The Fort

Written by Gordon Korman

Scholastic Press

978-1-338-62914-9

256 pp.

Ages 8-12

June 2022

 

When is a shelter not a shelter? When it's a secret that is in danger of being exposed. And when four friends and their unexpected tag-a-long discover the ultimate shelter, it becomes their fort and they'll do anything to keep it safe.

The day after a hurricane rolls through the town of Canaan, thirteen-year-old Evan Donnelly is tasked with looking after newcomer Ricky Molina while their families deal with the aftermath of the storm. The boys meet up with Evan's friends C. J. Sciutto, Mitchell Worth and Jason Brax to check out their man-made shower-curtain and plywood fort in the woods but discover that it has been demolished by the storm. But clever Ricky–he may be a year younger than the boys but he's gifted and has come from a magnet school–unearths a newly-exposed trapdoor into a massive underground bomb shelter, fully stocked with furniture, food, chemical toilet, lights, music records, and VCR and videos. A video reveals the shelter was constructed by the now-deceased Bennett Delamere, founder of one of the town's key industries, now closed, in anticipation of an attack during the Cold War. The boys realize quickly the enormity of their find and vow to keep it secret.

But each of the boys has a complex life going on outside the fort. Evan and his seventeen-year-old brother Luke live with their grandparents ever since the boys were abandoned by their parents for their addictions. Mitchell has always struggled with OCD and now cannot get help from his psychiatrist since his mom lost her job, and benefits, at DelaCraft Auto Parts, and has had to take on three jobs to make ends meet. While Jason is enjoying his first relationship with Janelle, daughter of police Officer Jaworski, he's caught in a nasty divorce in which his parents use him as a pawn. Even C. J., who seems to have everything he wants courtesy of his stepdad Marcus, keeps getting into scrape after scrape on his skateboard or hoverboard or pogo stick, calling his exploits "death-defiers." As for Ricky, who is reluctantly allowed to enjoy the fort he found, is determined to study hard and get into the local magnet school and make the best of things until he does.

The fort becomes a refuge for them, to watch classic movies like Jaws and Star Wars, to eat 40-year-old canned food, listen to records and play games like Fort Olympics. It's even a source of funds as the boys learn the blackened cutlery is solid silver and can be pawned for money. But, their fort is in danger of discovery from scary local teen Jaeger Devlin and his sidekick, Evan's brother Luke, who threaten, steal, coerce and worse and would do the same to the boys if they thought there was something in it for them.

The Fort is Gordon Korman's 100th book, an astounding feat. And it's as fresh and meaningful to young readers as his first, This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall!, was in 1978. Think of the movie Stand By Me without the dead body and you'll have The Fort. Gordon Korman has given us a coming of age story about a group of boys with different backgrounds and home situations and personal issues who find a way to come together for each other and become something stronger and cohesive. Because The Fort is told in the alternating voices of the five boys, their perspectives on their friendships, school, families and the fort are unique and relevant. The boys make the story because it is their story. In fact, it's all their stories. Like the fort, it's one thing but it's so many different things too. It's acceptance and anonymity, protection and vulnerability, and it's solidarity and individuality. Gordon Korman has made the fort a foundation for the boys to learn more about themselves and each other and build new bonds of friendship and support. And like a fort, their friendships will be a stronghold against life's inevitable challenges and foibles.

Counting Wolves

Written by Michael F. Stewart

978-0-993757945

217 pp.

Ages 12+

August 2017

"For the last three years I've been hunted by the wolf–wait."  I hold a hand up.  "I  know it sounds crazy–but I've been holding it back with my count.  It works like a magic spell, and it keeps others safe too, everyone.  I've felt the wolf.  I've seen it." (pg. 140)

We all have wolves at our doors.  Some just howl louder or claw more violently.  They may be the wolves of past events come to haunt us, or bad thoughts that want to become actions, or the ones that portend disaster.  But how do you survive the wolves when they're always, always waiting to get you?

Fifteen-year-old Milly Malone is convinced that she has found the magic spell to banish the wolf to the Dark Wood and survive: she counts.  She counts to 100 each time she passes through doorways or eats a single bite or speaks.  Perpetuating the predator theme, Milly will only cross a door's threshold by hopping.  Needless to say, she's often late for class, eats very little in the time allotted, and people get frustrated waiting for her to express herself verbally.  Her boyfriend Billy is her rock, defending her to those who might ridicule her, but even he can't help her when she hears the smacking of jaws, sees the welts of claw marks on her back and collapses, "Lost in the blackest of fairy tales." (pg. 6)

After a visit to Emerg with her step-mother Adriana who believes Milly's issue is an eating disorder–Milly's mother passed away three years earlier and her father is away on business–Milly is admitted to the Pediatric Psychiatry ward where she meets an assortment of characters.  There's Peter, a large boy who is convinced he's a fairy (a leg cast is indicative of a recent flying attempt off the building); the manic Vanet who "is like some stoned fairy godmother who's as liable to kill you as help you"; pg. 81); Red, a girl who dresses in red and is plagued by nightmares; Eleanor a.k.a. Pig, the aggressive homeless girl who likes to burn stuff; Wesley whom she calls Rottengoth whose parents hate him; and Sleeping Beauty, a girl who is on IV constantly and rarely awakens. And then there's Wolfgang, the scary dude with the dead eyes in an acute care room.  Through meals, group therapy, recreational activities and interviews with Doctor Balder all the young people reveal their own wolves, sparring in words and actions and ultimately forming a community of support to keep the wolves away.

