKNEY: A Graphic Novel by Monica Foggia; Giovanni Gastaldi /2025 / graphic biography
The life and journey of the prolific British artist David Hockney is presented in graphic format. The biography highlights Hockney’s artistic journey as a non-conformist student, his life in England, and the United States and his extensive work with portraiture, landscapes and still life as well as his experimental approaches with photography and digital technology. The book gives insights into one of the most unique talents of contemporary art by highlighting his visionary approaches experimenting with a variety of media, his renowned gallery showings worldwide, his friendships and the important value he has as a gay iconic figure.
DAVID HOCKNEY: MY WINDOW, Taschen /2025 / art work
in 2009 David Hockney embarked on using the iPhone to create a series of still life pictures. Hockney was excited to acquire the iPhone in 2010 which thrilled him since it allowed him to draw with a stylus and get more details in the images. My Window is a collection of about 100 pictures of flowers and the sunrise, created in Bridlington, East Yorkshire. I would love to own any one of these floral pieces but aren’t I look to have this little book that delights, thrills and comforts me each time I look through it.
A HISTORY OF PICTURES FOR CHILDREN by David Hockney & Martin Gayford / 2018
This book takes readers, young and old, on a journey through art history, providing insights and knowledge about how pictures help us to understand our world.The two authors shine a light on how artists over time have created new ways of making images. We look at cave paintings, portraits, movie stills, painting, photography computer images and examine the marks, light and shadows, space and reflections that help us think about pictures. Hockney and Gayford serve as tour guides by offering their personal perspectives on each piece informing us about concepts and links from picture to picture to picture.
SIX FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAVID HOCKNEY / 1970 / 2012
David Hockney created a number of black and white etchings to accompany. a slim collection of six fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. If I didn’t see Hockney’s name on the cover, I probably wouldn’t have known that he was responsible for the art work from early in his career. Looking closely, however, I can detect visages of the artist’s style as I’ve come to recognize (e..g, stylized vegetation, window-framed setting, 2-character portraits presented theatrically). , There is a sort of Edward Gear quality to the characters and setting as Hockney captures the strangeness and supernatural quality of the six familiar and unfamiliar stories: The Little Sea Hare, Fundevogel, Rapunzel, The Boy Who Left Home to Learn Fear, Old Rinkrank, Rumpelstitzchen).
TO SEE CLEARLY: A Portrait of David Hockney by Evan Turk / 2023
Biographies as picture books offer a special realm of children’s literature. Young readers may not choose to read about the life of a famous author, politician, or artist but when a grown-up shares a title with a young reader, they are hoping to provide some information, accomplishments and stories of the life of a well-known figure. To See Clearly relates the inspiring story of David Hockney, one of the art world’s most prolific contemporary talents. Evan Turk does a remarkable job of shining a light on the journey of this extraordinary artist who lead an open gay life, by highlighting the dedication, experimentation and accomplishments this groundbreaking British artist. Using pencil, gouache and crayon Evan Turk’s vibrant art work represents the artist’s visionary style and successfully captures the essence of several of Hockney’s famous pieces. This is a biographical tribute worth sharing, Moreover, the picture book should set the path to investigate and appreciate the extraordinary work by this extraordinary artist.
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DAVID HOCKNEY / Thames & Hudson / 2020
By presenting over 200 of the artists’s remarks, this book, small in size, is a treasure not only for its ability to convey Hockney’s views as an artist but for its strength to help us think about how we need to see the world around us but how we understand the world of creating art and viewing art. The book is divided into 9 sections with such titles as ‘Hockney on Life’; ‘Hockney on Inspiration’, ‘Hockney on Making Art’. Throughout the book we are blessed with a number of plates that show Hockney’s work at different stages of his career. But really it is Hockney’s words that shine. Some epigrams are amusing, some profound or pithy, but each statement authentically gives insights into the world according to David Hockney.
Here are a handful of favourite quotations that I found to be inspirational:
“On the chest of drawers at the end of my bed, because that’s the first thing I saw when I woke up, I painted ‘Get up and work immediately’. (p. 20)
“It’s good to rest and read.” (p. 47)
“Pictures have been helping us to see for about thirty thousand years.” (p. 63)
“The Chinese say you need three things for paintings: the hand, the eye, the heart. Two won’t do.” (p. 88)
“Teaching someone to draw is teaching them to look.” (p. 98)
“I love life.” (p. 165)
2 DVD’s
A BIGGER SPLASH / 2009
A portrayal of the artist during the multi-year creation of Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) capturing the lingering affair between Hockney and his muse, Peter Schlesinger.
DAVID HOCKNEY A BIGGER PICTURE / 1974
An intimate portrait of the artist as he returns to paint in his native Yorkshire
This is a mixed bag of genres that includes fiction, memoir, biography, short stories. Authors are a mixed bag of British, Canadian, American (and one Swede). Some titles have been published recently, others are from a few years ago. Two ‘shout out’ titles are sure to be on my list of top 2025 favourites.
DAVID SEDARIS: Biography (!!!!) by William Adams
Count me in whenever, I see the name ‘David Sedaris’ on a book cover. I should have been suspicious when I saw that this ‘biography’ of David Sedaris; A life of sharp tongue, happy turns, and lucky escapes is only priced at $8.95. The opening sentence reads “It was spring, and my sister Lisa and I were driving from the Greensboro, North Carolina airport…” ‘Wait a minute..’, says I to myself. This is written in the first person. This is not a biography. ‘Wait a minute.. ‘I read this story before, probably in one of Sedaris’s diary books (Theft of Finding’ A Carnival of Snackery). I’ve been scammed. Moreover, Mr. Sedaris has been scammed with this self-published piece of drek. Unless David Sedaris is using a pseudonym (why would he?) I would sue, sue, sue, big time. Buyer beware! I would return the book to Amazon, but it’s already been tossed in the garbage.
DAVID HOCKNEY by James Cahill / 2021 / Biography
This title is one in the “Lives of the Artists” series presenting biographical accounts of the lives of great artists, past and present (i.e. Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Friday Kahlo). Books provide information of the the personal and artistic journeys of these heroes of the art world. This book gave me the story that I needed to understand the timeline, the relationships, highlighting significant examples of Hockney’s extensive work over seven decades. We travel with Hockney back and forth from England to Los Angeles including several trips then worldwide (e.g., Egypt, Italy, France, China) for research. The book not only provides insights into the visionary outlooks, the techniques and technologies in which Hockney immersed himself but appropriately documents Hockney’s friendships, loves and losses. At 136 pages, this is the resource I needed to learn more about this remarkable celebrated life of the artist that I’ve come to be more and more enthralled with. The book also inspired me to further investigate resources to provide additional insights into Hockney’s life and work.
“The world is very very beautiful if you look at it. But most people don’t look very much. They scan the ground in front of them so they can walk, but they don’t look at 5hins incredibly well, with an intensity. I do, and I’ve always known that.” (p. 136) (excerpted from a video recorded in 2021).
100 ESSAYS I DON’T HAVE TIME TO WRITE by Sarah Ruhl/ 2014 /Essays
I’ve recently loved two books by Sarah Ruhl – Smile, Lessons From My Teachers so I was intrigued to read this collection of 100 short essays by playwright, professor, mother and wife, on a wide variety of topics, mostly connected to theatre world. The book is divided into three sections – Part One: On Writing Plays; Part Two: On Acting in Plays; Part Three:On People Who Watch Plays: Audiences and Experts; Part Four: On Making Plays with Other People: Designers, Dramaturgs, Directors and Children. The titles indicate that Ruhl deals with some interesting topics about the stage work, such as umbrellas, nakedness, lice, storms, dogs, masks, sword fights, sleeping audiences, exits and entrances, The author also l answer some ‘interesting’ questions (Should characters have last names? Can one stage privacy? Is one person an audience?) that invite readers to think about the possibilities of the theatre. Sometimes funny, sometimes perceptive, sometimes profound these essays give readers something to think about, especially if the reader is immersed in the world of theatre.
