The Outsmarters

Written by Deborah Ellis

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-857-2

248 pp.

Ages 9–13

August 2024

 

We refuse to outmean them and we can never outspend them. We have to outsmart them. (p. 14) 

When you live in a small town and everyone knows your business, you have to be smart or even smarter to get through. Twelve-year-old Kate has to be very smart because her life is so convoluted, and she doesn't even know the half of it. She lives with her Gran after Kate's mom Alyssa abandoned her for her latest boyfriend and her addiction, but Gran is as curmudgeonly as they come. For a woman who runs The Junk Yard, a junk business that carries everything from toys to books, hardware and kitchen stuff, Gran is hardly a people person, and she passes on the hard lessons on life and business that she's learned to Kate. So, to make some money, Kate decides to set up a Philosophy Booth in an old shack on the property and charge "seekers" $2 to get answers to life's questions. Using a roulette wheel and cards with quotes from 32 philosophers from Buddha to Ovid, Kate starts making and saving her money so that she can help Mom leave her latest boyfriend, if she ever gets back in touch.

 

Through her six-week suspension from Grade 6 and into the summer, Kate reads a variety of people, from the crusty Ms. Prawn, their neighbour, who is always complaining about them and their cat Bargain, to junk yard customers Mrs. Doris Blight and Mrs. Jean Rutherford, and a teen Landon who needs advice about getting "them" off his back. Her advice always seems pertinent, and some seekers take it to heart. Without knowing it, Kate is opening up her world to new people and even friends, whom she's going to need when she learns some truths about her mother, Gran, and others.

That's the trouble with thinking. One you get started, it's damn hard to stop. (p. 73) 

Deborah Ellis has always tackled challenging issues in her writing, whether it be non-fiction or fiction and even short story collections. Her most recent books (e.g., Sit, Step, and My Story Starts Here: Voices of Young Offenders) look at everything from detention and abuse, to conflict and poverty. Similarly, some of her most popular books, including The Breadwinner series and Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak, started important dialogues on children's lives in Afghanistan and the Middle East. While an Ontario location may seem more familiar to many North American readers, the story within is just as gripping as those in unusual settings because of the issues with which Kate a.k.a. Krate (you'll need to read the story to find out why) grapples. From abandonment by a mother with a drug addiction to bullying at school and a reluctance to connect with others as learned from those seemingly broken by life, Kate has been challenged. But, while Deborah Ellis never sugar coats life's challenges, she shows readers through Kate and Gran and Kate's seekers and new friends that there are opportunities to amend choices and open their once-closed worlds a little.

There are a lot of crusty characters in Deborah Ellis' The Outsmarters–of which Kate and Gran are but two–but when you've spent much of your life hurt and scarred by others and their actions or you're worried that someone is trying to take advantage of you or intends harm, that crust becomes a shield. But a shield is a defense and outsmarting someone is an offensive move, getting them before they get you. It's sad to think that outsmarting someone or putting up a shield are the go-to moves for someone as young as Kate but, be sure assured, that her experiences take her to where she can walk with others, accepting help and being an ally as needed.

Step

Written by Deborah Ellis

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-815-2

150 pp.

Ages 8-12

March 2022

For many of us, our days are spent stepping out and stepping in and stepping around. These are our everyday lives of going to school or work, dealing with peers and family, and returning home. But there are milestone days. For many children, those days include their birthdays. And, for the children of Deborah Ellis's ten stories in Step, the milestone day of an 11th birthday brings with it a new opportunity to step. 

 

Each of the ten stories within Step is titled with a single and powerful word.  They are Smash, Alone, Rock, Rubber, Shoes, Ride, Laundry, Free, Nails, and Supper. Some take place in familiar North American settings, like Smash in which Connor takes his sister's rejected and fearful dog for a walk and both see and become something different. Or Ride, in which Aislyn is taken to the county fair by her older sister and deserted to spend time with her boyfriend. But there are other stories that take us to the unfamiliar. In Rubber, Oma and her family are escaping on a rubber raft for Europe, and in Free, a child and her mother and sister leave the gangs and deaths of their homeland to walk days into the land of the free. Perhaps the most disparate in setting is Laundry in which Masud shares a cell with twenty-one men at a prison-like Libyan detention facility. Their cell is a community of unrelated persons who have come together to work as family for everyone. Most unusual is the story of Rock. While its setting will be familiar to young readers, Rock is wholly different in that it includes a supernatural element that links our world with another to highlight a social injustice halfway around the world.