Counting Wolves is an intense read about young people dealing with mental illness and how those around them, medical professionals and family, deal with them.  The stories in which these young people embed themselves are tragic, not unlike the fairy tales that Milly reads or was told as a child.  Like many of the original Grimm fairy tales, whose stories are not always obvious at first read, they are frightening.  There may be lessons within but they are devastating to body and soul, with fear often the prevalent emotion. Michael F. Stewart, whose earlier Assured Destruction series (Assured Destruction, Script Kiddie, and Assured Destruction with Zombies) revealed clever plotting and great characterizations, is able to get into Milly's head and give her a voice that is legitimate though perplexing.  Granted, he's the one who has created that head with its confusing thoughts and beliefs but Michel F. Stewart melds her mental illness with grim fairy tales so flawlessly that it's a wonder all issues can't be viewed better in terms of fables. Even as she works through her anxiety, independently–including with the use of a 1960s workbook–and with her established and new support systems, she is challenging the wolf. There is a surprise revelation when Milly recognizes that her wolf is not whom she believes it to be but that's a secret the readers will need to discover for themselves.

Counting Wolves illuminates the treachery of mental illness, including the distorted thinking that can override all and twist stories even more.  Keeping the wolves at bay under these circumstances can be even more challenging.  Still Michael F. Stewart provides some indication, maybe even hope, that help and protection is available, even where least expected.

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B

Written by Teresa Toten

Doubleday Canada/Random House of Canada

978-0-385678346

255 pp.

Ages 14+

For release August 27, 2013

When 16-year-old Robyn Plummer joins Dr. Chuck Mutinda's young adult OCD group, fifteen-year-old Adam Ross finds his motivation to get better and even grow taller. He still has deal with his compulsion to clear those triggers that bother him, like thresholds and even numbers, but when the group members are encouraged to take on superhero alter egos, he links himself to her by choosing Batman to her Robin.  

In fact, Adam becomes Robyn's unofficial mentor in all things Catholic after following her to the cemetery where she visits her mom's grave.  Seems Robyn is interested in pursuing the ingrained rituals such as crossing oneself and kneeling, hoping it will help her deal with her mother's death and her own OCD.  But Adam and Robyn's relationship starts to include the other members of their OCD group when a field trip to his parish is undertaken.  Although Chuck is clear that religion is not a panacea for OCD, the other group members, including the intense Thor, accompany them and learn about the font, the lighting of candles and kneeling in prayer, even if they all fall to their knees when Father Rick introduces himself.

While he continues to do all he can to help Robyn, obviously falling in love with her, Adam is very reluctant to speak in group or even in his one-on-one sessions with Chuck of those issues which are overwhelming him.  His father had left to marry another woman, Brenda, with whom he now has another son, Wendell (affectionately known as Sweetie), a four-year-old whom Adam adores.  Likewise, Sweetie has a strong attachment to Adam who is regularly summoned to calm or reassure or put his little brother to sleep.  In fact, Adam wonders if he is making Sweetie crazy, although his mother claims that he is not.  A highly-competent nursing supervisor, Carmella Ross, has her own issues, particularly hoarding and, more recently, receiving nasty letters that call her vile names and instruct her to kill herself for Adam's sake. But his mom has declared that if he tells anyone that it will be a betrayal to her.

So he lies to Chuck and others about the letters and even the growing severity of his issues with thresholds. But, as Chuck tells him and he later tells Robyn, when she reveals her own secrets, "Everybody lies."(pg. 146)  However, as he and Robyn become closer, he confides in her about his mom and the letters, which lightens his burden, until he gets home again.

Bouncing back and forth between trying to get better and following Chuck's program and feeling that Robyn is getting better and he is not, Adam begins to feel like an impostor, hardly a superhero of Room 13B. But, revealing what he needs, exposing some lies, and accepting that leaving is a difficult but necessary step in growing up, Adam can finally see himself as the reluctant hero that his family, his friends and Robyn know him to be.