HEART LAMP by Banu Mushtaq / 2025 / Short Stories
Twelve short stories by writer, activist and lawyer from Southern India have been arranged into this award-winning collection, The author beautifully captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in Southern India. These absorbing stories were originally published in the Kannada language between 1990-2023 and have been translated by Deepa Basthi. Together the narratives paint a portrait of family and community, and especially serve as a powerful voice of women’s rights. We meet a woman who feels that she only serves as a slave to her husband, a wife who’s mental capacities are stretched to the limit as she experiences menopause, a woman who must compete with her husbands’ devotion to his mother, a wife who is forced to painfully wear high heels to please her husband, cruel husbands, bigamist husbands, and hapless, hopeless husbands as well as a flock of young boys who undergo circumcision. Many of the stories are set in crowded homes filled with in-laws and children. (A cast list of characters would have helped at times, as well as a glossary to explain translate the religious and cultural items that appear throughout. Harrowing at times, there is some also humour in the way Mushtaq tells her stories. Heart Lamp was a compelling read, one I might not have encountered if it hadn’t recently won an award.. This collection of short stories was the winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize. Judges: “Deceptively simple, these stories hold immense and emotional, moral and socio-political weight urging us to dig deeper.”
THE SPINNING HEART by Donal Ryan / 2012 / Fiction
This debut novel by Irish Writer, Donal Ryan was deemed the winner of the Irish Book of the Yea as well as the Guardian First Book Prize when it was released in 2012. The story is set in an Irish community, where financial collapse has upset the lives of those who lived in the town. Ryan does a clever job of telling their stories in short chapters that are mostly less than 10 pages. The chorus of voices provides a tapestry of the tension and struggles of those lives were upset when Pokey Burke who ran the construction company that employed most of the men in this novel, vanished leaving employees with no salary, no pension and little hope. Each story is a monologue – each a rant of sorts – reveals an inner truth of wounded lives caught in a web of violence, marital affairs, births, drunken episode, a kidnapping, and urgent despair to find employment. A dozen years after the release of The Spinning Heart, we meet the troubled characters once again in a sequel entitled Heart, Be At Peace which was voted the Irish Book of the Decade at the Dublin Book Festival. The two books can be read in either order, I’d say.
WEST by Carys Davies / 2018 / Fiction
I was enamoured with Carys Davies recent publication, Clear (winner of Wales book of the Year Award (2025) praised as ‘intricately crafted, passionate and remarkable novel’) and so was eager to read her debut novel West. West is set in the 10th Century and Cy Bellman, a widowed mule breeder sets out from his small Pennsylvania farm to head west. Bellman’s journey was spurred on by a newspaper article about the discovery of the ancient bones of giant monsters. Nothing can persuade Bellman that the quest to discover whether the giant monsters are still alove roaming the wilderness beyond the Mississippi River. Even though he is forced to leae behnd his young daughter to live with her ornery aunt, the farmer is on a mission to the western states even though it means often facing dire circumstances to survive. He is accompanied by an teenage American Indian known as Old Woman from a Distance whose own story brings a harrowing dimension to the fate of Indians against white man settlers . The narrative is presented in alternate narratives; Bellman’s journey and Bess’s life as she approaches womanhood and yearns for the return of her father. Carys Davies tells a haunting story of dreams, devotion, loss and history. What a fine writer, Carys Davies is!
I have listed the following two titles in my posting of YA reads. However, Each of these books, offers grown-up readers insights into two topics: Sex and Propaganda.
CAN POSTERS KILL?: Antisemitic Propaganda and World War II by Jerry Faivish and Kathryn Cole / 2025 / nonfiction / Second Story Press
On the back cover of this publication, we are provided with a definition of the word Propaganda: “A dangerous weapon in the spread of hate.”. This book is a display of 38 historical posters demonstrating how the powerful potential of posters as a tool for spreading hate and promoting discord and outright lies. The book is organized into three sections: 1.Pre-World War II 2. World War 11 and Post-World War II. A majority of the posters come from Jerry Faivish’s personal collection. Faivish is a child of two Holocaust survivors and strongly feels “that they should be shown as a warning so people can recognize and prevent similar campaigns from succeeding again.” (Preface). The images, whether subtle or overt are often stark, often repulsive emerging from a campaign to impact European thinking during war time. Each poster is accompanied by text that provides background and analysis of the words and visuals that appear in the posters. Ultimately, Can Posters Kills? helps readers to examine hate propaganda from the past and to take an analytic approach to this familiar form of media in order to consider how in today’s digital world, caution must be paid to harmful messages of what is both true and untrue that may spread quickly. As stated in the introduction: “No posters can’t kill, but they can lead people to.”
FIRST TIMES: Short Stories about Sex by Karine Glorieux (editor); Translated from the French by Shelley Tanaka / 2025 / short stories
The title, First Times, invites teenage+ readers to grab this book and dig into the stories. The opening page reads “Warning: Explicit Content. (What Were You Expecting?)” which offers another temptation for adolescents to read these engaging stories by nine French Canadian authors. And read these stories, they should. Each story is presented with honesty. There is a range of perspectives, cultures, sexual orientations and sexual experiences whether we are alone or wth another. To be sure, there is no one way to define what is meant by ‘first time’. It would take more than 9 stories to cover the expanse of stories of losing one’s virginity.But this collection provides teenagers with the pleasures, the frustrations, the anxieties, the disappointments, the relief, and the turning point of experiences with making out, masturbation, same sex encounters, and penetration (or not). This is a must-read book to help adolescents understand (and question) the anticipation, the preparation, the determination, the expectations and the achievements of First Time sex.
SHOUT OUT: NONFICTION
ALL THE BEAUTY IN THE WORLD : The Metroplitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley / 2023 / Memoir
A dear friend passed this book on to me, knowing that I would love it. What a great boo! After the death of his brother, Patrick Bringley decides to leave is job writing for The New Yorker to get a job as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he worked for about a decade. This new responsibility gave Bringley solace, refuge and a beautiful home. Readers learn much about the comradeship of gallery guards who may seem to roam about unobtrusively but diligently uphold the rules of protecting the art as well as helping the multitude of visitors who wander about. “Too many visitors think of the Met as a musum of Art History, where the objective is to learn about art rather than from it.” (p. 110) (After reading this book, one can’t help but feel better respect for what may seem anonymous employees). The author provides insights into the workings of this two-million-square foot treasure house. Most of all, we learn much about the treasures that fill the halls. Assigned to different to different exhibits from week to week, Patrick Bringley gazes upon wonders of the art world. His description of iconic and obscure treasures take us on a guided tour of art history artifacts and their creators. A list of the hundred or so art works referenced in the text serves as an appendix to this memoir (e.g., El Greco, Goya, Vermeer, Michelangelo, Homer Cassat, Peter Breugel the Elder). Noteworthy, is learning that Bringley sharess the thrill of gazing a power figure from teh Democratic Republic of the Congo (Chapter V) as well as his tribute to a display of ten quilts from Alabama (chapter XII). This book is an astonishing journey and reverence to “all the beauty in the world”. On the final page, Bringley invites readers and visitors to “Find out what you love in the Met, what you learn from, and what you can use as fuel, and venture back into the world carrying something with you, something that doesn’t fit quite easily into your mind, that weighs on you as you go forward and changes you a little bit.” (p. 178)
Reading this book took me back to my studies in Art History many years ago. Who knows what might havbe happened if I pursued that field as a career instead of becoming a teacher. Of all the trips I’ve taken to New York, I haven’t spent all that much time at the MET but it is now on my ‘to do’ list and I know that I will not just look at art, but see art, just a bit differently after having read this book. Maybe, maybe i will slow down and think about the wonder of the creation befoe me and better consider thoughts and feelings that are lurking inside me as I witness art works. Apparently, Bringley offers tours of the museum from time to time. I sent an email hoping I can join him as he shares his expertise , insights and passion. Patrick Bringley you are a great teacher. Thank you for sharing your work and your scholarship. Dear friend, thank you for gifting me with this book.