 

From the pen of Deborah Ellis always comes brilliant writing but also profound attention to social justice and the courage of children to step up. This is the same in Step. From neo-Nazis, an inhumane detention center, gang violence, poverty, bullying and those seeking refuge, Deborah Ellis lets young readers see from the perspective of eleven-year-olds who are leaving their childhoods behind and looking at people and places with fresh eyes. For many, that one day of transition from 10 to 11 has given them clarity for flawed family members, for right and wrong, and for their own place.

I love that there has been a resurgence of short story collections, especially themed ones such as Deborah Ellis's latest collection, a companion book to her earlier Sit (2017). In Step, eleven-year-olds are stepping into, stepping up and stepping away. And sometimes doing what is actually another, like Lazlo in Shoes who by stepping away is actually stepping up. These children from around the world are dealing with big issues in their own homes, in their communities and in foreign lands. They must deal with their families, with their peers, with strangers, and with authorities. And each time they must decide what they will do in their steps. They could step back or around. They could do what they might have done at age ten and taken the familiar course. Ah, but they have all just turned eleven. That milestone moves them forward to step differently. These children have come of age, some in common circumstances and some in horrific struggles. Each has stepped into their new maturity in their own way, thinking beyond themselves and instead of others and the greater good. They have attained the wisdom that many of their elders have not.

My Story Starts Here: Voices of Young Offenders

Written by Deborah Ellis

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-121-4

224 pp.

Ages 13+

October 2019

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Deborah Ellis's opening words "There but for the grace of God go I" from John Bradford are prophetic ones that resonate throughout her latest young adult non-fiction book as young offenders, recent and not, and others unmask family histories, criminal offences and misdeeds, judgements and outcomes. They are stories that could be anyone's but these are their own voices, told as they lived or recall, and they deserve to be heard.

Over twenty young people, named only by their first name and age, were interviewed by Deborah Ellis, a process which she explains in her introduction. Their stories include domestic abuse, poverty, addictions, bullying, foster care, loss, mental health struggles and family dysfunction. Their stories are as diverse as the individuals profiled and we learn a lot about each person beyond the crimes that drove them into the criminal justice system. But there are the crimes, from theft to assault, vandalism and arson, and trafficking of drugs and weapons. Still Deborah Ellis gives these young people the opportunity to explain. To explain where they came from, what they were thinking, what they were feeling, and how justice may or may not have been served. Many are hopeful, trying to see beyond their pasts and their pains and their crimes, and make futures for themselves and their families for which they might be proud. They're not perfect, but then none of us are, and some minimize their responsibilities for choices made while others own their decisions and circumstances.

I don't know if I'll ever get rid of the pain I'm carrying. Maybe I can turn it into something not so heavy. (Lindy, 19)

But Deborah Ellis does more than just give voice to these young offenders. She offers background information about anger, foster care, abusive relationships, witnessing abuse, restorative justice and the importance of a high school diploma. In a question accompanying each young offender's story, she makes the reader think about how they might address the issues which these young people have experienced and makes suggestions about how to make things better in her "Taking Steps" sections. Still the best advice often comes from the young people themselves.

That little thing that's in the back of your head, that says, "Don't do this!"? Listen to it the first time. (Beth, 19)

In addition to the twenty plus young people she highlights, Deborah Ellis also gives voice to past offenders and those who work with young offenders–these are each identified as a "Voice of Experience"–and family members of offenders. Their perspectives, from the distance of time and the other side of the justice system and from the heartfelt viewpoint of family, give different frames of reference to the hardships with which these young people have been dealt or are dealing. 

Deborah Ellis has always sought justice in letting those whose voices are rarely heard speak freely. From Three Wishes (2004) and Off to War (2008) to Kids of Kabul (2011) as well as Looks Like Daylight (2013), Deborah Ellis has let us hear what Palestinian and Israeli children, children affected by AIDS, soldiers' children, Iraqi refugees, and Indigenous kids have to say. She holds true what Maya Angelou acknowledges so eloquently in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

With My Story Starts Here, Deborah Ellis has released the untold stories of young offenders and hopefully provided them with another step forward to healing.

