The Stone Rainbow

Written by Liane Shaw

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-108-4

272 pp.

Ages 13-18

September 2019

Liane Shaw introduced her characters Ryan and Jack to YA audiences in her novel Caterpillars Can't Swim (Second Story Press, 2017), telling the origin story of their accidental friendship and Jack's acceptance of his sexuality. Though only a handful of others in his life, including his mom, Ryan's mom. Ryan's friend Cody and Jack's counselor Matthew, know that Jack is gay, he has capitulated that expressing that sexuality in the small town of Thompson Mills is unlikely.

This town is so small that being different usually means you're flying solo. (pg. 61)

In The Stone Rainbow, Jack meets the new guy at school, Benjamin Lee, and Jack is smitten. The new vice-principal's son is beautiful and kind and Jack doesn't know what to do. He's used to hiding in his "caterpillar camouflage" (pg. 8) and now the idea of putting himself out there, expressing his interest in anyone, especially a young man who may or may not reciprocate that interest, is terrifying.  Staying a caterpillar, on the other hand, is familiar, even if stifling.

Benjamin, on the other hand, is not willing to stay in the closet. When they are assigned an art project that reflects something of social and personal significance, he creates a massive rainbow of coloured stones on plywood. He honours and celebrates the LGBTQ+ community with the myriad of messages on the stones that reflect the rainbow's symbolism. Though Benjamin is pretty much out, his art project rouses all the nastiness that Jack had already witnessed in his town. But when Benjamin is attacked, Jack decides to focus on something positive that might help Benjamin as well: a Pride parade. Fortunately, Jack discovers that there's a whole lot more support for him and Benjamin and a Pride event than he could ever have imagined.

Though The Stone Rainbow is a story of acceptance of self and others, it is also a tragic story that depicts the reality for those who may be perceived as different. There is violence and hate and masks. Jack knows what it is to come out–as he did to his mother in Caterpillars Can't Swim–so he still feels compelled to hide his sexuality from his peers and others, fearing their reactions, and shielding his true self and expression of that self. Even with supports from Ryan and others, it's not until Jack meets Benjamin that he is able to shed that chrysalis to reveal the butterfly he was meant to be. It is both "terrifying and wonderful" (pg. 239) and Jack recognizes he "could be as beautiful as I want to be because no one cares if a butterfly is a boy or a girl. It's just a pretty part of nature that everyone accepts." (pg. 242)

With her diverse cast of characters, Liane Shaw demonstrates that differences make a community richer, though there are the unenlightened who still need to learn this lesson in compassion and tolerance. If The Stone Rainbow teaches us anything it's that it's the blending of all into a spectacular prism of life that makes our world complete and beautiful.

If everyone just decides to treat everyone else with kindness, it all goes away. Intolerance, disrespect, racism, homophobia, misogyny, bullying, and all the other horrible words we've had to invent to find a way to label the endless crap people seem to feel the need to throw at each other...all wiped out by one simple command. Be kind. (pg. 214)

Caterpillars Can't Swim

Written by Liane Shaw
Second Story Press
978-1-77260-053-7
256 pp.
Ages 13-18
September 2017

Though sixteen-year-old Ryan Malloy is often treated differently in his small town due to his use of a wheelchair, everything is right with the world when he is swimming.  Because he’s up early even on days when he hasn’t got swim team practice, Ryan witnesses someone disappearing beneath the surface of their local river.  Throwing himself off the bridge, ultimately injuring his shoulder, Ryan saves a school mate, Jack Pedersen, from drowning.  But did Ryan really help Jack out?  When small-town gossip and rumours about Jack’s sexuality and the bullying he endures because of it brings Ryan to Jack’s defense and side repeatedly, the two develop a tenuous friendship.

Not that I'm saying everyone here is like that.  They aren't.  It's just that it seems like this town is frozen in time and a lot of attitudes around here are stuck in the ice.  My mother says she spends a lot of her time at school working on thawing out the attitudes of the kids so that someday things will be different.
   I don't think it's working yet. (pg. 10)

Although Ryan’s best friend Cody is somewhat awkward about Jack and about Ryan’s new relationship with him, the three boys’ embark on a summer trip to a local ComicCon.  During those two days, much is revealed about the teens’ fears, attitudes and confusion about each other but also exposed are the hurts, judgments and burdens they all carry, regardless of the limitations or strengths others perceive them to have.  Whether their relationships, new and old, are enough to make a positive difference in their lives is only evident after a stunning climax of rejection, desperation, and intervention.