Excerpts
“As such, my response to the picture (The Harvesters Peter Bruegel was trapped inside me, a bird fluttering in my chest. And I didn’t know what to make of that. It is always hard to know what to make of that. As a guard, I will be watching countless visitors respond in their own way to this curious feeling.” (p. 10)
“All in all, it’s fair to say that the Metropolitan Museum draws an audience worthy of that are a diverse crowd who for diverse reasons have found their way to this great metropolis and one of its most fascinating gathering places.” (p. 73)
“I am sometimes not sure which is the more remarkable that life lives up to the great paintings, or that the great paintings life up to life.” (p. 88)
SHOUT OUT: FICTION
WHEN THE CRANES FLY SOUTH by Lisa Ridzen / 2024
Translated from Swedish by Alice Menzies
Winner of the Swedish Book of the Year Award
This debut novel is a moving account of an elderly man approaching death. Set in a rural village in northern Sweden, the story invites readers to share in Bo’s days coping with health issues. He is visited by an array of caregivers. His memories of his wife who is now living in a home after being diagnosed with Alzheimers. Phone conversations with an elderly friend, Ture, provides Bo with an important connection. Bo’s loving relationship with his dog Sexten is keeping him alive. It is a strained relationship with his son Hans who adds stress to Bo’s life. Hans think it is now time to take Sexten away from his father, thinking that he won’t be able to give the dog proper care. I was completed engrossed in Bo’s story, a sad story, a story about fathers and sons, devotion to pets, hanging on to memories and doing the best we can in our waning years. Readers who were fond of Fredrik Bakman’s Ove will love this book. This was an emotional read that touched my soul. Readers who are caring for an elderly loved one, who question their relationships in their lives (including those with pets) and those who love a great story, will hopefully love When The Cranes Fly South as much as I do. This book deserved its awards and gets the highest of praise from Dr. Larry.
Each of the ten titles listed below by British, Irish, Scottish and Welsh authors is fantastic. I would re-read any of these recently published books anytime.
AIR by John Boyne / 2025 / novella / Irish
I knew I would love this book even before opening it up. John Boyne is a favourite of favourite authors. Air is the fourth book in his recently published Elements series (Water, Earth, Fire, Air). Each of these novellas knocked me out with its compelling storytelling. The titles are more or less stand-alone reads although Boyne cleverly weaves in elements from book to book. In Air, a father and son are flying high in the sky travelling from Australia to Ireland to meet a woman who isn’t expecting them. The journey provides Aaron Umber and his fourteen-year-old son. Emmet to connect. Aaron, however is living with demons from his past and Emmet, damaged by the strange relationship he had with his mother is being in assertive about what his father can expect from him. Air poignantly ties up the Elements series. Like the other books , Air, presents characters faced with consequences, turmoil, and surprises. I look forward to re-reading these four books someday (they will be assembled into one book soon to be published). John Boyne is a favourite of favourite authors. Thank you, Mr Boyne for Water, Earth, Fire and Air.
CLEAR by Carys Davies / 2024 / novella / Welsh
The setting is a remote Scottish island in 1843. John Ferguson, a church minister is sent to evict Ivar, the soul inhabitant on the island in order to turn the island into grazing land for sheep. John’s mission, known as The Clearances’ whereby hundreds of ministries rebelled against the system of patronage, allowing Scottish landowners to forcibly remove the rural poor from their homes. John, desperate for money makes the choice to travel to the remote island in Northern Scotland to inform the lonely Ivar of his future awaits. When Ivar finds John laying unconscious on the beach, he takes him into his home. Even though the two men do not have a common language (John speaks English, Ivor’s only means of communication is Norn a Norwegian dialect). the two men come to form a bond during Ferguson’s month-long visit, The short book (146 pages) unfolds in 52 short chapters that dig into the minds and hearts of Ivar and John and John’s wife Mary who longs for her husband’s return ‘The Royal Society Ondaatje Prize’ is an award given to a book that evokes the ‘spirit of place’. Clear was the 2025 well-deserved winner of the prize sponsored by Sir Christopher Ondaatje, older brother of Canada’s Michael Ondaatje. Clear was an absorbing, poignant read. It is a hear squeezing story of loneliness and connection and longing.I loved it so.
Excerpts
“He stood for a long time in the softly falling rain and eventually he spoke to himself silently in his own head: “I have the cliffs and the skerries and the birds. I have he white hill and the round hill and the peaked hill. I have the clear spring water and the rich good pasture that covers the tilted top of the island like a blanket. I have the old black cow and the sweet grass that grows between the rocks. I have my great chair and my sturdy house. I have my spinning wheel and I have the teapot and I have Pegi, and now, amazingly, I have John Ferguson too.” (p, 66)
“He went down to the inlet. The surface of the sea had a scraped, scrubbed look. Long, skittish shadows, hurrying in front of the wind, raced across it. Cormorants glinted, gulls hung in the air with their mouths open. Dark, heavy clouds rested on the horizon and he found himself wondering what Ivar would call them 0 would he say they were homers or bunker? Elias or glodreks? (p. 126)
GIANT by Mark Rosenblatt / 2025 / script / British
Giant was one of the best plays I’ve seen in 2025. There is no doubt that Roald Dahl is an iconic figure in the world of children’s literature. In 1983, Dahl made explicitly wrote an antiseptic review that the author is not prepared to back down on, even though it might impact the sales of his books. The play drawn on real events is set in a single afternoon in Roald Dahl’s home. Rosenblatt presents an imagined scenario set the author’s British publisher and American publisher meet and try to convince Dahl to make a public apology or risk his name and reputation. The profound irony of this play, published in 2024, is that it presents views of Israel and Jews that are part of today’s news. John Lithgow gave an astonishing performance in this award-winning production in London. Giant is a giant of a play – absorbing, powerful and shocking.
Excerpts
“I think the only way I’d ever feel truly safe is if I could absorb people. If I could just swallow them and keep them inside me or something.”
