The Outsmarters

Written by Deborah Ellis

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-857-2

248 pp.

Ages 9–13

August 2024

 

We refuse to outmean them and we can never outspend them. We have to outsmart them. (p. 14) 

When you live in a small town and everyone knows your business, you have to be smart or even smarter to get through. Twelve-year-old Kate has to be very smart because her life is so convoluted, and she doesn't even know the half of it. She lives with her Gran after Kate's mom Alyssa abandoned her for her latest boyfriend and her addiction, but Gran is as curmudgeonly as they come. For a woman who runs The Junk Yard, a junk business that carries everything from toys to books, hardware and kitchen stuff, Gran is hardly a people person, and she passes on the hard lessons on life and business that she's learned to Kate. So, to make some money, Kate decides to set up a Philosophy Booth in an old shack on the property and charge "seekers" $2 to get answers to life's questions. Using a roulette wheel and cards with quotes from 32 philosophers from Buddha to Ovid, Kate starts making and saving her money so that she can help Mom leave her latest boyfriend, if she ever gets back in touch.

 

Through her six-week suspension from Grade 6 and into the summer, Kate reads a variety of people, from the crusty Ms. Prawn, their neighbour, who is always complaining about them and their cat Bargain, to junk yard customers Mrs. Doris Blight and Mrs. Jean Rutherford, and a teen Landon who needs advice about getting "them" off his back. Her advice always seems pertinent, and some seekers take it to heart. Without knowing it, Kate is opening up her world to new people and even friends, whom she's going to need when she learns some truths about her mother, Gran, and others.

That's the trouble with thinking. One you get started, it's damn hard to stop. (p. 73) 

Deborah Ellis has always tackled challenging issues in her writing, whether it be non-fiction or fiction and even short story collections. Her most recent books (e.g., Sit, Step, and My Story Starts Here: Voices of Young Offenders) look at everything from detention and abuse, to conflict and poverty. Similarly, some of her most popular books, including The Breadwinner series and Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak, started important dialogues on children's lives in Afghanistan and the Middle East. While an Ontario location may seem more familiar to many North American readers, the story within is just as gripping as those in unusual settings because of the issues with which Kate a.k.a. Krate (you'll need to read the story to find out why) grapples. From abandonment by a mother with a drug addiction to bullying at school and a reluctance to connect with others as learned from those seemingly broken by life, Kate has been challenged. But, while Deborah Ellis never sugar coats life's challenges, she shows readers through Kate and Gran and Kate's seekers and new friends that there are opportunities to amend choices and open their once-closed worlds a little.

There are a lot of crusty characters in Deborah Ellis' The Outsmarters–of which Kate and Gran are but two–but when you've spent much of your life hurt and scarred by others and their actions or you're worried that someone is trying to take advantage of you or intends harm, that crust becomes a shield. But a shield is a defense and outsmarting someone is an offensive move, getting them before they get you. It's sad to think that outsmarting someone or putting up a shield are the go-to moves for someone as young as Kate but, be sure assured, that her experiences take her to where she can walk with others, accepting help and being an ally as needed.

Eight Days

Written by Teresa Toten

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-9002-2

312 pp.

Ages 10-14

January 2022

A lot can happen in eight days. Death, love, journeys and change. And, like it or not, it is what it is.

At almost 14, Sami Stanic has lived through a lot. Since she was three, she has lived with her grandfather Carl in the White Towers apartment building at Thorncliffe Park in Toronto. Carl is a recovering alcoholic, having stopped drinking when he brought Sami to live with him, and Sami is determined to keep it that way. She works at ensuring he stays sober by attending AA meetings with him and by keeping herself apprised of all the programs and readings, and she is determined to prove herself useful. In her own way, she does not want to be abandoned again. But, without knowing it, Sami has become part of the community, regardless of Carl's intolerance to the diverse community that is the Towers now. Her best friends are Nilofer and Tarek (also her crush) and there are lots of people watching out for her, though she doesn't realize it. So when she learns that her mother has died, a woman she'd always thought of as gone already, Sami is both perplexed and ashamed.