Liane Shaw, a former educator including special education resource teacher, has never shied away from tough topics like foster care (Fostergirls, Second Story, 2011), physical or emotional limitations (The Color of Silence, Second Story, 2013) and ASD (Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Second Story, 2016). As in her earlier young adult books, she tackles the prejudices people assert on those who are different, whether perceived or real, and turns them into understanding and acceptance for those differences.  Whether caterpillars can or can’t swim is irrelevant.  What’s important is knowing that metamorphosis is foreseeable and all butterflies and moths are to be appreciated.

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(A version of this review was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)

Kubiw, H. (2017, September). [Review of the book Caterpillars Can't Swim, by Liane Shaw]. Quill & Quire, 83 (7): 39.

Don't Tell, Don't Tell, Don't Tell

by Liane Shaw

Second Story Press

978-1-927583-95-1

272 pp.

Ages 12-16

April 2016

Frederick, 16, in Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, would loathe to be lumped into a group of individuals with Asperger’s syndrome or labelled with his “disorder”.

Giving me a label groups me together with many others who share a cerain number of common characteristics that would then define me as a syndrome or a disorder rather than a person with a mind of my own.  I don’t want to be a syndrome, and I am far too orderly to be a disorder.
     I just want to be me. (pg. 50)

Though Frederick is different from many of his peers in his love of numbers and math, of routines, and of the dictionary and in the difficulties he has interpreting idioms and slang with which he is unfamilia, he is relatively comfortable in his own skin, having developed some stellar coping strategies for dealing with verbal abuse,  and ensuring that he is able to meet his needs for quiet and routines.  But, when he is befriended by another awkward teen, his routine becomes far more  tenuous and Frederick is taken outside his comfort zone.

Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell begins with Frederick being questioned by the police about the disappearance of the teen who’d befriended him, Angel Martinez.  Though their friendship had been discreet and primarily involved Angel using Frederick as a sounding board, Frederick gets lassoed into keeping a secret for her.  Questioning by the police, however, has Frederick carefully choosing his words, always reminding himself “Don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell.” When it seems that Angel’s secret plan isn’t as perfect as anticipated, Frederick begins to rethink that promise and find a way to stay true to himself and bring order to a very disordered situation.

The mature situations that have Angel scrambling for a way out makes Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell more appropriate for a young adult audience but the issue of labelling and keeping secrets are far more universal.  Liane Shaw, whose previous books Fostergirls (Second Story Press, 2011) and The Color of Silence (Second Story Press, 2013) capably dealt with difficult issues of foster care and guilt, continues to demonstrate the empathy needed to understand and help teens with the emotional, behavioural and physical problems.  Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell takes us into the world of a boy with Asperger’s and a girl whose efforts to make friends take a bad turn and demonstrates that we all are looking to find a way to fit into the world, whether it’s a world we make for ourselves or one into which we try to insinuate ourselves.


(A version of this review, in conjunction with one about Everyday Hero by Kathleen Cherry, was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)



Kubiw, H. (2016, May). [Review of the book Don't Tell, Don't Tell, Don't Tell by Liane Shaw]. Quill & Quire, 82 (4): 37.

The Color of Silence

Written by Liane Shaw
Second Story Press
978-1-926920-93-1
269 pp.
Ages 13-17
2013

Does silence have a colour?  Or does silence have different colours?  If I'd been asked those questions, I might have initially given silence the colour black - a void, without filling, a black hole of nothingness but the potential for sound.  But Liane Shaw shows us that The Color of Silence will vary with the listener, here specifically two teens: one whose world had been filled with laughter and song, and then terror, before she chooses not to speak; and one whose silence is involuntary as a result of a medical condition which has denied her a voice since birth.  And just as she did in Fostergirls (Second Story Press, 2011), her novel which was reviewed here on December 5, 2011, Liane Shaw demonstrates that perspective is everything and nothing is the same for everyone.

Alternating chapters between Alexandra and Joanie, and the reminiscences and present situations of both seventeen-year-old girls, Liane Shaw has the two connecting first due to a court order, definitely involuntarily, and then emotionally and naturally through silence.  Alexandra Taylor is court-ordered to provide 200 hours of community service after an accident in a borrowed car leads to the death of her best friend, the popular Cali Prescott.  While both Alex and Cali had loved singing, Cali's talent seemed more innate and now Alex can't even bear to speak.  With her dad, Alex is somewhat more forthcoming, although accepting the guilt for Cali's death and recognizing the futility of her words in preventing it have numbed Alex's desire for verbal communication. Unfortunately, Joanie is the one whose brain doesn't relay messages to her body and suffers through repeated bouts of severe respiratory distress, necessary feeding tubes, a lack of muscle control (except for her eyes) and no voice.  And yet she is the one who works tirelessly to understand Alex and to connect with her.

