Stratford Writers' Festival

The 2017 Stratford Writers' Festival
is set to take to the stages

on

October 20-22, 2017

in 

Stratford, ON

There are workshops and panels on songwriting, self-publishing, social media, blogging, memoirs, grief, art and literature, history and healing, satire, food and, of course, writing.

The plethora of authors attending the three-day event include:
• Chantel Acevedo
• Marianne Apostolides
• Jason Barry
• Mark Billingham
• Kerry Clare
• Deborah Cooke
• Glenn Dixon
• Terry Fallis
• Emm Gryner
• Drew Hayden Taylor
• Scaachi Koul
• Dayna Manning
• Marina Mapa
• Lee Maracle
• Mark Medley
• Catherine Mellinger
• Heather O'Neill
• Shane Peacock
• Eden Robinson
• Jennifer Robson
• Rebecca Rosenblum
• Ron Sexsmith
• Richard Scrimger
• Craig Terlson
• Eric Walters
• Alice Zorn

But I wanted to draw your attention to a panel relevant to those who read CanLit for LittleCanadians.

On
  Friday, October 20, 2017, 

 6-7 p.m.

at

Knox Presbyterian Church

a trio of youngCanLit authors will present a panel titled 

A Means to a End: Keeping a Series Alive

In attendance will be three of the authors of Orca Book Publishers' Seven series,  The Seven Sequels and The Seven Prequels:

This session is described as follows:

To create a story that is riveting and engaging is an accomplishment on its own. To continue a story throughout many novels and hold an audience’s attention takes an extraordinary talent.

These three authors have mastered the art of keeping a story alive through their tales of triumph, discovery, and self-actualization. Join us as award-winning authors Eric Walters, Richard Scrimger, and Shane Peacock discuss the process of series writing and how to keep readers coming back every time.

Full details of this event and all panels and workshops can be found at DigiWriting's website at http://digiwriting.com/stratford-writers-festival/ with tickets available at Ticketscene

Weerdest Day Ever!: Interview with author Richard Scrimger

Today I'm please to present, 

as part of Orca Book Publishers' blog tour for

  the Seven Prequels, 

my interview with 

the author of 

Weerdest Day Ever!

by Richard Scrimger

Orca Book Publishers

9781459811553

216 pp.

Ages 9-12

September 2016

Reviewed yesterday

Richard Scrimger

(looking very dapper in a hat)

Many thanks to Orca Book Publishers' publicist Melissa Shirley for arranging this blog tour and to author Richard Scrimger for answering my questions about Weerdest Day Ever!, Bunny and the writing process.

^^^

HK: Of the seven grandsons in the Seven series, Seven Sequels and now Seven Prequels, Bunny is my favourite (please don’t tell the others).  I don’t know if it’s his humility or his special learning needs–perhaps as a teacher I really want to “help” him–but I am consistently drawn to him and his stories and am never disappointed.  How did you ever find Bunny’s voice?

RS: Bunny’s is one of my favorite of my voices.  For all the things he doesn’t know, he knows himself.  And that’s the coolest knowledge of all.  Bunny goes his own way.  He doesn’t ‘fit in’ well – and he is totally ok with that.  Kind of like me.

^^^

HK: As Bunny will attest, his spelling is not always the best.  As an author whose vocation it is to write well, how difficult was it to write as Bunny, spelling and grammatical mistakes and all?

RS: Writing and spelling are different things. I care about writing well.  That is my vocation. I really don’t care about spelling.  My mom would tie herself into knots about the subjunctive mood or the misuse of an apostrophe, but I don’t give a donut. Because I can spell, it’s a bit tricky to write like Bunny.  I have to put myself into his mindset.  Once there, I rite like him.  As you see. Problem is I hav trouble turning him off.  So a letter to a friend mite sound like Bunny and shed rite back: Are you feeling OK?  What’s wrong?

^^^

HK: Readers learn so much from the way characters see and interpret and react but perspective is key.  However, Bunny is very much prone to misinterpret circumstances. Right from the onset of Weerdest Day Ever! Bunny witnesses a re-enactment and believes he’s in the middle of a war.  To what do you attribute his frequent misinterpretation: his naiveté, his inexperience, his gullibility, his benevolence, or something else entirely?

RS: On a human level, Bunny believes what people say. Whether that’s naivete or great wisdom is up to you.  In fact, nothing gives you away so clearly as the lie you tell.   Why are all my stories about people who don’t fit in? Why are they all funny? Why do they all have sadness or loss underneath the humour?  I am telling the truth while I am lying.  This is who I am.  In the same way, re-enactors are not really fighting, but the truth is that they are war-obsessed attention seekers playing dress up.  There is truth there.  And Bunny sees this truth – or some of it.