 

Within days, Sami, Carl and their neighbour Aggie are heading to Chicago in Carl's '77 Olds, affectionately known as Sophie, to deal with Shannon's funeral arrangements. But the journey becomes an opportunity for truths to finally emerge about all their stories: Sami's first few years, Shannon's issues, and Carl's despair. And their return to Canada may just be a new pilgrimage for all.

Teresa Toten may be better known for her extraordinary young adult novels (e.g., Beware That Girl, Shattered Glass, and The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B) but her voice shines just as brightly in this middle-grade novel. Perhaps it's because Teresa Toten has still focused her story on the foundation of most children's lives: their relationships. For Sami, it's her many relationships that drive her. Her relationships with Carl, with Nilofer, with Tarek, with Aggie, with her mother, and with so many in her community offer some security and comfort, but also some worry and angst, while often leaving her questioning her memories and her feelings.

I'd been whiplashed by every possible human emotion in the past few hours. I liked me better before. Clamped down, in charge. (pg. 253)

Teresa Toten makes sure that Sami's journey does not start and stop with a road trip. It becomes one of self-discovery and tenacity in which Sami sees and hears more from those around her and allows herself to be more. As alone as she may feel, living with a dry alcoholic who could relapse at any time, Sami learns she's part of a big community and one so diverse in its cultures that there is more than enough offering to be the family she needs.

Eight Days may have a road trip story line at its core but the journey is more one of life. But, as with any journey, where you come from is just one part. Where you're heading and where you end up are just as meaningful.

I'm Good and Other Lies

Written by Bev Katz Rosenbaum

DCB

978-1-77086-632-4

211 pp.

Ages 13+

September 2021 

 

It doesn't take long for me to start feeling a constant pit of dread in my stomach. The future... (pg. 108) 

 

Seventeen-year-old Kelsey Kendler has every right to be anxious about her life. If the recent past is any indication, things are not heading in the right direction. And the COVID-19 pandemic hasn't even hit yet. There will be lots more to set her off kilter and how she manages is only partly up to her. Parents, friends, school, work and social media will all have a hand in taking her down or bringing her up.

Kelsey and her parents Hannah and Mark have just moved from fashionable and wealthy Rosedale to transitional Parkdale because of Kelsey's celebrity comedian mom's fall from grace. Perennially stoned, drunk or abusing her pain meds, Hannah Kendler, a former participant on "Those Crazy Comics" TV show, is now unemployable and a raging, confused mess. Sadly, Kelsey's dad is less than helpful, either arguing with his wife or avoiding the household altogether. Not surprisingly, Kelsey vows to make some meaningful connections outside of their rat-infested house. There's Molly, a classmate whose perfect family doesn't prepare her for meeting the out-of-control Hannah, and crush Luca, which whom Kelsey begins a textlashionship. But, best of all, Kelsey gets a part-time job at an ice-cream place called Soft Spot. There she meets Chelsea, Veer, Quinn, Ruby, and Lee in addition to Kira, the owner's stoned niece and ineffective manager. Except for the rats in the house, her sleep paralysis that turns her nights into terrors, her warring and oblivious parents, and missing her only friend from before, Makayla, now in LA, things are stable. Then the pandemic hits.

They'd all been hearing about the virus. Makayla's mom, an actress, gets sick, as do others on her film set, and Kelsey worries that her mom's coughing could be it too. But when school is cancelled after spring break and then returns in some mishmash of independent learning and then virtual lessons, and Soft Spot is closed, and she's stuck at home with her worthless parents, Kelsey is left untethered. She may be saying she's fine but dealing with a tenuous support system and mental health during the trauma of a pandemic with lockdowns is just a lie.

We all know how difficult living through this pandemic has been but it's more than just difficult for some. For a teen, when life is in flux as they transition from dependence to independence, it's even more challenging. And for someone like Kelsey, whose home life is painful, she has no respite from the stress. Couple that with sleep paralysis that pervades her nights, this girl has trauma upon trauma with which to deal. I'm surprised she's as sane as she is. Maybe that's the hope that Bev Katz Rosenbaum has written into her story, reassuring her readers that as crappy as things are, there are glimmers of normalcy and even brightness that can help pull you through and out. Whether it's a socially-distanced get-together, texting with a new friend, connecting with a psychologist or being honest about what you're going through, there is hope even while "learning to accept uncertainty" (pg. 182). I'm Good and Other Lies is a powerfully authentic account of a teen living with a multitude of challenges, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sometimes Kelsey accepts the challenge and puts it down and sometimes she buckles, but it is always real and enlightening. With I'm Good and Other Lies, Bev Katz Rosenbaum has told us a story of not being fine but finding a way to make it so.