Sit

Written by Deborah Ellis

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-086-6

144 pp.

Ages 10-13

October 2017

The premise for Sit is simple.  There are eleven short stories based on chairs and other places upon which the young protagonists sit, rest, work, deliberate, speculate.  Each begins with a name, descriptor of the seat and usually the place.

Jafar was sitting on a work bench in the furniture factory. (pg. 11) 

Miyuki was sitting on a tatami in the evacuation centre. (pg. 72) 

Mike is sitting on his heels on the floor of his cell. (pg. 91)

Except for two scenarios to which the protagonists return in somewhat different settings, each story is unique.  Still all are touching and deeply personal and insightful about the human condition and humanity, all told based on where we sit and why.

The first story, The Singing Chair, is the story of Jafar, a young boy who works in a furniture factory in Jakarta in order to pay off his family's debt.  But his life is more than this because after work he attends a school for working children and he is learning to read and write.  Jafar returns in the final story called The Hope Chair which focuses on the school and the overwhelming hope it gives him to write himself a bigger and better story.

More stories of a contemporary setting but which transport young readers to global locations include an escape from Taliban rule in Afghanistan to an equally reprehensible "safety" (The Hiding Chair) and Miyuki's story of entering the danger zone after the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in order to rescue her mother's donkey (The Glowing Chair).  Still a little different is the story titled The Question Chair in which a Berliner named Gretchen is thrown into intense contemplation about the experiences of the Jewish people and the Germans during World War II after sitting on a toilet at a concentration camp museum outside of Krakow.

Some stories read as more local but of worlds perhaps unknown to many readers and sadly familiar to others. There is the Mennonite community in the aftermath of a horrible tragedy (The Plain Chair) and a prison in which a young man in solitary confinement finds hope from an anonymous source (The Freedom Chair).  Even The Day-off Chair has a little girl on a street bench trying to find calm in her angry world, one in which harm is expected. The Time-Out Chair, represented by the pink chair with dinosaur on the cover, is the chair to which seven-year-old Macie is relegated for her multitude of "sins" but where she finds solace in her imagining of a forest house. The only other stories in which the protagonists are revisited are The Knowing Chair and The War Chair which focus on children in a family in transition.  From a food court table and chairs to a swing outside the neutral location for the family custody switch, Barry and his little sister Sue are pulled along in their parents' conflict. Regrettably this story may be all too familiar to some children.

As very different as the stories are in situation, each is a story with a young person struggling either with others or with themselves in order to survive emotionally and/or physically the trials of their lives.  What they learn of others and themselves in the process of sitting is extraordinary.  For Deborah Ellis's young people, sitting is but a starting point for new life stories.  Given the choice of remaining seated, condemned to a suspended existence, or getting up and moving forward, Deborah Ellis's young people choose life in whatever form is available.

Maybe she would live.  Maybe she would ride a great train of suffering for a long, long time, but there might be one day when that train would stop, and she could have a belly full of food and a face full of sun. (pg. 117)

Trio of youngCanLit authors appointed to the Order of Canada

On December 30, 2016, the Governor General of Canada, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, announced 100 new appointments to the Order of Canada.  I am pleased to recognize and congratulate three youngCanLit authors who were named amongst the honourees.  They are:

Jan Andrews

author of picture books, short stories, fiction and young adult including

The Silent Summer of Kyle McGinley (Great Plains Teen Fiction, 2013)

When Apples Grew Noses and White Horse Flew: The Tales of Ti-Jean (Groundwood, 2011)

Rude Stories (Tundra, 2011)

The Twelve Days of Summer (Orca, 2007)

The Auction (Groundwood, 2007)

Winter of Peril: The Newfoundland Diary of Sophie Loveridge, Mairie's Cove, New-Found-Land 1721 (Scholastic Canada, 2005)

Very Last First Time (Groundwood, 1987)

Deborah Ellis

author of numerous fiction and non-fiction books, including

The Cat at the Wall (Groundwood, 2014)

Moon At Nine (Pajama Press, 2014)

Looks Like Daylight: Voices of Indigenous Kids (Groundwood, 2013)

My Name is Parvana (Groundwood, 2012)

True Blue (Pajama Press, 2011)

No Ordinary Day (Groundwood, 2011)

I am a Taxi (Groundwood, 2006)