“It took a long time for Finlay to recognize that the silent version of Banjo was hurt, not angry. Banjo could be every emotion in the span of a sentence, but when he was hurt he carried it around and held it close.” (p. 312)
GLASGOW BOYS by Margaret McDonald / 2024 / YA fiction / Scottish
This YA novel recently was awarded the Carnegie Medal for Writing and at 27 years of age the author Margaret McDonald is the youngest winner of the prize. The panel of judges praised the book for being an ‘an honest and hopeful tale.” One judge, Ross Harding claimed that “Glasgow Boys is an immersive and visceral read that completely draws the readers into the present and past lives of Finlay and Banjo.” Finlay is studying for a nursing degree in Glasgow. Banjo is settling in with a new foster family and trying to succeed in his final years of high school. Finlay and Banjo once shared a room in a group home care facility and seemed to have a special bond, especially since they had each been shattered by neglectful parenting. A huge falling out the two boys once had shatters their friendship (The author presents narratives of ‘Three Years Ago” when the two boys lived together). The novel’s chapters are presented in alternating voices. McDonald navigates the lives of these two teenagers who struggle with invisible barriers as they approach adulthood. We quickly come to care about these two adolescents, their frustrations, secrets, anger and hopes. Really, all they want from life is to feel the warm touch of another. Banjo finds company with a girl he works with at a local cafe. Finlay finds friendship with two other student nurses, the residents of a seniors home and most of all, a handsome guy, Akash, who he would love to love but is cautious in how he approaches the relationship. In an interview for the BBC, Margaret McDonald says, “It was important to me to showcase the difficulties of making your way through a world that is essentially not built for you.” Glasgow Boys is a powerful coming-of-age story of male friendships and of resilience, especially when forced to live in and out of care.
HEART, BE AT PEACE by Donal Ryan / 2024 / novel / Irish
Why did I buy this book? I was inspired by the poetic title,; I learned that it was the winner of the Irish book of The Year (2024); I am fond of Irish stories and the style of the book intrigued. The conceit of the book is that the story of a rural Irish community is told through twenty-one voices. Each chapter is 8-10 pages and the book is only 194 pages (I sometimes like ‘short books). Each voice brings a perspective to the life of the townspeople and how they are connected to each other through family, work, killings, drug crime, secrets, trauma and heart. The ‘chapters’ are short-story like and moving from voice to voice demands that we enter each character’s perspective quickly and assemble the mosaic of their lives as the book unfolds. Ryan makes readers (me) work hard to make connections and thread the narratives to make sense of the whole, since the narrative is not linear. A chart of the cast of characters might have helped. Still, there is power in Donal Ryan’s writing. (“When I feel myself getting too smug, when I start counting all my blessings, I start to think abou all the things that could go wrong. I remember that I have to die someday (p. 141)”. I look forward to reading The Spinning Heart (2012), Ryan’s debut work also told through twenty-one voices examining the lives of the characters we met a decade earlier than presented in Heart, Be At Peace. which was voted the Irish Book of the Decade at the Dublin Book Festival.
Excerpt
“We never stop being children. Or at least we never fully leave our childhood behind; we drag it with us and we stretch it out along our years and every now and then when we let our grip fail it snaps and reels us back. Despite all the things we thought we lerned in life, all the toughening and hardening and strategies for coping, those memories can assail us without warning. leaving us bereft of all our armor,” (p.161)
I AM I AM I AM: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell / 2017 / Biographical Essays / Irish
My first encounter with Maggie O’Farrell was through her masterpiece novel, Hamnet (2020) . I was pleased to discover this memoir which was released in 2017. The subtitle of this biography ” Seventeen Brushes with Death” intrigued and led me to dig into 17 essays where the author had experienced some harrowing experiences with health and unexpected encounters. I’ve recently have had strong reads with powerful memoirs (Knife by Salman Rushdie; Shattered by Hanif Kureishi) that have helped me realize that ‘there but for the grace go I’. Like those other two biographies, O’Farrell’s memoir reminds us of the fragile, precarious nature of our days on this planet. This book is a collection of harrowing stories told with honesty about turmoils and traumas the author has experienced and survived through throughout her life. O’Farrell tales of near-death experiences include her childhood illness with leaving the author bedridden for a year, an encounter with a South American man with a machete at her throat, an experience (actually two) where she almost drowned, miscarriages, volunteering to be part of a knife-throwing act, a fortuitous escape by one centimetre from being struck by a speeding lorry passing by.. The final piece entitled ‘Daughter’ relates the terrifying struggle of protecting her daughter who is challenged with an immunology disorder leading to a fragile life of living with anaphylaxis; eczema). Blessedly, O’Farrell has survived and used her fine talent as writer to share the life-altering events that have shaped her life. Am, I Am, I Am is a gut-wrenching biography. Oh My, Oh My, Oh My.
RAISING HARE: The hart-warming story of an unlikely friendship by Chloe Dalton / 2024/ nonfiction / British
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 an exceptional. A fascinating memoir. Highly recommended. Raising Hare was shortlisted for several awards, Waterstone’s book of the year, Hatchard’s First Biography Prize, Women’s Prize for nonfiction)
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)
SPRING: The Story of a Season by Michael Morpurgo / 2025 / nonfiction / British
Ever since reading War Horse a number of years ago, I have become a Michael Morpurgo fan and have a bookshelf of children’s literature titles where his work shines. I was thrilled to acquire his newest release, a his first nonfiction book in forty years written for an adult audience. Spring provides the author to observe, reflect and record the life surrounding him on the farm he has lived on in rural Devon for over forty years. Spring is a story expectations and waiting for an uncoming season. What a beautiful testimony celebrating the natural world that unfolds outside his window as the spring season unfolds. For Morpurgo – and the reader – there is joy and wonder found in the glory bluebells, the songs of birds, the birth of lambs, and encounters with hawks, swallows, hares and otters. Woodblock prints created by Charlotte Whatmore are ideally suited to the images that Morpurgo paints. The book also includes poems and shared memories of springs lived in the author’s past. It was a delight and honour in the ‘eyes and mind and heart to the little corner of England’ that Morpurgo belongs to and calls home. An uplifting gem of a read! Mr. Morpurgo, you are a British gem.
NOTE: Michael Morpurgo and his wife Clare founded Farms for City Children in 1976 at Nethercott Farm in Devon with the intent of expanding the horizons of children and towns by offering them a week in the countryside living together on one of their farms.
Excerpt
“Hard to believe sometimes, in the depths of winter, that spring really does happen, the skeletal trees and wind and rain and grey skies do give way to blue skies and rustling green leaves, that it’s not a figment of our imagination, not memory and wishful thinking playing tricks on us.” (p. 8)
“And today as I came out of the woods into the fields and saw the lambs cavorting – they really do skip – I felt the trees believe, as I do, that spring is springing. I can smell it in the air. I’ve seen the early swelling of the buds in some low-slung twigs, when I looked more closely.” (p. 40)
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DAVID HOCKNEY / Thames & Hudson / 2020 / quotations; art work / British
David Hockney is a British Isles treasure, a unique prolific contemporary artist respect throughout the world. By presenting over 200 of the artists’s remarks, this book, small in size, is a treasure not only for its ability to convey Hockney’s views as an artist but for its ability to help us think about how we need to see the world around us but how we understand the world of creating art and viewing art. The book is divided into 9 sections with such titles as ‘Hockney on Life’; ‘Hockney on Inspiration’, ‘Hockney on Making Art’. Throughout the book we are blessed with a number of plates that show Hockney’s work at different stages of his career. But really it is Hockney’s words that shine. Some epigrams are amusing, some profound or pithy, but each statement authentically gives insights into the world according to David Hockney.