• • • • • • •

If you would like to hear author Bev Katz Rosenbaum talk about I'm Good and Other Lies, register for Future Shock (and Future Hope), a webinar with authors Wesley King and Eric Walters.

Date:  Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Time:  11 AM-12 PM, 1-2 PM

Registration costs:  School ($150), Class ($65), Home ($10)

Details:  https://www.storyninjawritingclasses.com/special-events

Firefly

 

Written by Philippa Dowding
DCB
978-1-77086-598-3
200 pp.
Ages 9-12
February 2021

While wearing a costume may give you an opportunity to be someone else, it also frees you from being the person everyone expects you to be. But when you're a child and don't know anything but the worst, who would you become? Something outrageous or something normal?

Living with a mother (whom she calls "Joanne-the-mother") who has addiction issues, thirteen-year-old Fifi has had to learn strategies to keep herself and her mother safe. Since she was very young, Fifi has had to deal with the trauma of negligent parenting, taking on what she could.

I've been Joanne-the-mother's guiding light, flashing her toward safety since I was six. (pg. 96)

Still a child, Fifi took to living rough in the park across the street from the house where her mother lived, hanging out with Moss Cart and sharing his food and advice, and then finding some help at Jennie's, a women's center where she got clothes and food and counselling. And she begins to call herself Firefly. But when her mother gets taken into custody–something for which Firefly blames herself–and social services becomes involved, Firefly is taken to live with her Aunt Gayle, a woman who'd lost touch with them after Joanne-the-mother's constant changing of locations and phone numbers.

 

Aunt Gayle, who owns The Corseted Lady, one of Canada's oldest costume shops, gives Firefly the normalcy of food and baths, clean clothes and television, and Firefly is overwhelmed. Even with the ordinariness of attending school again and helping out at the shop, Firefly is still plagued by nightmares and memories of the trauma of her mother being drunk or high and living with the vulnerability of that situation.

 

But The Corseted Lady gives Firefly opportunities to be something else, from a medieval warrior to a fly boy or a monk from the 1500s, and to honour those whose clothes pepper the shop. (Some are created but others are refurbished clothes from auctions, etc.) Better yet, no one thinks she's weird. 

These clothes are memories, shadows of all the people who lived in them. (pg. 64)

But author Philippa Dowding isn't telling us Firefly's story as dress-up play, as a little girl pretending to be someone else. Though the shop and its costumes are fascinating, colourful and rich in history and entertainment, as are the employees and customers, Firefly is about a child who has had to become an adult, who has endured trauma and negligence, and had to find ways to cope. She found ways to care for her mother who may have once had a job and provided for her daughter, even gifting her with a magazine subscription–funny what you remember–but became someone else, Joanne-the-mother, who made empty promises and poor choices. Firefly had to find her own way to getting food and clothes and a safe place to sleep. And when given the opportunity to become someone else, whether through costumes or actions, she accepts that she needs to resolve her own memories if she is to have a life for herself. That includes sharing her truths with others.

I know Philippa Dowding is better known for her speculative fiction like Oculum, The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden and Everton Miles is Stranger than Me but I think her first foray into realistic fiction has demonstrated that she has important messages to share and she doesn't need to dress them up in the fantastical. Reality can be just as powerful and colourful, even if stitched with anguish.

My Story Starts Here: Voices of Young Offenders

Written by Deborah Ellis

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-121-4

224 pp.

Ages 13+

October 2019

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Deborah Ellis's opening words "There but for the grace of God go I" from John Bradford are prophetic ones that resonate throughout her latest young adult non-fiction book as young offenders, recent and not, and others unmask family histories, criminal offences and misdeeds, judgements and outcomes. They are stories that could be anyone's but these are their own voices, told as they lived or recall, and they deserve to be heard.