The Heaven Shop (Groundwood, 2004)

Parvana's Journey (Groundwood, 2002)

The Breadwinner (Groundwood, 2000)

Jacqueline Guest

author of historical fiction and contemporary fiction including

Fire Fight (Book Publ. Co., 2015)

The Comic Book War (Coteau Books, 2014)

Outcasts of River Falls (Coteau Books, 2012)

Ghost Messages (Coteau Books, 2011)

Hat Trick (Lorimer, 2010)

Secret Signs (Orca, 2006)

Belle of Batoche (Orca, 2004)

Lightning Rider (Lorimer, 2000)

Author Event: Deborah Ellis (online)

On Friday, September 19, 2014

at 1 p.m. EST

youngCanLit author 

Deborah Ellis 

will be hosting an 

Ask Me Anything (AMA)

thread on

To participate

set up an account at reddit.com (it's free)

Then, at the designated time and date, 

go to

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA 

You can:

• ask questions

• upvote favourite questions that you see

• read answers

With over 20 outstanding books of fiction and non-fiction for young readers, including

The Cat at the Wall 

(Groundwood, 2014)

Moon At Nine

 (Pajama Press, 2014)

Looks Like Daylight: Voices of Indigenous Kids

(Groundwood, 2013)

No Ordinary Day

(Groundwood, 2011)

The Breadwinner

(Groundwood, 2000)

Deborah Ellis will certainly inspire great discussions about her writing and important social justice issues.

Don't miss this great opportunity to speak to one of Canada's award-winning authors for young people!

The Cat at the Wall

Written by Deborah Ellis

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-491-6

154 pp.

Ages 8-12

For release September, 2014

Many people believe that we are each put on this earth for a specific purpose: to love, to suffer, to teach, to battle, to learn humility, to help others find their voices.  But, if one is placed here to learn a lesson that doesn't get learned, the consequence might be reincarnation to try again. I suspect that's why thirteen year old Clare from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania has returned as a scrawny cat in Bethlehem on the West Bank. And judging by her attitude, she still has a lot to learn.

Clare the cat becomes immersed in a situation in the West Bank that has her reflecting on the circumstances that led to her death and her return as a feline struggling for food and shelter and avoiding skirmishes with other cats, including the king tom and his bunch.  Her past human life and current feline existence are told in parallel lines, allowing comparisons between her role in her own demise and in helping to resolve a conflict in which she is essentially an observer.

After being chased from the wall at a checkpoint from the West Bank to Israel, the cat sneaks into a small house when two Israeli soldiers break in, planning on setting up a surveillance on another residence.  Happy for the safety, shelter and opportunities for food and the occasional scratch, the cat makes herself quite at home, even creating some of the same mischief she enjoyed in her previous life.

When she exposes a young boy hidden under a toy city constructed of boxes and cans and other garbage, the two soldiers first restrain him as a potential threat before coming to his aid with an inhaler for his asthma and food. Sadly, the two Israelis do not understand the child as he chants and rocks himself back and forth.  However, Clare the cat has the distinct ability to understand all languages spoken by humans and animals and recognizes the boy's repetitious murmurings as the famous poem Desiderata by Max Ehrmann (1927), words that she despises because of their negative association with a teacher, Ms. Sealand, whom Clare blames for her death.  Aaron, the more seasoned soldier, a commander from Tel Aviv, is more intuitive about the boy than Simcha, the gun-happy young American private who came looking for a chance to fight and who is suspicious of everything including the scared little boy.  Even while they wonder about the young boy's family, Aaron is able to empathize with the youngster, seeming him as vulnerable and as scared as any of them.

Meanwhile, the cat watches and judges all those around her: Aaron, Simcha, the boy, and others who later become players in the situation, all the while recalling events involving her younger sister Polly, her parents, Ms. Sealand (rudely called Ms. Zero)–everyone.  Her own refrain seems to be "Not my fault.  Not my problem." (pg. 24), acknowledging that "Being kind doesn't lead to anything good." (pg. 63) 

But even the cat (who understands all linguistically) could never have imagined that the life lessons shared with her before she'd died as a thirteen-year-old girl would be others' salvation.  Not that Deborah Ellis ever writes anything that contrived or convenient.  Clare the cat doesn't just, bang, recognize how she can help resolve conflicts; Clare the girl never did.  The cat is still essentially the brash female who absolves herself of any responsibility for the consequences her actions bring about.  It's almost impossible for her to look beyond herself, to see the big picture, the context in which she experiences life.  That is, until she realizes she must do something quite extraordinary.