^^^

HK: Bunny may be a character in a book but, as I’ve read his stories, I’ve come to care what happens to him.  So, please tell me, what kind of a future do you foresee for him (and I’m not talking books here)?

RS: Bunny knows himself, and likes himself well enough. He gets along with his brother, makes new friends, and doesn’t mind risking his heart even though things don’t always work out.   In the long run, Bunny’s going to be fine. (Now if I could just believe that about myself!)

^^^

HK:  I’ve heard you and your collaborative team of Seven series authors discuss the writing process and how the series began.  It sounds very collegial.  Collaboration between two individuals can be tricky, balancing writing styles, egos and intent.  How do you manage it with a group of seven extraordinary writers, each with their own style and vision and probably egos as well?

RS: In fact all of us like each other and play off each other, and tours are a whole lot of fun.  This is good question to ask me specifically, because my and Ted Staunton’s books are probably the closest linked of any in the series.  The problem is to develop story lines that work together.  We want plots that dovetail but don’t give away each other’s endings. For the sequels, I wanted Bunny to be kidnapped. As soon as I said that Ted snapped his fingers and said, “And I know who kidnapped him!” The prequels are extra tightly linked since the brothers share a campsite for a couple days and keep just missing each other.  Ted’s and my plot conversations usually involve a bottle of something.  This conversation went from history to re-enactors to the War of 1812.  Then Ted smiled.  “I just saw Spencer in Laura Secord’s costume,” he said.  “Isn’t that funny,” I replied.  “Because I just saw Bunny as … “

^^^

HK:  Are the Seven Prequels the last of the Seven-based series or is there another in the plans?  Or do you anticipate any other multiple-author collaborations, similar to the Seven series books, with these same writers or others?

RS: As of now, there are no more ‘7’ plans. We’ll wait and see how this one does.  BUT it’s funny you should ask about other co-productions.  Ted and I were talking about how humour writing never gets a fair shake.  So we made some phone calls.  Scholastic jumped at our idea, and (drum roll!!) in two years Kevin Sylvester, Lesley Livingstone, Ted and I will put out 4 linked books starring teens with goofy superpowers.

^^^

Be sure to check out all the blog stops on the Seven Prequels tour, each highlighting one author:

• Norah McClintock at Lost in a Great Book

• Richard Scrimger here at CanLit for LittleCanadians

• Eric Walters at Literary Treats

• John Wilson at teenreads

• Ted Staunton at Young Adult Books Central

• Shane Peacock at MrsReadsBooks

• Sigmund Brouwer at Lost in a Great Book

^^^

Read the Seven Prequels in any order you want. 

But you'll want to read them all!

Weerdest Day Ever!

First there was the Seven Series.

Then came the Seven Sequels.

Today the long-awaited Seven Prequels launches! 

Get a taste for the Seven Prequels with my review of  

Richard Scrimger's contribution to the series here.

Written by Richard Scrimger

Orca Book Publishers

9781459811553

216 pp.

Ages 9-12

September 2016

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Weerdest Day Ever! is a story that Bunny (Bernard) is writing for his Grade 10 English class about a camping trip with his Grampa and brother Spencer.  It begins with an “Oops. Sorry.” that is pure Bunny.   But as weird as his tale might be, he makes a point of clarifying that it is essentially true, though knowing Bunny, he does tend to misinterpret much since he often takes things literally and at face value.

This story is true–mostly its true.  You wont think so but it is.  Like the war. Yah there reely was a war. Or the cow.  Or the hollow tree. Or what happened to the 1 arm man. (pg. 3)

Since I know he’s got you hooked with that beginning, his story is off to a great start.  And, if I were his teacher, I could easily disregard his spelling mistakes because the content of his story is so engaging.

Grampa doesn’t tell them much about the trip except that there will be surprises at the park that weekend.  His only rule is that, if they go out on their own, that they must stay close and check in.  When Spencer loses his new and distinctly yellow-cased smart phone, Bunny goes exploring by himself and discovers some guys in blue jackets and white pants and tall hats armed with guns that looked longer and fancier than rifles he knew.  He meets two kids, Beth and her quiet brother Tyler, both dressed in fringed leather clothing and with makeup, sneaking through the woods.  Beth tells them they are with the British and those men in blue are the Americans and there would be in battle tomorrow.  Beth then introduces Bunny to their father, Tecumseh, a general with an impressive sword, at a community of tents, wagons, horses and a log house in a large open area.