If you forget the OCD, temporarily, you see that Teresa Toten has created a good kid in Adam.  He tries to see the best in everyone and help where he can. He may vascillate between whether it is or isn't or whether he should or shouldn't, but don't we all when trying to make the best of decisions?  With his OCD, Adam would be justified in having great difficulty in determining the correct course of action.  But, he still goes when Sweetie needs him, even in the middle of the night or during the school day.  He respects his mother's wishes.  He even suggests that climbing the stairs to their meeting room in Room 13B would be excellent exercise when he realizes that one group member with claustrophobia was unable to enter the elevator.

While Adam tells himself and others that everybody lies, the lies are used to add layering to The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B.  Everyone has fears, issues, anxieties and sensitivities that sometimes need to be hidden.  But what transforms the lies into a story is the choices of from whom these lies are hidden–yourself or others–and for what purpose.  Teresa Toten uses her characters' lies to provide greater depth and unexpected twists to her storyline, as well as demonstrate that heroics are everyday occurrences, not the domain of superheroes.  Some days it's speaking aloud in a group, or taking a chance and going for it, or breaking your heart to do what's right that requires courage.  By that explanation, Adam Ross, 15, is truly The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B.

    ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~    

Teresa Toten will be a guest author at First Calgary Financial Book Rapport, part of Calgary's WordFest in October, and will be presenting at the Banff Centre on Saturday October 19. 

Mental Health Book List: Part II

_________________________________________________

In support of Partners for Mental Health's Not Myself Today campaign across Canada, I've compiled several lists of literature with characters, both main and secondary, dealing with issues typically identified as related to mental health i.e., those that impair judgement, stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabilities.  Because of the plethora of books in the young adult category, and because I'd like to make additions to earlier lists, a third list will follow shortly.  For now, this second list focuses on young adult literature:

Young Adult

40 Things I Want to Tell You

by Alice Kuipers

HarperTrophy Canada

283 pp.

Ages 13+

2012

Bird may give advice online as "Miss Take-Control-of-Your-Life" but her life unravels when she fails to discuss issues in her own life, especially a relationship with a new boy, and her mother's mental health and her father's response to her mother's leaving. 

After
by Francis Chalifour
Tundra Books
133 pp.
Ages 13-17
2005
After years of battling depression, Francis' father takes his own life.  In the aftermath of his dad's suicide, fifteen-year-old Francis finds himself dealing with his own "Grief Monster" and searching for his own way to heal.

The Blue Helmet
by William Bell
Doubleday Canada
167 pp.
Ages 14-17
2006
Living with his Aunt Reena in Toronto and helping her out at her café, troubled teen Lee meets a wide array of characters, but his friendship with former soldier, Bruce Cutter, a man troubled by paranoia and darkness.

 

Fostergirls
by Liane Shaw
Second Story Press
256 pp.
Ages13-16
2011
Fifteen-year-old foster child, Sadie Thompson, has been in care for 12 years when she moves to her thirteenth school and a new group home.  The children at the group home - Alisha, Buffy and the K's - all have their own issues which they share or don't.  Although she claims she doesn't care what brought them into care, Sadie soon realizes that, like her, they all have stories, whether she chooses to acknowledge them or not.

The Game
by Teresa Toten
Red Deer Press
208 pp.
Ages 14-17
2001
After a dangerous episode of drinking and drugs, Dani wakes up in Riverwood Clinic, a psychiatric facility for teens with problems. But, even after she is treated for her substance abuse, Dani must deal with emotional issues that are far harder to identify, much less start to heal.

Gravity Journal
by Gail Sidonie Sobat
Great Plains Teen Fiction
162 pp.
Ages 12+
2008
Anise is an anorexic who also self-mutilates.  When she is admitted to the hospital, Anise is forced to examine herself and her motivations which finally apparent through her interactions with other patients, as well as her drug-addicted brother and her dispassionate mother.

Heck, Superhero
by Martine Leavitt
Red Deer Press
144 pp.
Ages 9-13
2004
In order to help him deal with his mother's mental illness, thirteen-year-old Hector imagines himself as a superhero and pretends things are manageable.  But, when they end up on the street and his mother goes missing, Heck only begins to recognize their need for help when he meets a boy dealing with his own mental health issues.

The Hunger
by Marsha Skrypuch
Boardwalk Books
184 pp.
Ages 12+
1999
While 15-year-old Paula struggles with an eating disorder and enters Homewood, a psychiatric facility, she "becomes" Marta, a starving teen during the Armenian genocide of 1915.  

Last December 
by Matt Beam
Puffin Canada
156 pp.
Ages 12-15
2009
With a move to a new school, trying out for a hockey team, dealing with girls and new friends, Steven's attitude and behaviour indicate a boy in chaos.  He tries to make sense of his confusion and emotions by keeping a journal of letters for his unborn sister, Sam.  He always wants her to know why he may not be around to tell her in person.