Here are a handful of favourite quotations that I found to be inspirational:
“On the chest of drawers at the end of my bed, because that’s the first thing I saw when I woke up, I painted ‘Get up and work immediately’. (p. 20)
“It’s good to rest and read.” (p. 47)
“Pictures have been helping us to see for about thirty thousand years.” (p. 63)
“The Chinese say you need three things for paintings: the hand, the eye, the heart. Two won’t do.” (p. 88)
“Teaching someone to draw is teaching them to look.” (p. 98)
“I love life.” (p. 165)
SHOUT OUT
HERMIT by Chris McQueer / novel / Scottish
Hermit is a powerful debut novel by contemporary acclaimed Scottish author Chris McQueer who gained recognition for two short story collections (Hings and HWFG). This book is a disturbing, sad, funny and thought-provoking of one boy’s journey into the incel culture, when someone, usually male, is frustrated by their lack of sexual experience and blame women and society for their lack of romantic success . I wasn’t much familiar with the world of incel (involuntary celibate) but the television series Adolescence made me aware of the topic of misogyny, toxic masculinity and violence.
Chris McQueer has created a poster boy character, Jamie Skeleton, a nineteen year old who dropped out of school and now spends most of his days alone in his room living the life of hermit, sleeping or playing video games. Jamie hasn’t left his home in months and doesn’t think he can do so. (“The ony thing that fills me with more dread than going outside is having to interact with other people.” Jamie describes himself as weird, freak and mental and we learn early in the novel that the disastrous condition of his room and his reluctance to take care of his hygiene validates that Jamie is indeed disturbed. Except for a neighbourhood online ‘companion’, Lee, that plays video games with, Jamie has no friends. In alternate chapters, we learn about Jamie’s mother Fiona who, like her son is anti-social, withdrawn from life and depressed. Fiona has lost any self-worth because of an abusive marriage. Is she to blame for the reclusive person her son has become? Is there any hope for Jamie and Fiona? I screamed into the pages, “Please get therapy.!” but both mother and son are trapped with mental health issues, angry with themselves and with each other. (The opening line of the novel has Jamie claim “She disnae love me.” ) When Fiona urges Jamie to apply for a job, Jamie’s anger boils (“She’s oan ma case aboot gettin a job, man). When Lee tells Jamie that there’s a guy named Seb that he met online through incel forums, the two plan to go to London since Seb promises them to help them confront their problems and deal with their self-hate and hate for women.
I found Hermit to be totally engaging read. I felt pity for both Jamie and Fiona. I was disturbed by description of the of the harrowing incel culture, carefully researched by the author. The alternating chapters, presented in the first person voice of the two central character worked to convey the parallel emotional despair of Jamie and Fiona. Much of the dialogue is presented in Scottish dialect which may be defeating for some but I found added authenticity and strong voice (and humour) to the writing (“Wit wid ye de wi wan mair day off?”.) I think I will think about Hermit for a long time. Chris McQueer is spot on with the pulse of what is happening in the world of toxic masculinity. He has written a punch in the heart, gut-wrenching tough tale of our times. Bravo!
I enjoyed digging into some novels, nonfiction and short story titles that have strong appeal for readers, ages 12+. Each of these authors deals with powerful topics to engage adolescents and help them think about their friendships, their feelings, their values, and their hopes.
BANNED TOGETHER: Our Fights for Readers’ Rights by Ashley Hope Perez (ed)’; illus Debbie Fong / multi-modal texts
Challenging, censoring and banning books has, in recent years, has been a disturbing thrust against the fight for the freedom to read. This anthology includes memoirs, short stories, essays, graphic pieces bh sixteen authors and illusrators to shine a light on the transformative power of books. Any one of these pieces ignites YA readers to question the harm of banning books and to take action when books are taken away from library shelves. Each of the contributors provide a testimony and insights into what happens when books under scrutiny. Reading lists of banned books, recommendations for protecting books, and actionable tips are provided throughout. Banned Together is a definitive guide to support everyone’s right to read with books that provide information and perspectives on gender issues, sexuality, and culture. This is a mighty fine book. This is a mighty important book.
“Book banners say they just want o protect teens from inappropriate material, but they end up creating stigma around information that matters to anybody with a body… which is all of us.” (p. 54)
“Book banning attempts to keep people ignorant; it is the violence of manipulation and the denial of access. Books make it possible for us to confront ideas thag confuse us or that are different from our own or that make us uncomfortable about each other. Books help us to grow perspective and learn to live together on this planet in less harmful ways, for the short time we get to live on it.” (p. 144)
“Why pretend that removing books from libraries is going to keep young people from asking questions. It just takes away the chance for students to become better readers as they engage with what they’re already curious about.” (p. 187)
BEST OF ALL WORLDS by Kenneth Oppel / Science Fiction
This book caught my eye during a recent visit to a bookstore. Featured atop a tomato-red cover is an illustration of an upside down cottage, surrounded by shadows of 4 figures and goats standing still on a grassy lawn. I was curious too about the image of a translucent shape (the moon?).On the back cover is a testimony from David Levithan “A masterpiece. I promise you – as soon as you finishg, you’ll want to talk to someone about it.” The blurb on the inside jacket cover read intrigued “When Xavier and his dad, and Nia go to explore, they find they are inside a dome, trapped. And there was no one else around.” Mmmm. this was going to be science fiction story, a genre that doesn’t particularly appeal to me. But the author is the great Canadian author, Kenneth Oppel. I bought the book and was immediately hooked. from the start. Xavier’s father, Caleb and pregnant stepmother, Nia plan to spend a weekend by a lake but early in the story, we learn that the cottage wasn’t where it was supposed to be having been lifted and placed elsewhere. This is the stuff of “The Twilight Zone”. Xavier Oak (aka Zay), Caleb and Nia and the newborn baby Noah are trapped. No explantation. No escape. Survival seems precarious. So many questions percolate (for the characters and for the reader). After 40 pages or so, it is three yearslater and Oppel introduces us to The Jackson family, who find themselves in the mysterious circumstance. When the two families meet they seem to get along (especially Zay who is head over heels when he meets Mackenzie Jackson, a girl Xavier’s exact age). But tensions mount, when the parents share opposing views of how they got their, who their captors are (Alien beings; A government conspiracy). The big question, will the Oaks and the Jackson’s ever escape. Encouners with danger (coyotes attack, midges swarm, guns appear) and plans to escape through a hole in the sky make this a novel filled with suspense, suspension of disbelief, wonder and hope. For lovers of Science Fiction this thrilling novel is yes, out of this world. WOW!
Excerpt
“A spark flew from the moon’s face. As it fell, it expanded, ten fractured into many smaller lights travelling together like a vast flock of birds, knotting then unravelling across the night sky. The lights divided again, then again, becoming even smaller. I felt nailed to the ground. They were coming closer. “(p. 74)
CAN POSTERS KILL?: Antisemitic Propoganda and World War II by Jerry Faivish and Kathryn Cole / nonfiction / Second Story Press
On the back cover of this publication, we are provided with a definition of the word Propaganda: “A dangerous weapon in the spread of hate.”. This book is a display of 38 historical posters demonstrating how the powerful potential of posters as a tool for spreading hate and promoting discord and outright lies. The book is organized into three sections: 1.Pre-World War II 2. World War 11 and Post-World War II. A majority of the posters come from Jerry Faivish’s personal collection. Faivish is a child of two Holocaust survivors and strongly feels “that they should be shown as a warning so people can recognize and prevent similar campaigns from succeeding again.” (Preface). The images, whether subtle or overt are often stark, often repulsive emerging from a campaign to impact European thinking during war time. Each poster is accompanied by text that provides background and analysis of the words and visuals that appear in the posters. Ultimately, Can Posters Kills? helps readers to examine hate propaganda from the past and to take an analytic approach to this familiar form of media in order to consider how in today’s digital world, caution must be paid to harmful messages of what is both true and untrue that may spread quickly. As stated in the introduction: “No posters can’t kill, but they can lead people to.”