Most readers would get that what Bunny is witnessing is a re-enactment from the War of 1812 but Bunny truly believes a war is about take place and feels he must warn his Grampa.  But, Bunny knows how to recognize a bully and, when a blue-coated, one-armed man comes by and taunts Beth’s father and uses discriminatory and rude words like "savages" and "red skins", Bunny calls him out on it, making an enemy of the “reactor” (i.e., re-enactor) whom they learn is an American called Brasher.  Later when Bunny and the silent tracker Tyler go snooping and Bunny sees Brasher with Spencer’s distinctive cell phone, Bunny’s mission becomes two-fold: warn Grampa about the war, and get Spencer’s phone back.  Along the way, though, Bunny and his new friends have another mystery to solve, that of the theft of Tecumseh's sword, solved all the more easily because of Bunny's astute observations.

I can’t possible go into all the layers of Richard Scrimger’s plot but it does encompass a war, a one-armed man, a cow, as Bunny mentions at the onset, but also Laura Secord, a sword, a phone, horseback riding, a re-enactment, budding romances for all three campers, an elderly woman with hearing issues, antagonism with Americans, meaningful ice-cream, a hollow tree, a bully, and a familial rivalry.  It must have seemed like the “weerdest day ever!” for sweet and trusting Bunny who spends most of the weekend worried.  He’s worried about Spencer and his lost phone; about a war they may lose and who might get killed; about Beth and a horse-handler named Clod; about the mean bully named Brasher; and more. But even with all these worries, Bunny’s perspective allows him to see circumstances with wisdom and the humour with which Richard Scrimger’s writing is always imbued.

     “What if we lose?” I said. “What then?”
     Wuld we become American? And what would that mean–being American?
     If I was American Id have a different anthem. O say can you see.  I didnt know it all but I knew that part.  No more standing on gard.  If I was American Id have a president.  My capital city wuld be Washington.  Id have green money. (pg. 104)

How can you not love Bunny?  He may have spelling challenges and trust others too quickly, but he is wise beyond his years (he’s in Grade 6 when the camping trip takes place), recognizing that the only rule he needs to live by is you should do what you want unless it hurts somebody.  

It’s very satisfying to learn a bit about Bunny’s earlier story, as well as get hints of his grandfather David McLean’s covert and romantic entanglements, in this book of the Seven Prequels.  I suspect readers of the remaining Seven Prequels will feel the same after learning a bit more about Spencer, DJ, Webb, Adam, Rennie and Steve.  I can only reiterate what we have said all along about the Seven series, the Seven Sequels and now the Seven Prequels:  read them in any order, just read them.

Be sure to check out all the blog stops on the Seven Prequels tour to launch the series, starting today:

• Norah McClintock at Lost in a Great Book

• Richard Scrimger here at CanLit for LittleCanadians

• Eric Walters at Literary Treats

• John Wilson at teenreads

• Ted Staunton at Young Adult Books Central

• Shane Peacock at MrsReadsBooks

• Sigmund Brouwer at Lost in a Great Book

AND

Check back tomorrow for my own blog tour stop for the Seven Prequels, my interview with author Richard Scrimger.

The Seven Prequels: coming September!

Once upon a time, 

seven outstanding authors of youngCanLit 

Eric Walters

Sigmund Brouwer

Norah McClintock

Shane Peacock

Richard Scrimger

Ted Staunton

John Wilson

came together and formulated a series like no other. 

It is called Seven (the series) 

from Orca Book Publishers, 

and all seven books were simultaneously published in October, 2012.

The seven linked books, which can be read in any order, 

focus on the 7 grandsons of David McLean 

and the 7 journeys his death sends them on.

Between Heaven and Earth by Eric Walters

Close to the Heel by Norah McClintock

Devil's Pass by Sigmund Brouwer

Ink Me by Richard Scrimger

Jump Cut by Ted Staunton

Last Message by Shane Peacock

Lost Cause by John Wilson

77777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777

Two years later, the Seven Sequels were born.

The seven cousins from Seven 

come together at their grandfather's cottage 

and discover evidence of David McLean's mysterious past, 

sending the seven out on a new set of adventures.

Broken Arrow by John Wilson

Coda by Ted Staunton

Double You by Shane Peacock

From the Dead by Norah McClintock

Sleeper by Eric Walters

Tin Soldier by Sigmund Brouwer

The Wolf and Me by Richard Scrimger

777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777

Next month the Seven Prequels arrive!

This time the seven books emphasize the origin stories of the seven grandsons and their relationships with their grandfather and tell...

