Heart of a Champion: Book launch (Burnaby, BC)

Join

Ellen Schwartz

author of 

for the launch of her newest
middle-grade novel!

Join her and publisher

Tundra Books

an imprint of Penguin Random House

for the launch of

Heart of a Champion

by Ellen Schwartz

Tundra Books

978-1-77049-880-8

257 pp.

Ages 9-12

March, 2016

on

Sunday, March 13, 2016

2 p.m. (PST)

at

Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre

6688 Southoaks Crescent

Burnaby, BC

The book is described as follows on the Penguin Random House web page for the book:

Ten-year-old Kenny (Kenji in Japanese) worships his older brother, Mickey (Mitsuo), a baseball hero whose outstanding performance on the Asahi baseball team has given him fame and popularity. Despite Kenny's suspected heart condition, he is determined to practice secretly with Mickey so he, too, can one day try out for the Asahi. But world events soon overtake life in this quiet community. When Japan attacks Pearl Harbor in 1941, everything for Kenny and his family spirals out of control: schools are closed, businesses are confiscated, fathers are arrested and sent to work camps in the BC interior and mothers and children are relocated to internment camps. When Mickey is arrested for a small act of violence, Kenny manages to keep his family's spirits up, despite the deplorable conditions in camp. Coming across a "vacant" field covered with scrap wood, broken shakes and torn tar paper, Kenny gets permission to clear it and convert it into a baseball field. One by one, the boys in the camp pitch in, and the work gives purpose to their long days. Kenny's persistence, hard work and big dreams shape the teen he is to become in this story of happiness found despite all odds.

Retrieved from http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/250703/heart-champion#9781770498822 on February 20, 2016.

The Case of the Missing Deed

by Ellen Schwartz
Tundra Books
978-0-88776-959-7
189 pp.
Ages 8-12
2011

In mystery writing, the cozy is a sub genre that emphasizes characters with amateur detective skills and the depiction of no or little violence or sex.  The Case of the Missing Deed, which appears to be the first in a series called Teaspoon Detectives, is surely a cozy, with five cousins helping locate the deed to their grandmother's cottage before Tantalus Mining acquires it and other properties on Otter Island to excavate a tantalum mine within the island's Pacific Northwest beauty.

The five cousins, from Victoria and Vancouver, have come to spend their holidays with their Grandma who, recently widowed, cannot locate the deed to her home, and seems emotionally unprepared to pursue it.  Luckily her grandchildren (Sébastien, Geneviève, Claire, Alex and Olivia) are determined to decipher the riddles and clues their Grandpa left on recipes and various objects on the island.  So while sharing a number of great recipes (Emergency Fudge, Muriel's Berry Pandowdy, Chocolate Cinnamon Sparkle Cookies, etc.), decoding a cryptic message, and still having fun at the cottage, the kids bring this cozy to a fitting conclusion.  Of course, because this is a cozy (defined by the warm feeling with which the reader is left), the deed will be located, the bad guys will get their just rewards, and all loose ends will be resolved.  

Even at 189 pages, this is a light read, with few subplots or issues to complicate the mystery, although some obvious red herrings were included.  Young readers will enjoy the straightforward plot but appreciate the recipes and complicated codes that challenge them.  But, it is hoped that Schwartz will share more of her characters with her readers in subsequent books in this series as she has the basis for a rich and varied group of Teaspoon Detectives here.