DAVID HOCKNEY: A Graphic Novel by Monica Foggia; Giovanni Gastaldi ; 2025 / graphic biography
The life and journey of the prolific British artist David Hockney is presented in graphic format. The biography highlights Hockney’s artistic journey as a non-conformist student, his life in England, and the United States and his extensive work with portraiture, landscapes and still life as well as his experimental approaches with photography and digital technology. The book gives insights into one of the most unique talents of contemporary art by highlighting his visionary approaches experimenting with a variety of media, his renowned gallery showings worldwide, his friendships and the important value he has as a gay iconic figure.
FINDING HARMONY by Eric Walters / fiction
Harmony has gone from foster home to foster home but a court hearing deems her now qualified to once again live with her mother. Is this a good idea? Will her alcoholic, drug abusive mother give Harmony the support and love she needs? Mother and daughter now live in humble conditions in a somewhat sleezy apartment complex. Harmony is a tough tough cookie, who has put up with a lot and tries to keep things above board even though her mother proves to be an unreliable parent who lies, gets involved with shady characters and yes, is still addicted. (“I had been trying hard. Harder than anybody. Every day. Every hour. And what good was it doing? I couldn’t change my mother. I couldn’t control her. Sooner or later it was going to break down – ” (p. 211) . We first met Harmony in Eric Walters’ prize winning novel The King of Jam Sandwiches but this novel, a prequel of sorts, is.a stand-alone book. Walters is a great storyteller who invents strong characters in challenging situations. Readers are bound to root for Harmony, care for Harmony and hope that one day Harmony finds harmony. A gutsy read.
Excerpt
“Yeah, my mom had been in rehab and had a counsellor to talk to about her drinking and drug use – and maybe this time it might actually work. As least, I had hope it would. What else did I have except hope?” (p. 3)
“I’m worried all the time… But at least I have my mother.” No. She has you.” (p. 244)
FIRST TIMES: Short Stories about Sex by Karine Glorieux (editor); Translated from the French by Shelley Tanaka / short stories
The title, First Times, invites teenage+ readers to grab this book and dig into the stories. The opening page reads “Warning: Explicit Content. (What Were You Expecting?)” which offers another temptation for adolescents to read these engaging stories by nine French Canadian authors. And read these stories, they should. Each story is presented with honesty. There is a range of perspectives, cultures, sexual orientations and experiences whether being alone or wth another. To be sure, there is no one way to define what is meant by ‘first time’. It would take more than 9 stories to cover the expanse of stories of losing one’s virginity. But this collection provides teenagers with the pleasures, the frustrations, the anxieties, the disappointments, the relief, and the turning point of experiences with making out, masturbation, same-sex encounters, and penetration (or not). This is a must read book to help adolescents understand (and question) the anticipation, the preparation, the determination, the expectations and the achievements of First Time sex.
GLASGOW BOYS by Margaret McDonald / 2024 / fiction
This YA novel recently was awarded the Carnegie Medal for Writing and at 27 years of age the author Margaret McDonald is the youngest winner of the prize. The panel of judges praised the book for being an ‘an honest and hopeful tale.” One judge, Ross Harding claimed that “Glasgow Boys is an immersive and visceral read that completely draws the readers into the present and past lives of Finlay and Banjo.” Finlay is studying for a nursing degree in Glasgow. Banjo is settling in with a new foster family and trying to succeed in his final years of high school. Finlay and Banjo once shared a room in a group home care facility and seemed to have a special bond, especially since they had each been shattered by neglectful parenting. A huge falling out the two boys once had shatters their friendship (The author presents narratives of ‘Three Years Ago” when the two boys lived together). The novel’s chapters are presented in alternating voices. McDonald navigates the lives of these two teenagers who struggle with invisible barriers as they approach adulthood. We quickly come to care about these two adolescents, their frustrations, secrets, anger and hopes. Really, all they want from life is to feel the warm touch of another. Banjo finds company with a girl he works with at a local cafe. Finlay finds friendship with two other student nurses, the residents of a seniors home and most of all, a handsome guy, Akash, who he would love to love but is cautious in how he approaches the relationship. In an interview for the BBC, Margaret McDonald says It was important to me to showcase the difficulties of making your way through a world that is essentially not built for you.” Glasgow Boys is a powerful coming-of-age story of male friendships and of resilience, especially when forced to live in and out of care.
Excerpts
“I think the only way I’d ever feel truly safe is if I could absorb people. If I could just swallow them and keep them inside me or something.” (p.281)
“It took a long time for Finlay to recognize that the silent version of Banjo was hurt, not angry. Banjo could be every emotion in the span of a sentence, but when he was hurt he carried it around and held it close.” (p. 312)
THE MAGIC FISH by Trung Le Nguyen / 2020 / Graphic novel / folktales
This is an ambitious graphic novel. Le Ngueyn tells the story of a young Vietnamese adolescent, named Tien, struggling to come out to his refugee parents. Not finding the right words to get his parents’ acceptance, the boy finds answers in fairy tales in a language Tien and his parents share. I found the storytelling to be rather stilted and elliptical even though the visuals beautifully illuminates events from the traditional tales from Vietnam. Sections of the story are conveyed in different colour palettes helping to delienate the storytelling (purple), the present (reds) and the past life in the homeland (golds). The author’s notes tell us that the artist “wanted to explore how stories can seve both as an escape and as an anchor for our real lives, and maybe, for at least one story, decentre the gravity of marginalization…”
SAM by Eric Walters / fiction
Sam is a troubled orphaned young adolescent who has lived much of his moving from foster home to foster home. Early in the book he gets into a fight with the high school quarterback and after a gloomy court appearance is sent to Juvenile Detention Centre to await a trial. Controlling his temper remains a challenge for Sam, especially when he is being tormented by a bully. However, Sam finds some comfort and trust with his cell mate, Nigel, a therapist, a female guard and a compassionate teacher. As part of his sentencing, Sam must take English classes and when he is assigned the ‘perfect’ book he is resentful at first but comes to understand how much he has in common with another redheaded orphan, the iconic heroine of Anne of Green Gables. This novel is Eric Walters storytelling at his best. Description of life in the detention centre is conveyed with authenticity. Hatsa off to Eric for bringing attention to Lucy Maud Montgomery’s iconic novel, published in 1908. Eric writes: “My story is a tribute, a homage to the original work. The way it continues to “speak” to people is a testament to not only the words and the themes but also to L.M. Montgomery’s creating a book that trancends countries, cultures, time and place.” I look forward to rereading this great Canadian novel someday. I look forward to reading more books by the great Canadian author, Eric Walters.
SHOUT OUT
THIS BOOK WON’T BURN by Samira Ahmed / fiction
When Noor Khan’s father abandons the family, the teenager and her mother and sister move into a new place far from their home in Chicago. Enrolling in a new school can always be stressful but Noor has only a short time to get her high school credits and graduate and all will be good if she can keep her head time. Luckily Noor finds some good friends but she also discovers that hundreds have books (mostly queer and BIPOC authors) have been removed from the school library because the school board considers them to be ‘obscene’ or ‘pornographic’. For Noor, the fight is on. Her parents have always taught Noor to fight for what you believe in and Noor can’t sit back and do nothing. She ends up being targeted for being an Indian and Muslim. Racial slurs are hurled at her online and out loud as she stands up and organizes protests against the book bans, but Noor remains steadfast and courageous won’t back down for what she strongly believes in. Alas, the battle involves confrontations with a principled principal, a bigoted member of the board, insensitive peers. Burned books, a molotov cocktail, a boisterous emergency board meeting, and battles with her mother, have Noor question herself. This Book Won’t Burn is a timely and at times stomach churning YA novel. It is a testimony to the power of teenage activism. It is a fascinating and hopeful story about the power to change. It is an engaging read. It is a vital read. This is an excellent book gets a mighty high praise from me.