How It All Began

Weerdest Day Ever 

by Richard Scrimger

Barracuda 

by Sigmund Brouwer

Separated 

by Shane Peacock

Jungle Land 

by Eric Walters

The Missing Skull 

by John Wilson

Slide 

by Norah McClintock

Speed 

by Ted Staunton

Look for the books on September 20 2016 

and 

enjoy more news and extras (including the Seven teachers' guide) 

at Orca Book Publishers at

www.thesevenprequels.com

My Life Before Me: Interview with author Norah McClintock

With my review of Norah McClintock's book My Life Before Me, her contribution to the Secrets series from Orca Book Publishers, posted above, I am pleased to offer a little something extra.  As part of Orca's Secrets Blog tour–in which I'm delighted to be participate!–I have the pleasure of posting a Q & A with Norah McClintock in regards to her amazing book and the writing process.

I'm pleased to post that interview here. Enjoy!

Norah McClintock, author of My Life Before Me

HK:  The plot in My Life Before Me is so intense, mixing a young woman’s search for her past with a murder mystery and racism and the civil rights movement.  What germ of an idea did you focus on as the starting point for the story?

NM:  I once read about a woman who had discovered that her father had attended a lynching along with many other seemingly respectable white people in town. It happened in the 1930s, I think, and, contrary to what one thinks when one hears about lynching, it didn’t happen in the American south. It happened in a northern state. That was the sum total of my initial idea. This bears absolutely no relationship to Cady or her quest. But it was the thing that maybe me wonder about family and knowing: what we think we know versus what really happened; how what happened can change everything in a moment.



HK:  The whole Seven Secrets takes place in 1964.  How did you research this time period to ensure setting authenticity in My Life Before Me?  What was the hardest about writing about a teen for a time period during which you were a very young child?

NM:  I would like to say that I wasn’t even born then, so I had to slog through tons and tons and tons of sources to make sure I was as accurate as possible. That’s certainly true for some members of the group. But I was able to draw on actual life experience. When I was a kid, a cousin several years older than me – about Cady’s age, in fact – lived with us for her high school years. She shared a room with me. So I had a pretty good idea about what 1960s teens were all about. 



HK:  Nellie Bly and the field of journalism are important aspects of My Life Before Me.  Why did you choose to emphasize this in your book?

NM:  I gave Cady my passion. I also gave her my part-time job. I actually did what I describe for a local newspaper.

Cady was adopted once in her past and then given up to an orphanage. She has been rejected by two sets of parents, not just one. So her focus was never going to be on where she came from. She doesn’t care. At least, she doesn’t want to care. When we meet her, she has just been dumped by her boyfriend because of his mother’s prejudice against orphaned girls, who, at that time, were more often than not children who were born to unmarried women – something that was deemed shameful and for which women suffered terrible consequences. So Cady’s focus is on finally taking charge of her life, following her dream, refusing, despite all the odds, to give up until she proves herself – just like Nellie Bly.

HK:  Considering the circumstances with which she has had to endure most of her life, Cady could be justified in harbouring a lot of anger and bitterness.  Yet she accepts most situations with a grain of salt and much wisdom.  How did you keep from embittering her to her life’s realities?

NM:  Well, she is kind of bitter about her boyfriend and his mother and the whole town that she can’t wait to leave. But she’s not a person who is interested in her own past. She is focused firmly on the future and who she wants to be. She can’t wait to get started. But her life experience is not one of being ill-used, abused, or even badly brought-up. The orphanage were she was raised was not a huge institution. It was small, charity-run, not well-financed, but it was home. Cady’s resentment is not directed there, although her restlessness stems from there.



HK:  Co-authoring books can be an odious task as well as fulfilling as authors attempt to work with each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  But writing Secrets, just as with Seven the Series and the Seven Sequels, must be a completely unique writing process as you and six other authors must co-ordinate your works.  What did you find most compelling about this process–you have done it three times now–and what recommendations would you make to other authors who might like to attempt this?

NM:  You have to be willing to go with a premise that is not necessarily your own and prepared to negotiate with other writers to make sure that the story elements you all need are included, where necessary, in the basic proposition of the series. You have to deal with a few curve balls, too. I was thrown a huge one when work started on the Seven prequels, but that’s another story. Coordinating the instigating situation is probably the hardest part. The person I feel sorriest for is the series editor, who had to make sure that nothing in one of the books contradicted anything in the other six, etc. It was a lot of work and sometimes meant that the editor had to negotiate with two writers to come to a compromise. I think maybe sometimes she also issued fiats. The result was always fine.



HK:   I don’t know if Eric Walters is thinking of a set of sequels to the Secrets series but if it happens, I can think of a number of ways to take it.  Cady’s journalism, another crime or mystery, her remaining family,  a possible romance.  Where would you like to take Cady’s story given the chance for a sequel?