Me, Myself and Ike
by K.L. Denman
Orca Book Publishers
192 pp.
Ages 13-16
2010
After watching a documentary about the "Ice Man", a 5000-year-old body found encased in ice, seventeen-year-old Kit is egged on by his friend, Ike, to recreate "Ice Man" himself, by sacrificing himself to the cold of the B.C. mountains.  As he prepares for his ascent, Kit's thinking and life seem to become even more chaotic and troubled, manifested in rantings, paranoid delusions and hallucinations. 

Ms. Zephyr's Notebook
by K. C. Dyer
Dundurn Press
204 pp.
Ages 11-15
2007
Ms. Zephyr is a teacher in a hospital children's ward.  Her charges are required to contribute daily to her notebook; failure to do so results in loss of privileges.  Ms. Zephyr's three students include Kip, a boy with his only kidney failing; Logan, a boy with Crohn's disease and consequent shame; and Cleo, who has an eating disorder that threatens her life.

The Opposite of Tidy
by Carrie Mac
Razorbill
344 pp.
Ages 12+
2012
Junie's home is the opposite of tidy, a reflection of her mother's compulsive buying and hoarding.  To avoid embarrassing herself, Junie pretends to live elsewhere when she is taken home by Wade.  But, soon enough, Junie's lies and shame can no longer be hidden and she realizes her mother needs help.

The Perfect Cut
by Julie Burtinshaw
Raincoast Books
308 pp.
Ages 15-17
2008
The grief Bryan feels after the death of his older sister, Michelle, is so overwhelming that it leaves him emotionally crippled.  Unfortunately, he can only find relief in drink, drugs and cutting himself. 

 

Pieces of Me
by Charlotte Gingras
Translated by Susan Ouriou
Kids Can Press
144 pp.
Ages 14-17
2009
Fifteen-year-old Mira's life is less than cohesive:  her mother is overwhelmed by anxiety and delusional and paranoid behaviour, and her father is absent.  When her father is accidentally killed, Mira needs help to manage her grief and all the pieces of her life.

Scars
by Cheryl Rainfield
WestSide Books
248 pp.
Ages 14+
2010
Living with the horrific memories of sexual abuse, Kendra finds relief in cutting herself.  But, when she is "gifted" with a palette knife, Kendra fears her unknown abuser is watching her, and she must find a way to cope, even survive.

Shattered
by Eric Walters
Viking Canada
192 pp.
Ages 12-16
2006
Ian, a wealthy boy from the suburbs, is required to work at a soup kitchen in the city in order to fulfil his community volunteer hours.  After an attempted mugging and some time at the soup kitchen, Ian makes the acquaintance of Sarge, a homeless ex-soldier, whose traumatic experiences in Rwanda continue to plague his life, making Ian aware of the numerous atrocities perpetrated against others.

Skim
by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
Groundwood Books
141 pp.
Ages 14 +
2008
This powerful graphic novel documents Skim's teenage journey to identify herself, within the confines of her private girls' school.  Through the tug-of-war between independence and popularity, friendships, a suicide, a unorthodox relationship with a teacher and depression, Skim gains greater understanding about her own needs and wishes.

thinandbeautiful.com
by Liane Shaw
Second Story Press
267 pp.
Ages 12+
2009
Through her diary and email chats with those she meets on a pro-anorexia website, Maddie shares the struggle she has with her eating disorder. 

Tyranny
by Lesley Fairfield
Tundra Books
122 pp.
Ages 12+
2009
In this graphic novel, Anna struggles with anorexia but her fight manifests itself in a struggle with Tyranny, the version of herself that chooses not to eat. 

Ultraviolet
by R. J. Anderson
Carolrhoda Lab
303 pp.
Ages 14+
2011
Alison awakes in a psychiatric department after an incident in which she harms herself and assaults a police officer.  After her transfer to a youth facility, Alison learns that many believe she had something to do with the disappearance of a fellow student on the same day.

Unraveling Isobel

by Eileen Cook

Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster)

290 pp.

Ages 14-18

2012

Seventeen-year-old Isobel must move away from her friends and start a new life when her mom remarries but things go from bad to worse when she has recurring visions of a young girl and cannot explain sketches she doesn't recall drawing.  With her mom and new husband encouraging her to see a therapist, Isobel begins to wonder if she is losing her grasp of reality.

The Worst Thing She Ever Did
by Alice Kuipers
HarperTrophy Canada
210 pp.
Ages 14-17
2010
While the title suggests a mystery to which the reader is not privy,  sixteen-year-old Sophie knows what she did and what it has cost.  After her sister's death, Sophie is instructed by a therapist to share herself, particularly her grief, in a journal.

Zero
by Diane Tullson
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
185 pp.
Ages 12+
2006
Kas is attending a school for the arts, hoping to hone her painting skills. When she begins to suffer from anorexia and bulimia, she tells no one, suffering greater consequences than she could have imagined.