The concept of karma is well-illustrated in The Cat at the Wall, as is the idea of a purposeful life. But Deborah Ellis does not belabour these themes to teach responsibility or gratitude.  She simply tells an extraordinary story of conflicts that can spiral out of control and be resolved by adherence to some simple truths. The Cat at the Wall is a touching allegory that should remind us all to live a life of goodness and honesty.  It will be well worth it in the end.

<><>><><><><><><><><><<><><><>

Here, for context, is Max Erhmann's famous poem:

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and 

remember what peace there may be in 

silence. As far as possible without surrender 

be on good terms with all persons. 

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen

to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too 

have their story. 

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are 

vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself

with others, you may become vain and bitter;

for always there will be greater and lesser 

persons than yourself. 

Enjoy your achievements as well as your 

plans. Keep interested in your own career, 

however humble; it is a real possession in the

changing fortunes of time. 

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for 

the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind

you to what virtue there is; many persons

strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is

full of heroism. 

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. 

Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of

all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as

the grass. 

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth. 

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in

sudden misfortune. But do not distress

yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are

born of fatigue and loneliness. 

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with

yourself. You are a child of the universe, no

less than the trees and the stars; you have a

right to be here. And whether or not it is clear

to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it

should. 

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever

you conceive Him to be, and whatever your

labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion

of life keep peace with your soul. With all its

sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still

a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

 © Max Ehrmann 1927

Moon at Nine

by Deborah Ellis

Pajama Press

978-1927485576

224 pp.

Ages 14+

For release April 2014

When the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979 and an Islamic republic ruled by the Ayatollah was established, it was initially seen by many as replacing an extravagant, secular, westernized regime with one based in Shia faith and clerical rule, albeit with an anti-Western sentiment.  But for a fifteen-year-old girl, Farrin, it means being extremely cautious about revealing her wealthy family's support of the Shah and her own enjoyment of American television and creative writing.  Though Farrin doesn't approve of her mother's parties with excessive food and prohibited drink, music, dancing and cigarettes, knowing that many Iranians were suffering, she worries for their safety should the Revolutionary Guard learn of their indiscretions.

Attending a school for gifted girls (transformed from one for wealthy families only), Farrin meets a new student, Sadira, who has been out of school caring for her father after the rest of her family was killed in a bombing.  Because Sadira's father, a cleric, had been imprisoned and tortured by the Shah's secret police, Farrin is apprehensive about sharing her family with Sadira, though she is drawn to Sadira's compassion and fearlessness, and her pro-woman views.

"...your girls need to go to school.  Men have run this world long enough, and they have made a mess of it." (pg. 65)

Recreating themselves as the "Demon-hunting Girls of Iran" (pg. 84) in keeping with Farrin's forbidden allegory about a girl fighting Iranian demons and beginning to feel the power of their friendship, the two girls make a pact that they would look at the moon at nine o'clock nightly so they could be together in spirit if not physically.

A visit to the Tomb of Hafez, the great Persian poet, and partaking in faal-e Hafez (fortune-telling based on randomly-selected text in the book of Hafez) intimates the course of Farrin and Sadira's relationship.

"No death invades a heart that comes alive in love:
Our immortality is etched in the book of life." (pg. 118)

While Farrin revels in the realization that she is in love with Sadira, their world begins to implode, with school spies informing on them, angry parents vowing to arrange marriages for each girl, and the Revolutionary Guard arresting them for deviancy.  Yet, through ensuing lies, interrogations, threats, assaults and imprisonment, Farrin and Sadira still have their Moon at Nine and the hope that they will be together again.

Deborah Ellis is Canada's most modest and accomplished author of social justice stories for young people, and Moon at Nine can be added to that auspicious collection.  Based on a true story, the girls' relationship in Moon at Nine is personal and precious but never explicit, unlike the merciless response of others to it.  Prohibited love may be ill-fated, but in the 1980s Iran of secrets, surveillance and suppression,  it was perilous.  Still, in Moon at Nine, Deborah Ellis thoughtfully embeds a sliver of chaste love into that dispiriting world and, without contriving an unrealistic happy ending, offers a glimmer of possibility.