NM:  Oh, there are so many possibilities. She’s young. She has drive and ambition, the 1960s, as they are thought about in popular culture (which is not a true reflection of reality, by the way), are just getting started, and change is in the air. 


```````````````

Thanks to Orca Book Publisher publicist Melissa Shirley for arranging this Q & A and to author Norah McClintock for sharing with CanLit for LittleCanadians’ readers a glimpse into her writing and her new book My Life Before Me.

The Wolf and Me: The Seven Sequels

by Richard Scrimger

Orca Book Publishers

9781459805316

256 pp.

Ages 10-16

For release October 1, 2014

Poor Bunny.  He's such a great guy but, often through no fault of his own, he gets himself immersed in the most unusual, even dangerous, situations.  In Ink Me (Scrimger, 2012), the prequel to The Wolf and Me, Bunny (Bernard, as only his grandfather called him) ended up with a tattoo indicating he was part of the 15 Street gang and that he had killed someone, all untrue.  Sadly he did get mixed up in some dangerous situations and is currently at Creekside, a young offender facility just outside of Toronto.  While Bunny is finding his time at Creekside useful, especially with the lessons he has with Mr. Wing to help him with his literacy (especially his spelling), he's not a troublemaker, and he's happy to have the holidays until New Year's with his family. Too bad he gets kidnapped while out skating with his brother Spencer at Toronto's City Hall.  See what I mean?  This kid has no luck.

While his hostage-takers demand to know about his grandfather, David McLean (though Bunny initially believes they're asking about "Mr. Clean"), the woman named Vi attempts to gain his confidence, offering to help him get a note to the police.  But Bunny learns of her deceit and manages to escape, setting off on an amazing skating adventure on the icy landscape, in search of Creekside, home, or just help.

Bunny may call himself "dumb" and "stupid" but he's very smart about putting all the little pieces of the puzzle together to make a comprehensive big picture.  He just doesn't have a lot of luck.  Sure that he's found Creekside, Bunny breaks into a juvenile detention centre for females!  As unfortunate as that may seem, that mistake puts him in a position to help others, even if it does complicate things.

"Here I am in my little life trying to deal with my troubles.  Some people are worrying about me and some are heping me and some are making it hard for me and all the time theres this–this–this gigantic ALL all around me.  It make me feel small but also grate full." (pg. 122)

Like the detention centre, there are many obstacles that impede Bunny's journey.  But he always finds a way to turn them into something positive, including an encounter with a wolf that allows him to connect with his grandfather.  And if anyone deserves a break in life, it's Bunny.

I'm delighted that Richard Scrimger was able to parlay Bunny's Ink Me fiasco into a second adventure that shows the teen's growth after incarceration at Creekside while providing both him and the reader the evidence that he's one of the good guys.  Bunny makes the best of that which life tosses at him, whether they're rocks or candies. Who else could manage to enjoy a hockey game with his captors and take advantage of his only footwear–a pair of hockey skates–to escape?  Bunny.  And I'm so glad Richard Scrimger gave him life.  He makes life better for all who meet him, fictional characters and readers alike.

"Life isnt about making sense.  Its a gift and you do your best with it." (pg. 190)

Sleeper: The Seven Sequels

by Eric Walters

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-459805439

222 pp.

Ages 10-16

For release October 1, 2014

The seven grandsons of David McLean from the original Seven Series (Orca, 2012) may have fulfilled the missions their grandfather requested of them upon his death but they're turning it around now with information they've discovered about him on their own. In fact, although the seven books of The Seven Sequels may be read in any order, I'm glad I started with Eric Walters' Sleeper as it clearly spells out how and what the boys discover that sends them off on their newest adventures, by choice or not.

Meeting up after Christmas at their grandfather's cottage, five of the cousins–DJ, Spencer, Bunny, Webb and Adam–discover a hidden cache of passports, foreign currency, a gun, a little black book, some clothes and disguises, and a bag of golf balls.  Speculating that their grandfather may have been involved in espionage, the boys decide that they have a week left of holidays before their parents are home to figure out the mystery. Bunny and Spencer head back home to Toronto (though Bunny is kidnapped from the City Hall skating rink--see my next review, for The Wolf and Me by Richard Scrimger) and DJ heads to the airport and England where he has plans on visiting Doris, the older woman whom he'd met on his trek up Kilimanjaro in Between Heaven and Earth (Walters, 2012).

