Two Times a Traitor

Written by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-031-4

240 pp.

Ages 9-12

May 2017 (Canada), August 2017 (US)

Selected as a Junior Library Guild Selection, Two Times a Traitor may seem a departure for award-winning author of historical fiction, Karen Bass, who won the Geoffrey Bilson Award for her books Graffiti Knight (Pajama Press, 2013) and Uncertain Soldier (Pajama Press, 2015) in consecutive years.  But, Karen Bass knows how to seamlessly weave a bit of the unexpected into her fiction, as she did in her suspenseful The Hill (Pajama Press, 2016), and as she does in Two Times a Traitor which blends a contemporary setting with Canada's past in Louisbourg 1745 through the use of time slip.

Twelve-year-old Lazare Berenger is still angry with his father who moved the family from Ottawa to Boston while Laz was visiting his Grandmère's farm in New Brunswick the previous summer.  And now, when he'd been saving up for a parkour camp for spring break, Laz is with his parents and younger sister Emeline visiting Halifax.  With every new suggestion of his father, Lazare is reeling with anger so, while visiting the Citadel, Laz takes off on his own.

The air seemed to push against Laz, as if it didn't want him to return down the tunnel.  Something strange was happening, but he didn't know if it was this chamber, the whole tunnel, or if he'd had too much bacon for lunch.  He took a deep breath and his lungs refused to fill. (pg. 19)

When he knocks himself out, he awakens in an unfamiliar landscape of pirate-looking men at bonfires on shore, old-time sailing ships moored in the bay and a man with a sword taking him to Captain Hawkins on the ship called the Constance.  Believing it's all a role play as boot camp punishment from his father, he spouts off about 2017 and more, leading the captain to believe he is pretending madness to distract them from recognizing him as an Acadian in league with the French at Louisbourg.  His clothes, which might conceal weapons, are taken away, as is his grandmother's St. Christopher medal ("Papist witchery"; pg. 38) and he is put in fetters.  Ben, a young boy who has been apprenticed to the Constance, befriends him and Laz learns that it truly is 1745 and they are transporting militia to Canso to fight King George's War against the French.

With a militiaman named Cooper seeking retribution on "Master Berenger" and Commander Pepperell, the commander of the expedition, ready to hang Laz for treason, the boy is put to work alongside the militia and then blackmailed–he is convinced his medal is the means to getting back to the future– into going into Louisbourg as a spy to seed doubt and do mischief.  Under the guise of a farm boy warning the French of an incoming barrage of British ships, Laz is welcomed into Louisbourg, becoming the messenger of Port Commander Pierre Morpain, a man who treats Laz as the boy wishes his own father would.  As Laz builds a new family amongst the residents of Louisbourg, he is haunted by his need to fulfill his obligation to the British if he is ever to return to his true family and life in 2017.

Privileged Laz may think his life with his father is impossible but, after facing treason charges twice, once by the British and later with the French after he sabotages their gun powder, he realizes how easy life has been.  Still he wonders about remaining in the past, one in which Morpain keeps him safe and shows him deep affection and respect and Laz has a purposeful life which, though dangerous and unpredictable, feels like home.

While taking the reader into both sides of the 1745 siege of Louisbourg, Karen Bass makes sure that Two Times a Traitor is about Laz recognizing what home is to him.  He may have been angry with the move to Boston but he soon realizes that what matters are the people.  It's evident he adores his sister and is determined to get home for her but he has some qualms when Louisbourg starts to feel like home too.  But before he can make the decision about where he belongs, he has to stay alive. With both sides believing him to be a traitor and an angry militiaman out to kill him, not to speak of the cannon balls, mortar and muskets and bayonets, safety is a commodity in short supply. Readers will adore the action adventure story of  Two Times a Traitor but its story of historical events is extraordinary and not to be relegated to second place. Karen Bass does comprehensive research, providing astounding detail to setting and characters, plunging readers into the fray that was war.  By allowing Laz to be part of both sides and emphasizing his confusion about which side to favour, Karen Bass allows readers to see the conflict from different perspectives and takes history away from the one-sidedness of most textbooks. Moreover, she allows us to see that conflict, whether personal or historical, always has two sides that need to be seen.  Resolution may be amicable or there may be victors and those defeated, but how it plays out is all about point of view.

The Hill

by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-002-4

256 pp.

Ages 12+

March 2016

Karen Bass, the award-winning author of Graffiti Knight (Pajama Press, 2013) and Uncertain Soldier (Pajama Press, 2015), takes writing flight with The Hill, a chilling tale of endurance in northern Alberta, blending a survival story with the supernatural of Cree legends.  It’s hauntingly gripping YA and I think it's her best story yet.