Looks Like Daylight: Voices of Indigenous Kids

by Deborah Ellis

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-120-5

256 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2013

Looks Like Daylight would appear, on the surface, to be the stories of 45 young people who were interviewed by Deborah Ellis about their lives, their aspirations, their ancestry, their cultures. But the book is so much more than just the profiles of these kids, ages 9 to 18.  It is a history of rich cultures, often assimilated or obliterated, of neglect and abuse, of poverty and ostracism, of fortitude and determination, of work and pride.  It's a comprehensive and moving portrayal of young people whose voices many of us never hear.  This is our chance to listen.

An expressive introduction by Loriene Roy, university professor and director of a national reading club for American Indian students, is followed by the narrative profiles of the youth with whom Deborah Ellis visited, interspersed with a selection of quotes by prominent Aboriginal leaders.  The author begins each narrative with relevant background information regarding historical events, statistics, nations, distinctions, and details which may provide insight into the kids' stories. The kids belong to a wide variety of nations including Ojibwe, Nipissing, Navajo, Pueblo, Inuit, Haida Gwaii, Mi'kmaq, Mohawk, Cree, Lakota, Cherokee, Choctaw, Coast Salish, and Métis, and identify themselves according to their parents' and grandparents' heritage.  With forty-five narratives, the wealth of information provided is comprehensive.

Some of the stories in Looks Like Daylight deal with racism, foster care, art, self-esteem, traditions, pollution, alcoholism, residential schools, activism, science, language, environmentalism, leadership, gangs, armed forces, horses, suicide, sports, powwows–the list goes on and on.  But each narrative ends with the future as the young person sees it–often hopeful, always realistic, sometimes heavyhearted.  Regardless, these kids are the bright lights in that dark history of First Peoples, a history these young people inherited. "We're a very hurting people." (pg. 95) But most of them look forward to a future of making a difference and making things right.  As Jeffrey, 18, declares,

"It's a big responsibility, but it's no bigger than what our ancestors did for us.  And what we do, we do for the Native youth who will follow us, seven generations from now.  It's on us now." (pg. 144)

Looks Like Daylight should be required reading for every government agency in North America, for every teacher and administrator involved with young people, for every law enforcement and justice officer, for social workers, for historians, for urban planners, for granting agencies, for medical personnel–for anyone whose life takes them into interactions with others, Indigenous or other.  With a wealth of additional resources, Deborah Ellis ensures that readers get the big picture.

The people in the government who make decisions for us have no idea who First Nations people really are.  They have no clue.  They lump us all together.  They think we're all the same.  ~ Waasekom (pg. 243)

It provides a compendium of history and insight into the lives of First Nations, Métis, Inuit and Native American youth, as raw and hopeful and tragic and rich as they may be.  In bringing the reality of  these Aboriginal young people up close, bruises and beauty, this may be Deborah Ellis' finest work.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

All royalties from the sale of this book go to the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada.

2012 Notable Children's Books

The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division within the American Library Association announced its 2012 Notable Children's Books on January 22, 2012 at the ALA's Midwinter Meeting in Dallas.  For the committee, the term "notable" is used to refer to a book that is...

...worthy of note or notice, important, distinguished, outstanding.  As applied to children's books, notable should be thought to include books of especially commendable quality, books that exhibit venturesome creativity, and books of fiction, information, poetry and pictures for all age levels (birth through age 14) that reflect and encourage children's interests in exemplary ways.

Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/notalists/ncb on January 25, 2012

 The final (but uncorrected) list, posted at the ALSC website, is lengthy and the reader can peruse it at his/her leisure.  However, I would like to note those Canadian books that made the list, bolding the Canadian author or illustrator or publisher. Congratulations to all of you for creating outstanding literature for our children.