But DJ's arrival in London starts with him being detained at the airport and threatened, until a government agent, Justin Bourne, makes the authorities see that the David Adam McLean they've stopped is not 93 years old.  Without giving away that his grandfather would've been that age, DJ is released and delivered to Doris's home by her surly grandson, Charles.  Though Doris has broken her leg, she is eager to help DJ so she enlists the help of her fellow Sherlock Holmesians (fans of the great fictional detective) to try to break the codes within DJ's grandfather's notebook.

Code-breaking some of the ciphers, DJ heads to Cambridge driving Doris' red Jaguar E-Type and accompanied by her beautiful granddaughter, Charlie (short for Charlotte).  Very much in the tradition of Ian Fleming's spy novels, Sleeper includes chase scenes with luxury cars like a black BMW and a white Mercedes Benz, double agents, sleeper cells, Eastern European scoundrels, the CIA, much deception and the dry wit that makes the characters seem so suave.  And, of course, there's the beautiful young woman and love interest for DJ and the dash of royalty for that regal touch.

What a great way to take readers from David McLean directing the actions of his grandsons, as he did in the Seven Series, to the boys looking to new adventures, pursuing their own suspicions and curiosity about their grandfather, and embarking on adventures that will put their intrepid natures to the test in more daring situations.  Sleeper introduces the theme of espionage and hidden identities in an intriguing manner (how appropriate!) with the boys just falling into that info (or rather it falling out).  They can choose whether to pursue it or to let it pass, as so much about their grandfather would not now that he was dead.  DJ chooses to see beyond himself.  Even in choosing to visit with Doris, a 67-year-old woman, DJ demonstrates that he can be as worldly as the man for whom he is named.  And with Eric Walters paying homage to James Bond and other great spies and fictional characters--from Henry Higgins, Jason Bourne and  Dr. Moreau--I think readers will get the impression that DJ has an impressive future ahead, filled with admirers and those who would challenge him.  And he'll be identifying himself as, "McLean. DJ McLean"

Sleeper is a propitious beginning for my reading of The Seven Sequels.  Make it one of your's too.

The Seven Sequels: They're coming!

The Countdown Begins!

On October 1, 2014, The Seven Sequels, the seven sequels to The Seven Series, will be launching officially.  

When The Seven Series hit the shelves in October of 2012, no one could have anticipated its popularity with young readers.  I saw boys at school who rarely pick up a library book waiting for the return of a particular volume.  I had an intermediate teacher reading an advanced reading copy I had of Ink Me (Richard Scrimger, 2012) and then students relentlessly pestering me about the ETA of the books.  And last year, three of the ten nominees for the Red Maple award of the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading were volumes in The Seven Series!

The Seven Sequels will bring seven new titles from the same seven authors who brought us The Seven Series, with the seven grandsons of adventurer David McLean, newly passed, undertaking new adventures that will take them from Cambridge to Uruguay.

The books are:

• Sleeper by Eric Walters
• Broken Arrow by John Wilson
• Coda by Ted Staunton
• The Wolf and Me by Richard Scrimger
• From the Dead by Norah McClintock
• Tin Soldier by Sigmund Brouwer
• Double You by Shane Peacock

For more about The Seven Sequels, visit www.thesevensequels.com

But listen to this!

Here's something else for readers to get excited about: not only will there be digital editions with the classic paper copies, Orca Book Publishers is offering the unabridged audiobooks (i.e., the entire book is read) of the series! (In fact, it's possible to pre-order the complete Seven Series or Seven Sequels as an audiobook collection.) For audiovisual learners, audiobooks are an amazing way for students who learn best by listening to get into books. Personally, I prefer audiobooks as an alternative to the radio while I drive.

Freebies!

To help promote the upcoming series and the audiobooks, Orca Book Publishers is giving away free audio samples from The Seven Sequels--one each week until October 1, 2014. The first audio sample is Chapter 1 of Eric Walters' Sleeper and can be downloaded here.  New samples can be downloaded at http://www.thesevensequels.com/audio.php each week until the books are out.

Let the anticipation begin!

Look for reviews of the books in The Seven Sequels in the upcoming weeks here at CanLit for LittleCanadians.

Seven the Series: News about Sequels and Secrets

Seven the Series, Orca Book Publishers' tremendously successful set of adventures for young readers, has sold over 100,000 books and is now looking to the future.  Introduced over two years ago, Seven the Series tells the stories of the seven grandsons of adventurer David McLean upon his death.  The seven teenagers–D.J., Steve, Spencer, Bunny (a.k.a. Bernard), Rennie, Jim (a.k.a. Webb) and Adam–are sent on different missions by their grandfather, as relayed in packages presented to each by their grandfather's lawyer.  The series, the brainchild of author Eric Walters, includes the following seven books, written by seven of Canada's best writers of children's fiction:

• Between Heaven and Earth by Eric Walters;
• Lost Cause by John Wilson;
• Jump Cut by Ted Staunton;
• Ink Me by Richard Scrimger;
• Close to the Heel by Norah McClintock;
• Devil's Pass by Sigmund Brouwer; and
• The Last Message by Shane Peacock.

VII VII VII VII VII VII VII VII VII VII

Next?
The wildly successful series will be followed by seven more books by the same seven authors and called The Seven Sequels.  Set for release this October (2014), here's Orca's blurb about the series:

New secrets will be brought to light…
When a visit to their grandfather’s cottage leads to the astonishing discovery of a hidden cache of passports and foreign currency, the grandsons from the bestselling Seven (the series) begin to suspect that their beloved grandfather was a spy, or even worse, a double agent. Determined to unearth the true story of their grandfather’s mysterious past, the seven cousins set off on seven new adventures that will take readers from the depths of the Caribbean sea to the top of the London Eye. (Retrieved from http://blog.orcabook.com/the-adventures-continue/ on February 27, 2014.)

Eric Walters' sequel is called Sleeper but that is the only title I know.

A book trailer released by Orca Book Publishers on March 12, 2014 to YouTube can be viewed on our Book Trailers blog here.



VII VII VII VII VII VII VII VII VII VII

And More?
Yes.  Not to let the grass grow under his publishing feet, Eric Walters has put together an outstanding team of female Canadian authors to pen another seven books in a series called Seven Secrets. The premise behind these books is as follows:

Seven girls in an orphanage in 1964 are each given a clue to their past that sends them on an adventure. (Retrieved from Kelley Armstrong's blog on March 1, 2014.)

(This is not an official logo, only my own graphic.)

Set for release in the fall of 2015, Seven Secrets has Eric Walters joining these grand dames of youngCanLit (listed here with a sampling of their books):

• Teresa Toten (The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B, The Taming, Me and the Blondes)
• Marthe Jocelyn (How It Happened on Peach Hill, Folly, Mable Riley, Would You) 
• Kelley Armstrong (The Summoning, The Gathering, Loki's Wolves, Sea of Shadows) 
• Vicki Grant (The Puppet Wrangler, Pig Boy, Quid Pro Quo, Not Suitable for Family Viewing) 
• Kathy Kacer (Hiding Edith, The Diary of Laura's Twin, Clara's War, Shanghai Express) 
• Norah McClintock (Taken, Not a Trace, Guilty, Victim Rights) 

Again, few details about the Seven Secrets have been released except that Eric Walters' contribution is titled Innocent and Kelley Armstrong's protagonist is named Tess.


As more news is released, I will be sure to share.

Jump Cut: Seven the Series

by Ted Staunton

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-55469-947-6

220 pp.

Ages 9-12

Release date October 10, 2012

While his 15-year-old brother Bunny is getting tattooed to fulfill his grandfather's last wishes (Ink Me by Richard Scrimger), Spencer O'Toole (17) is off to Buffalo with his dad, Jer, to film his kiss from the aging film star, Gloria Lorraine.  While his dad waits outside her retirement home, the tiny elderly woman, still platinum blonde and with heavy make-up, sunglasses, red fingernails and posing with a cigarette, insists that Spencer work for that kiss by helping her run "a few errands." With that, somewhere a director would be shouting, "Action!"

Starting in the fall, Spencer would be starting film studies at Humber College and he sees everything in terms of a script or lighting or scenery or direction.  And with her seemingly simple demand, Miss Lorraine, or GL to her friends, takes Spencer on an adventure that even he can't believe is real.

Stealing a white Cadillac convertible at the retirement home and picking up GL's granddaughter, AmberLea, GL has them heading to Canada.  Of course, there is the complication of the large man and chihuahua they find bound in the trunk of the car, with clear packages of white powder.  He's Al Capoli, a baker known as the King of Cannoli, and his dog, Mister Bones, and Al claims that another resident at the retirement home, Rocco Wings, wants to kill him for allegedly double-crossing him on a deal.  So, with Rocco and his sons in pursuit, the unlikely cast of characters heads for Torrance, Ontario so that GL can share a few secrets with AmberLea before it's too late and Spencer can just fulfill what seemed like a simple request from his grandfather, David McLean.  Unbeknownst to Spencer, though, his grandfather has an important role in GL's secrets, and their telling will help explain all.

Spencer realizes that GL is treating the adventure as if it were a movie in the making and, in fact, is trying to make her life into a movie.  After all, Miss Lorraine claims,

"Life is a movie with no jump cuts.  It's the cutting that makes the movie." (pg. 82)