Excerpts
Anyway, they supposedly don’t want us to read cerain books because they’re harmful – I make air quotes arond harmful – ‘but they don’t want to keep us safe, they want to kep us ingorant. Because ignorant people are easier to control…” (p. 103)
“Hope is an act, not just a feeling. Hope is a choice. So are hate and cynicism and silence. Every day I have to think abut what I’m going to choose. And so do you. “(p, 216)
It’s been great digging into some recent publications, especially those by favourite authors with new releases (Gordon Korman, Kelly Yang, Kwame Alexander, Jerry Craft, Raina Telgemeier, Dusti Bowling).
TWO GREAT CHAPTER BOOKS: Animal Friendships
BAD BADGER: A Love Story by Maryrose Wood; Illus; Giulia Ghigini
I love this novel. I’m often a sucker for books with anthropomorphic characters (e.g., Frog and Toad are Friends, Abel’s Island, The One and Only Ivan, Charlotte’s Web, The Wind in the Willows) Septimus Badger who enjoys sunsets and cheeses and seashells and opera lives quite a contented life living alone. But alone he is. Unbadgerlike he is. Life changes when a gull appears on his windowsill, and though the bird’s vocabulary is reduced to only one word (‘Caw’) the two animals seem to truly understand one another. Oh, joy a friend! But badger and seagull each their differences. Can they really be friends? How does Septimus cope when his best – and only – friend vanishes. He is a gull after all and gulls take flight. Subtitled ‘A love story’, this beautiful novel, beautifully illustrated helps readers think about the joys that life can bring, the special bonds of friendship and love between two characters who enjoy each other, despite different interests. I love Septimus Badger. I love this novel.
ORRIS AND TIMBLE: Lost and Found by Kate DiCamillo
Orris the rat and Timble the owl are friends. Can a rat and owl really be friends? Storytelling is one thing that binds them. One day, Timble doesn’t show up in the barn as expected Timble fears that his owl friend has abandoned him. Spoiler alert Timble, a little more grown up returns to visit his friend and has a lovely story about getting lost to tell his rat friend. Every sentence in this short book is simple and exquisite (e..g., ‘The sun rose and gray dawn turned into day. Light filled the barn.’; ‘From deep inside the velvet slipper, Orris could feel the owl waiting’. He arrived with a great rush of feathers that smelled of nighttime air’. The clarity of dialogue enriches character and setting: “By the light of the stars, by the light of the moon, I will always return.” said the owl.” Each word is perfectly chosen. But that’s no surprise – Kate DiCamillo is a storytelling genius . Mok’a beautiful illustrations are story moments unto themselves (Lonely Orris gazing into the night sky longing for his friend; Oris crawling in a velvet slipper; Owl hovering over a country landscape; Orris and Timble reunited underneath the gaze of a crescent moon), Lost and Found is the second book in trilogy (Book One: Orris and Timble: The Beginning).
TWO GREAT VERSE NOVELS
AWAY by Megan E. Freeman (Verse novel)
Away is a companion to the novel, Alone, where readers first encountered the story of evacuations in the state of Colorado. Alone centred on the story of Maddie who was left to survive on her own. In this book, we are introduced to four young teenagers who ended up in an emergency relocation camp. Each of the characters has a story to reveal about their experiences: Harmony works on a zine to report events; Teddy is passionate about the world of movies and is determined to create a documentary of events; Grandin is separated from his father and is anxious to be be reunited with him; Ashanti, draws on her knowledge of mythical characters and along with her mother who is a doctor, brings strength and wisdom to unpacking the mystery of their circumstances. The novel is presented in free-verse style, presented as voices of each of the character (in different font styles). Much of the narrative is told in movie script form when characters are brought together. Like the characters in the story, readers question the of the evacuation, casting doubts that this might all be a hoax: (How did this evacuation happen? Why are people being quarantined? How widespread is the danger? Why Colorado? What does the future bring?) Harmony, Teddy, Grandin and Ashanti endeavour to uncover what’s really behind the threat and are challenged to reveal their investigations to expose the truth. (“What’s truth? What’s fiction? In the absence of facts, everything adds up to nothing at all.” (p. 260) References to The Wizard of Oz are cleverly filtered throughout the novel. And yes, like the first novel, a dog (Popcorn) plays an important part in helping the characters to bond together. The novel is aptly chunked into different sections to help frame the sequencing of events (e.g., ‘Build Up’, ‘Evacuation’, ‘Shelter’, ‘Acclimation’ etc.). The free-verse and transcript style not only helps to reveal characters worries and hopes but serves to make Away a fast paced, mystery adventure.
THE TROUBLE WITH HEROES by Kate Messier (Verse novel)
This is a beautifully written verse novel that explores the themes of grief, perseverance and accomplishing goals. Finn Connelly’s father was a firefighter but his death two years ago has left Finn bereft and determined to learn more about his father who was deemed a hero, especially after his 9/11 rescue feats. Early in the novel we learn that Finn has been caught knocking over a headstone, which happens to have been tag of a legendary mountain climber. The woman’s daughter agrees to drop charges if the 7th grader agrees to climb all forty-six Adirondack Peaks in the summer months. He will have a dog to keep him company and meet other climbers to help guide him. Accomplishing the task would mean the he fulfills school requirements to pass Phys Ed and writing poetry for English classes. The physical endurance of climbing the mountains will satisfy his needs to pass Phys Ed. Writing poetry, in a variety of forms under the topic of heroes will help him pass English. The novel depicts the wild adventures and tribulations (mud, bridges tricky rocks) that Finn endures while climbing mountain trails. Arriving at each peak, Finn can see for miles and he comes to a better understanding of his father – and himself. Kate Messier’s choice to write a verse novel allows her to step into Finn’s hiking boots and create journal entries that describe the challenges he faces, mountain to mountain. The novel is also filtered throughout with chocolate cooke recipes, letters choose your own adventure narratives, text messages and photographs (a worthy attempt, but, alas, not presented with clarity). This is a special novel that unpacks a variety of emotions (for both the protagonist and the reader), the importance of remembrance and the challenge of adolescents growing into their authentic selves.
NOTE
The Adirondack Forty-Sixers (The 46ers) are an organization of hikers who have climbed all fort six of the recognized High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountains in Northeastern New York State. To date there are over 15,000 registered 46ers, The author, Kate Messier is one of them.