Joanie, whose poor health and absence of real family would give her great reasons for bitterness, shows only acceptance and understanding, trying to learn more about Alex's reluctance to speak (she doesn't know anything about the court order) and still appreciating the silence she brings.

I rather like having someone here who understands about silence. (pg. 69)

Joanie's silence is coloured with the prisms of light, i.e., rainbows, that reflect from a stone necklace that has been hung above her hospital bed.  The colours trigger her memories of happier times, staying at the group home, going out on school trips, and just being able to leave her hospital bed. So much of her day is quiet because of the dearth of visitors, essentially only her care staff.  Until Alexandra.  Joanie is delighted with Alex's visits, although Alex barely groans out a gasp or yes or no for her first visits.  But Joanie takes it upon herself to get Alex speaking.

Finding the words in silence is one of the things I do best. (pg. 123)

Though the two girls seem to be voiceless, they are attentive to each other.  For Alex, she is too distracted at the beginning to notice much about Joanie, spending much of her efforts anticipating others judging her for her past "crime" and her lack of skills.  Similarly, Joanie worries about others' perceptions of her, even wishing that,

there was a magic mirror that could show him who I really am.  I don't want either of us to keep on looking at the outside of me. (pg. 93)

 When Joanie is given the opportunity to turn her eye movements into words using technology called the Eye Gaze (which they affectionately call the Wizard), the two girls are finally on the same page, with Alex realizing that she has something to offer Joanie i.e., the time and effort to ensure the Wizard is everything it can be.  They are only limited by Joanie's health and consequently time to see what the Wizard can help her achieve.

Liane Shaw ensures that the readers see that voicelessness can be selective or involuntary but the consequences similarly disheartening.  For each girl there is a degree of shame (justified or not, as much shame is) but understanding, appreciation and  effort can mitigate the effects, if only temporarily.  The Color of Silence is not a plot-driven novel of adventure, intriguing subplots or parables to teach us how to live. It's a story of two characters and how they develop and evolve into better functioning individuals, finding the colour in their lives.

Fostergirls

by Liane Shaw

Second Story Press

978-1-897187-90-6

256 pp.

Ages13-16

2011

Regardless of how romanticized the life of an Anne-of-Green-Gables orphan may seem, living apart from family, whether you have one or not, is hardly a life of fulfilment.  Sadie Thompson, 15, knows this all too well, having endured the moniker of "fostergirl" for the past 12 years, although she now has progressed to that of "grouphomegirl."

With moving onto her thirteenth school, Sadie is determined not to be singled out for help of any sort, believing that if she just keeps to herself until her sixteenth birthday, she can get out by requesting legal emancipation (freedom to get her own place and get a job).  But her plans not to engage with anyone are set awry.  At school, she meets chatterbox Rhiannon Kerry who chooses to make Sadie her friend, and then Ms Jackson, a guidance counsellor, who believes that a learning disability may be at the root of Sadie's school issues.  Both seem to see something beyond Sadie's "fostergirl" label.

At the group home, Sadie tries to stay under the radar of the other fostergirls: Alisha (who continuously proclaims that her alcoholic mom will be taking her home soon), Buffy (who regularly snaps and becomes vicious) and two inseparable younger girls whom Sadie calls the K's (Kendra and Krista). Sadie convinces herself that she really doesn't care to know what has brought them into care, including knowledge of her own story (beyond her memory of wandering door-to-door with a five-year-old brother).

Having and being a friend are foreign to Sadie.  So, when she is told that Rhiannon is also labelled a "fostergirl" (because her mom and dad are enthusiastic foster parents to numerous children) and is just "collecting" another foster child in Sadie, Sadie uses that to rationalize a return to her disaffection.  But a death, a tragic accident, some educational testing, and another transfer (because of the closing of their group home) all bring Sadie to a point she never envisioned for herself: feeling embraced by caring.

Liane Shaw's professional background in special education has provided her with the experiences and understanding to share the narratives of any number of Sadies.  However, it is Sadie's voice, one based in despondency and unrecognized courage, that prompted me to investigate for myself the extent of  issues troubling children in foster care.  Sadly, my cursory search suggests that Sadie's educational and socio-behavioural challenges are not unusual amongst foster children.  As such, I congratulate Shaw in providing such a convincing context by which the lives of many foster children are expressed, and the impetus for the reader to pursue greater understanding with empathy.

Check out Second Story Press' book trailer for Fostergirls on my Book Trailer page