 If Jump Cut were a movie, and it would make a fantastic film, it would an action thriller with a quirky cast and many surprises, and the audience would be relentlessly sitting on the edge of their seats and falling back with belly laughs.  Ted Staunton's sense of humour is divine, especially when verbalized by the indomitable Gloria Lorraine.  From continually getting Spencer's name wrong (is it Spanky, Spritzer, Skinner or Spunky?) and running into Tim Horton's and other places to change her Dependables (adult diapers) and shooting off a gun she believes is fake, GL is is larger than life.  Ted Staunton has enriched her with the voice of age, experience, compassion and life.  She has it all.  Luckily, Spencer, in a perennial state of disbelief, sees her and their story as a great epic, needing to be told.

Like Kill Bill, the movie Spencer is watching for the fifteenth time at the beginning of the book, Jump Cut has the eccentric elements of a cult classic.  But, I suspect, that Jump Cut and all the other books in Orca's Seven The Series will definitely stay in the mainstream for a long time with their popularity ensuring their status as classics.

Ink Me: Seven The Series

Written by Richard Scrimger

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-0016-8

224 pp.

Ages 10+

Release date October 10, 2012

Reviewed from Advance Reading Copy

Anticipation for Orca's upcoming Seven The Series has been growing since first announced earlier in the year and its enticing book trailer released in February.  If Ink Me, just one of the seven books set for simultaneous release on October 10, 2012, is any indicator, all young readers will be hooked instantly.

Bunny (a.k.a. Bernard) is just one of seven grandsons who, upon the death of their grandfather, receive a letter and instructions about a task to perform.  At 15, Bunny is the youngest of the grandsons but he may be the most challenged, living with a mental disability.  Regardless, Bunny is a very astute young man, understanding far more than many, even if Bunny believes that,

"they all reddy no Im a dummy." (pg. 3)

And Ink Me is all about how people, places, objects, situations - everything - are perceived and how these perceptions, right or wrong or misunderstood, affect everything else.

Bunny's task is to go to a particular tattoo parlour where they have been instructed to give him a specific tattoo.  The tattoo of the number 15 with a candle doesn't strike Bunny as anything special or too unusual; after all, he turned 15 on his most recent birthday.  But, the reader soon realizes, even if Bunny does not, that the tattoo that he sports indicates that he is part of the 15 Street gang and that he has made one kill.

When Bunny defends a skinny gang member, Jaden, from a beating by a member of a rival gang, the Angels, he is introduced to other members of 15 at the gym where they hang out.  Being white, Bunny is an oddity within the gang but his tattoo and surprising knowledge, albeit naively, of gang members with whom 15 is making a deal, gives him some credibility.  For the first time, Bunny is enjoying the camaraderie of friends, particularly Jaden.  Moreover, Morgan, a former pro fighter who now runs the gym, recognizes that Bunny could be a great fighter, with his fast reflexes and the moves his grandfather had taught him, and Morgan starts training him.

Although enjoying the benefits of his new friendships, Bunny also must withstand the negatives associated with being a part of 15, though he does not always recognize these drawbacks as such.  Even after being hauled away with the gang by the police and interrogated about "the deal" and later chased and shot at by a rival gang, Bunny continues to see everything as a new experience and himself under the care of his friends.  The line between the good guys and the bad guys continues to get blurred for Bunny as the deal between 15 and two other gangs is brokered.

Richard Scrimger, one of my favourite Canadian authors, is brilliant at telling a story without any lessons creeping in to weigh down the plot; that is, until the last few pages of the book are turned.  Readers will be too engrossed in the upshot of Bunny's honesty and incomprehension to realize that Ink Me exposes the vulnerability of perceptions to misinterpretation.  Whether it be the tattoo that marks Bunny as a gang member, or Jaden acting one way but in reality being someone else, or how guns are bad except when they're useful, these matters are all vulnerable to misperception.  Even Bunny's mom, a philosophy professor, has a hard time believing what Bunny tells her, instead reading situations as she chooses or as she is accustomed.  Though writing as Bunny must have been an arduous task for Richard Scrimger, as the text is so laden with spelling and grammatical mistakes, the author provides a real example of the dangers of "misreading."  I had to remind myself constantly that "no" in Bunny's text is "know" for me, and that I had to read carefully in order that I not let my prejudices alter the text's meaning.  Ink Me is a brilliant story, less about gangs and tattoos than about our relationships with others and the roles misunderstanding and perspective play in securing or destroying the integrity of those connections.