Privileged Jared Frederickson is going to spend a mandatory three weeks with his dad when his dad’s private plane in which the teen is travelling from Edmonton to Yellowknife crashes in a mosquito-infested swamp in the northern Alberta bush.  He and the unconscious pilot are discovered by Cree teen, Kyle Badger, who was nearby at their moose camp with his Kokum (grandmother), Moshum (grandfather) and little brother Sam.   Jared and Kyle, both fifteen, are so different in their attitudes, physiques, and family that it’s not surprising that they disagree as to the best course of action.  Sadly, Jared is determined that if he climbs to the top of the adjacent hill he could get cell reception and call for help.  Though Kyle thinks they should stay at the accident scene, especially since his Kokum had always warned him that “no Cree, no person evers walks on that hill” (pg. 20), he follows Jared knowing that his Kokum would be ashamed of him for not helping the boy.

So begins a treacherous journey both onto the ominous hill and into the supernatural world.  After a night on the hill where, of course, cell reception is non-existent, the two return via Kyle’s notched-tree path to the swamp where everything is different: the jet is gone, the mosquitoes are gone, the swamp is smaller as in drier years, and there is a forest fire in the area.  Kyle is obviously freaked out–“Sometimes scared is the smartest thing you can be” (pg. 29)–though Jared, with his better-than-anyone attitude, ridicules Kyle for not knowing where they are.  Returning to the moose camp, the two see Kyle’s Kokum, as if behind a grey curtain of fog, praying for him and then warning them to run.  Kyle believes that they’ve entered the spirit world and, based on the stories he’s been told, that they’ve woken up Wîhtiko, the monster of Cree legends who craves human flesh.

The two boys must now work together, no easy feat for a spoiled rich kid who’d always gotten his way and knows nothing of the outdoors and for a hulky First Nations teen who refuses, admirably, to be a lackey to anyone but learned well from his grandparents of respect and integrity and perseverance.  Outrunning Wîhtiko is just the beginning of their foray into the supernatural world and one which they must survive if they are able to return safely to their own corporeal one without bringing harm to others.

In addition to a gripping action-rich plot of frightening circumstances, getting the voices of Jared and Kyle and the tone of the story right are Karen Bass’ greatest strengths in The Hill.  She balances the heart-pumping pace of a looking-over-your-shoulder chase with the antagonistic sparring between Jared and Kyle.  The two are so different in what they have, what they know, and who they are that it’s only fate in the form of a plane crash that could bring the two together. Though it is evident that Kyle has much to offer in the way of outdoors experience and familial grounding, Jared learns that he too has some value and can be integral in their escape.  Fortunately for them, and those who read this story, Karen Bass demonstrates that even the most of awkward of allies can achieve great things when they work together, whether it is to outsmart a blood-thirsty monster or finding your way home.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Tomorrow 

April 12, 2016

from 7-8:30 p.m.

author Karen Bass

will be reading and signing copies of

The Hill 

at 

Owl’s Nest Books 

815A 49 Ave SW

Calgary, AB 

(403) 287-9557

 It's a great opportunity to get a signed copy and hear a reading of The Hill from the author who made it so frightening.

Uncertain Soldier

by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-72-9

288 pp.

Ages 12+

April 2015

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing the attempt. 

- William Shakespeare, from Measure for Measure, 1.4.

If there’s any message that you can take from the latest young adult book of historical fiction from award-winning author of Graffiti Knight (Pajama Press, 2013) Karen Bass is that it isn’t always easy tell who your friends or enemies are, and even more so during wartime.  And the two young men whose stories are told within Uncertain Soldier, 17-year-old German soldier Erich Hofmeyer and 12-year-old Max Schmidt of Horley, Alberta, find themselves navigating uncertain paths as they attempt to survive as Germans in Canada during World War II.

After his German ship is sunk in the North Atlantic in 1943, Erich is sent to a prisoner-of-war camp near Lethbridge.  As decent as the Canadians seem to be, the camp is run by the German prisoners and specifically high-ranking Nazis.  Because he is reluctant to use his command of the English language to spy for the other German prisoners, Erich is suspected of disloyalty to the Fatherland and repeatedly assaulted in camp.  A consequent hospitalization leads to his removal voluntarily, and that of his bunkmate Johann Nikel, to the logging camp of Henry Lane in northern Alberta.  There, ten Germans deemed not to be pro-Nazi, join Canadian lumberjacks to bring down trees and work the sawmill.  Sadly, but not necessarily surprising, Erich must still endure the prejudice and abuse of other logging camp residents, both German and Canadian, and outsiders,  as well as in the local community of Horley.

Meanwhile, the story’s other protagonist, Max Schmidt, son of a German immigrant farmer, cannot seem to appease his father, who chastizes the boy for not standing up for himself and his heritage, and his peers who bully him with vicious taunts and regular beatings, and locals who look down their noses at his family.  His only respite comes when he runs errands to the logging camp where he is treated kindly by the Lanes and meets Erich with whom he becomes friends.

Though the two young men differ in their ages by five significant years–uncommon for lead characters and friends in youngCanLit–Karen Bass capably creates a friendship based in adversity and support that spans the years, experience and even birthplace.  Max and Erich are very different Germans but their hardships are monumental and the brutality they must endure because of their heritage is beyond wrong.  Each is a prisoner to their fears and the fears of others, challenging their loyalty in every direction.