Excerpts
“Climbing isn’t about reaching the top. / It’s about pushing past limits / of what you thought you could do, If you never fall, never fail, you’re not growing, / you know?” (p.97)
“There’s no good path – just a bad way and a worse way – so you might as well choose one and get started.” (p. 259)
TWO GREAT SEQUELS
THE BEAT I DRUM by Dusty Bowling
The title of this book caught my attention. I was pleased to discover that this was the third book in a trilogy by the talented Dusti Bowling. We first met Conor Bradley who was the best friend of Aven Green from the wonderful novel Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus. Conor has Tourette syndrome and every day poses challenges, particularly now that he has entered high school. Like many teenagers, is full of negatives and positives Two things are particularly stressful for Conor: 1) A school bully and 2) a strained relationship with his father who had been absent and now reappears in his life. Two things bring Conor pleasure: 1) a new group of friends who each have an issue with being an outcast and 2) learning to play the drums from a caring teacher which helps him to deal with his tics and barking outbursts. As a young teenager, Conor is growing to better accept the reality his syndrome where his brain just does what it wants resulting in uncontrollable barking and blinking. Mounting pressures with family and deep anger stall Conor from finding the beat he drums. This novel helps readers to better understand the realities of living withTourette syndrome, the power of music and the meaning of forgiveness as they enter the world of Conor Bradley. Like her other two novels in the trilogy, Dusti Bowling has written an engaging heartfelt book with an authentic empathetic character. Highly recommended.
CHEF’s SECRET by Kelly Yang
Kelly Yang’s first title in the Front Desk series was released in 2018. Chef’s Secret is Book #6 in the series where attention is given to the character of Jason Yao, a talented young chef. Jason is now in eight grade and his friendship with Mia Tang is blossoming into a romantic relationship but now he is troubled with 1) planning the first perfect date, 2) about his father who is eager to become a member of the local country club 3) trying to make guy friends his own age 4) helping Mia and her family solve the problem of a leaky roof and 5)living with the secrets and fibs he tells in order to get others to like him. (He is not being considered for a Michelin star: he was responsible for once stealing money). Kelly Yang does a fine job of telling a story with humour and with conveying the thoughts and feelings of middle age students. She is also very clever at weaving in episodes from previous novels to satisfy readers who have followed along with Mia and her friends since the first book. Still, Chef’s Secret works as a stand-alone book. Yang seems dedicated to publishing a Front Desk book once a year. Bravo Kelly Yang!
TWO GREAT BOOKS ABOUT WRITING AND ILLUSTRATION GRAPHIC STORIES
THE CARTOONISTS CLUB by Raina Telgemeier and Scotty McDonald
Best selling comic artists Raina Telgemeier (Smile, Drama, Ghosts) and Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art) have collaborated to present a love-letter to the art of writing and illustration graphic stories. This comic book about comic books is designed to give readers insights into the process of paging ideas and imagination through illustration and words. A group of four come together meet weekly to share their talents, frustrations and knowledge and creativity to make comics that will please others (and themselves. Each member of The Cartoonists Club has a unique perspective to share: Makayla enjoys inventing stories, Howard loves to draw, Lynda is a talented artist but very critical of her own work, and Art is excited about anything that feeds his creative spirit. Tips are given for creating facial expressions, postures, frames and thumbnail sketches, and growlixes and plewds (comic symbols). Telgemeir and McDonald have certainly succeeded in giving comic enthusiasts information and inspiration to grow in their cartoonist endeavours.
J vs K by Kwame Alexander and Jerry Craft
Jerry Craft won the Newbery Medal in 2020 for his graphic novel New Kid. Kwame Alexander won the Newbery Medal in 2015 for his verse novel, The Crossover. These two remarkable authors have teamed up to write J vs K (J=Jerry; K+Kwame). Fifth graders, J & K are both keen on entering the school’s annual storytelling contest which entails a rivalry between a brilliant artist and writer and talented writer (K). The voice of each character is presented in alternate chapters. This is one funny book that features illustrated pages, comics (J), poetry (K) transcripts of dialogue; highlighted ‘new’ vocabulary (.e.g. tremulous, serendipity, preposterous ; punny ‘Dad jokes’ and Author Notes that are humorous comments to the reader (“Not sure if ‘whisper-asked’ is a real thing. in fact, but Jerry wrote it, and you know words aren’t really his thing.”), Throw in episodes that involve reading to a rambunctious grade one class; a funeral for two frogs, Hoppy and Poppy; a basketball game against older kids; not-to-be followed rules for writing and illustrating; a special writer’s ostrich hat; a punny school chef, (named Mr. Alexander) whose specialities include Chicken, Chicken, Boom, Boom; A Crinkle in Thyme, The One and Only I-Flan and a tiny elephant partially puking up a plane and you’ve got one funny funny ‘J-Enius’ book. J & K’s are rivals throughout, but Jerry and Kwame are surely GREAT friends who have worked together to create this GREAT – hilarious – book. More J & K please!
TWO GREAT BOOKS BY ONE GREAT CANADIAN AUTHOR
OLD SCHOOL by Gordon Korman
As of this writing, Gordon Korman has written over 105 books. This is one prolific. author. This is one terrific author. I haven’t read all of his books Iwhich have sold over 30 million copies, translated into 30 languages) but for the past several years I have been keen to dig into his recent publications (Ungifted, The Fort, The Superteacher Project and Linked (a must-read). Old School is another great novel by a great author who really knows kids, and what kids like. When he wa6 years of age, Dexter Foreman’s parents left him to live with his grandmother at the Pines retirement village and these circumstances gave Dexter a solid homeschooled background amongst the residents of the seniors’ home. All was going well, until a truancy officer comes to ensure that Dec enrol in the local middle school. How will this clever 7th grader who dresses like a grandpa fit into the culture of public schooling. Dexter comes to make friends with others, especially Gianna Gresco who is a reporter for the school newspaper. Dexter is smart and dexterous (!). At school he becomes Mr. Fixit, a foreman (!) of sorts who with the help of his handy dandy Swiss Army knife volunteers to repair a damaged staircase, a water fountain and the coffee machine in the teachers’ lounge. Dexter Forman is coming to fit in to the school environment and deal with bullies, but he ends up getting suspended unaware of what rules he’s broken (i.e. Swiss Army Knife.) Returning to The Pines is fine and dandy with Dexter where he can continue to learn from his ‘old friends’ especially 99 year old, Leo, who was once a code breaker in World War 2. The novel is organized into chapters, each centred on a different character’s voice, a style that has become common to the author. This is a captivating, humorous story of a Seventh grade hero. You can’t help but root for this twelve year old – going on eighty character. Hooray, hooray! for for Dexter Forman. Hooray, hooray! for Gordon Korman (who probably has written more books by the time you read this.) I hope so.
SNOOP by Gordon Korman
Twelve year old Carters legs get damaged during a ski trip (his litle brother crashed into him while coming down a slope and now Carter, wearing a cast on each leg is forced to stay home. What’s a guy to do? Carter is addicted to his devices and to conquer boredom, he starts checking the lives feeds from cameras around town. One thing leads to another as Carter becomes obsessed spying on classmates, citizens and suspicious characters as they go about their business. Carter is in fact a ‘Snoop’ with a capital ‘S’. When he discovers some unusual activity involving endangered animals (e.g., . a snow leopard, a tree kangaroo, a red panda, a bonobo), the tweenager decides to take things into his own hands with the help of his mother’s drone. This is another fun fun fun novel from Gordon Korman, but underneath the adventure and humour there is a theme of significance he explores. In this case, Snoop explores young people’s obsession with their phones and computers, the idea of hacking and the potential danger of how media can lead to secret snooping. This is great read for middle years readers.
“It’s like there’s a whole other side to life I never even knew existed before I broke my legs. It’s full of secret plots and restaurant wars and animals on the street that should be thousands of miles away… The best thing that’s happened since my accident has been discovering there are. resources out there that an bring you practially any piece of information you can dream of.” (p. 70-71)