Notables for Younger Children
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen  Published by Candlewick Press

Notables for Middle Readers

Migrant by Maxine Trottier and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault  Published by Groundwood Books

No Ordinary Day by Deborah Ellis  Published by Groundwood Books  

Notables for Older Readers

Queen of Hearts by Martha Brooks  Published by Farrar Straus Giroux (from Groundwood Books) 

Sita's Ramayana by Samhita Arni and illustrated by Moyna Chitrakar   Published by Groundwood Books

Stones for My Father by Trilby Kent  Published by Tundra Books

Deborah Ellis' "No Ordinary Day": Theme for Write/Right to Read contest

 

Having recently (November 7, 2011) reviewed Deb Ellis' No Ordinary Day (Groundwood, 2011) and recognizing its valuable contribution to children's understanding of poverty and global issues, I was thrilled to see that World Literacy Canada's annual writing contest for children in Grades 4-6 is using Ellis' book as the basis for this year's contest.

Contest details and entry forms are available at Write/Right to Read contest here

No Ordinary Day

by Deborah Ellis
Groundwood Books
978-1-55498-108-3
159 pp.
Ages 9-12
2011

An ordinary day for Valli in Jharia, India would be collecting coal, living with her aunt's family, being hungry and being treated like nothing.  But her ordinary days are no more when she fortuitously learns that her aunt is not family and so Valli, having no reason to remain in Jharia, stows away in a coal truck.

Reaching Kolkata,  Valli is taken to Mrs. Mukerjee's where she is given food and shelter, until her burned but painless feet and white-patched skin are revealed.  Thrown out, Valli begins a new life on the streets, guided by the wisdom of an elderly man who encourages her to see herself as rich and to do something great.  So, scrounging for food and money, sleeping where she might, stealing as she needs, and sharing what she can, Valli persists in her "adventure" until meeting the kindly Dr. Indra.  Beyond identifying Valli's condition as Hansen's Disease (leprosy) and offering to treat her at her clinic, Dr. Indra provides the young girl with the regard and appreciation she deserves for her will to learn and to survive.


Though Deb Ellis has donated royalties from this book to "The Leprosy Mission", Valli's story is more than a vehicle for educating the reader about this disease (although I learned much).  It's a social treatise on the impact of poverty, gender inequality and disease in determining the futures of youth in countries such as India.  Valli's story, though heart-breaking, has a happy ending, which is probably not the outcome of most true stories such as this.  By depicting Valli's disease only tangentially to her story of survival, Ellis has made young readers aware of lives of tragedy, perhaps compelling them to learn more and to act, rather than to cause them despair.

True Blue

Written by Deborah Ellis

Pajama Press

978-0-9869495-0-0

229 pp.

Ages 11-14

2011

Coulda,Shoulda,Woulda. That could be Jess’ catchphrase, especially when it comes to the choices she makes with respect to her best friend, Casey White, a.k.a. Praying Mantis:  fellow camp counselor at Ten Willows; budding entomologist; soon-to-be youngest field assistant at 4-month research stint in Australia working with the True Blue beetle; and alleged murderer. 

Jess’ mantra should be revised to Coulda,Shoulda,Woulda,Did because when Casey is arrested for the murder of eight-year-old camper/bully/thief Stephanie Glass, Jess doesn’t act like the BBF everyone believes she is.  While Casey sits in jail and continues to write letters to Jess, affectionately nicknamed Dragonfly, Jess is fighting incessantly with her mom (whose bipolar disorder has pushed her to manically fight for Casey’s innocence); latching onto new friends (the popular but insubstantial Amber and Nathan et al.); waking nightly at 2 a.m. to cycle to the camp and through neighbourhoods of their small town; and making decisions (always justifiably) that seem contrary to those of a best friend.

The mystery of Stephanie’s death, as well as that of Jess’ inexplicably unsympathetic actions, compels the reader on, but the answers are not necessarily gratifying.  And that’s because the notion of coulda,shoulda,woulda is a foible of human nature that cannot be answered with a “because…”  It simply allows the reader the chance to speculate with a “perhaps?”  A feel-good ending will not be read here, but an insightful exposé of one friendship, seen as true-blue, is open for scrutiny.

Many reviewers speak of True Blue as a departure for Deb Ellis from her issues-driven books such as The Breadwinner, Parvana’s Journey, and I am a Taxi, set in developing countries.  But I see True Blue as a furtherance of Ellis’ writing into the behaviours of young people when faced with hardships (whether physical or emotional) in order to cope or even survive.  The choices may not always be the best, in the eyes of the reader or an adult, but they are adopted and their consequences endured or embraced.  Ellis has created a real story about young people we may know and given us much to ponder about choices made. Brilliant.