A book like Uncertain Soldier does not go down easily.  It burns in your throat with the rising bile of injustice and cowardice and the horrors of prejudice inflicted in war and out.  It churns in your gut and then sits like a heavy meal of reality and history.  Sometimes getting beyond that all is tough.  Karen Bass again, as she did in Graffiti Knight, examines an ill-fated part of our history (her author’s note is an especially enlightening and valuable read) and textures it with humanity that makes it a touching story of distressing times.  Uncertain Soldier will blow the historical fiction award juries away with its power.

Albertan YoungCanLit Author Trio: Author Event (Edmonton)

Mark February 8th on your calendar

if you live in the Edmonton area 

because

you're fortunate to have

not one,

not two,

but

three youngCanLit authors

 

Karen Bass, Marty Chan, and Karen Spafford-Fitz

visiting

Chapters at West Edmonton Mall

from 12 p. m. to 4 p. m.

Check out some of their books below, including their latest (always far left book cover).

 
Karen Bass

• Graffiti Knight (Pajama Press)
• Drummer Girl (Coteau)
  
• Summer of Fire (Coteau)

Marty Chan

• The Ehrich Weisz Chronicles: Demon Gate (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)
• Barnabas Bigfoot: Bone Eater (Thistledown Press)
• The Mystery of the Cyber Bully (Thistledown Press)
  

Karen Spafford-Fitz

 

• Vanish (Orca Book Publishers)
• Dog Walker (Orca Book Publishers)

Further details about the event can be found here.

Graffiti Knight

by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-53-8

288 pp.

Ages 12+

August, 2013

Many books of historical fiction focus on the atrocities and hardships of war time but few examine the aftermath of war, especially for civilians in the defeated countries.  Children's fiction and non-fiction of life in Nazi Germany abound, particularly for those who were victimized by the Nazis.  But, after Germany's surrender in 1945, its lands were divided between four occupation zones administered by the British, Americans, French and Soviets, as well as having certain lands inhabited by Germans recovered by Poland and Czechoslovakia. This is the story of Wilhelm Tauber and his family and friends as they endure life in the town of Leipzig in the Soviet-controlled sector of Germany.

Wilhelm, who prefers to be called Wilm, as he perennially tells his father, has much that angers him about Leipzig's current circumstances.  His father, who returned from war without one leg, is bitter about his loss and limited opportunities, and is regularly antagonistic to Wilm. His mother works as much as she can to help provide for the family.  His older sister, Anneliese, spends much of her time in her room, except when she goes to work, dressed in boy's clothing.  His friend, Georg, whose father died in the war, is essentially starving.  His friend, Karl, has a father who was taken to a POW camp but he knows nothing else of his fate.  And school is tedium for Wilm, doing well in math but only when applicable to real life.  But the harassment of the Schupos, the German police under Soviet control, and the Soviets themselves, have created a prison for all in Leipzig, restricting their movements, their food, their opinions–all their freedoms–and evoking fear, compliance and silence.  But nothing can compare to the anger Wilm experiences when he learns that Anneliese was raped by four Soviet soldiers at the train station where she went to meet her boyfriend, Ernst Weber, who promptly dropped her because she was no longer "untouched".

The game that Wilm, Karl and Georg regularly played, spying on the Schupos, pretending to be behind enemy lines and collecting intelligence for the Americans, becomes more real after Wilm begins taking chances to humiliate the Schupos and the Soviets, starting with the slashing of tires on several Soviet vans.  An older man, Otto Steinhauer, an engineer contracted to inspect bridges, intercedes when Karl and Wilm begin fighting over Wilm's negligence.  Soon Otto becomes a mentor to Wilm teaching him about bridges, math and engineering, as well as talking with him about Wilm's father, dealing with those in authority, and trust.

With the continued hostilities from the Soviets and the Schupos, including that of Anneliese's ex-boyfriend, Ernst, now a Schupo, Wilm feels compelled to escalate his attacks, becoming known as the Marionette Wolverine for the stickman puppet graffiti he leaves as his mark. But Wilm's resolve to get an innocent Georg released from jail has him questioning his own motives and actions, particularly after a final explosive act forces him to flee Leipzig, with friends and family in tow.  What begins as civil disobedience in search of justice becomes a harrowing escape, jeopardizing the lives of all for whom he cares.

Karen Bass' thorough research, as she describes in her Historical Notes at the back of the book, provides the authentic background for Graffiti Knight, challenging all that readers might think they know about Nazi Germany and its aftermath.  While all will see the Nazis as the criminals to humanity, we often forget that for others, the Soviets were just as barbaric to their victims, using some different means to oppress.  By seeing Leipzig and other parts of Germany through the eyes of a young man of sixteen, who lives through World War II but experiences further injustice in its aftermath, when so many were celebrating victory, Karen Bass provides enlightenment via a new perspective.  Heroes are not just made in war.  Courage and compassion, the virtues of heroes anywhere and anytime, can make a knight out of anyone, even Wilm.