Over twenty young people, named only by their first name and age, were interviewed by Deborah Ellis, a process which she explains in her introduction. Their stories include domestic abuse, poverty, addictions, bullying, foster care, loss, mental health struggles and family dysfunction. Their stories are as diverse as the individuals profiled and we learn a lot about each person beyond the crimes that drove them into the criminal justice system. But there are the crimes, from theft to assault, vandalism and arson, and trafficking of drugs and weapons. Still Deborah Ellis gives these young people the opportunity to explain. To explain where they came from, what they were thinking, what they were feeling, and how justice may or may not have been served. Many are hopeful, trying to see beyond their pasts and their pains and their crimes, and make futures for themselves and their families for which they might be proud. They're not perfect, but then none of us are, and some minimize their responsibilities for choices made while others own their decisions and circumstances.

I don't know if I'll ever get rid of the pain I'm carrying. Maybe I can turn it into something not so heavy. (Lindy, 19)

But Deborah Ellis does more than just give voice to these young offenders. She offers background information about anger, foster care, abusive relationships, witnessing abuse, restorative justice and the importance of a high school diploma. In a question accompanying each young offender's story, she makes the reader think about how they might address the issues which these young people have experienced and makes suggestions about how to make things better in her "Taking Steps" sections. Still the best advice often comes from the young people themselves.

That little thing that's in the back of your head, that says, "Don't do this!"? Listen to it the first time. (Beth, 19)

In addition to the twenty plus young people she highlights, Deborah Ellis also gives voice to past offenders and those who work with young offenders–these are each identified as a "Voice of Experience"–and family members of offenders. Their perspectives, from the distance of time and the other side of the justice system and from the heartfelt viewpoint of family, give different frames of reference to the hardships with which these young people have been dealt or are dealing. 

Deborah Ellis has always sought justice in letting those whose voices are rarely heard speak freely. From Three Wishes (2004) and Off to War (2008) to Kids of Kabul (2011) as well as Looks Like Daylight (2013), Deborah Ellis has let us hear what Palestinian and Israeli children, children affected by AIDS, soldiers' children, Iraqi refugees, and Indigenous kids have to say. She holds true what Maya Angelou acknowledges so eloquently in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

With My Story Starts Here, Deborah Ellis has released the untold stories of young offenders and hopefully provided them with another step forward to healing.

Larkin on the Shore

Written by Jean Mills

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-577-6

310 pp.

Ages 13+

October 2019

"...her words have stayed with me, just like Jonah's. Words do that. Words spoken and words in books. Words you write. They start to breathe and live and just take over. And right now, I've been taken over by the words of other people–people talking–and I can't find myself or my own words." (pg. 221)

After she is traumatized by something that happened with a boy, Jonah, and ejected from a moving car, sixteen-year-old Larkin Day is sent from her home in Toronto to stay with her grandmother Granne in Tuttle Harbour, Nova Scotia for the summer.  Larkin had managed to finish her Grade 10 exams but the gossip and social media about what happened have left her feeling isolated and unsafe and contemplating the relief of suicide. Her dad decides his mother, a retired principal, would be the best bet for his daughter while he heads to Vancouver to deal with Larkin's mom, a woman addicted to painkillers and bouncing between the unsafe streets and rehab. 

But for Larkin, Granne and Tuttle Harbour are unfamiliar and she must learn to assess every person she meets for sincerity and safety. That includes neighbour Will Greenfield who is helping his dad Billy renovate an old house for Granne into the Tuttle Harbour Café and Reading Room. As Larkin helps Granne with the book donations for the reading room, she deals with her anxiety which tempers her interactions with others, even with nice-guy Will. But when Will takes her to a local campfire with his peers, Larkin meets the gregarious Casey Henwood, his girlfriend Beth and others, and overdoes the drink when "...it tastes so good and goes down easily." (pg. 70). Could she be putting herself in harm's way?

When a fire destroys the back of the café, Casey and Beth and others are quick to point fingers at Will's dad, a recovering alcoholic, who'd apparently once burned down a shed he was building at the Henwood's farm. Hearing the gossip about Billy as well as about Will from Beth, and reflecting on the talk that went on about her after she was injured, Larkin is perplexed about whom to believe or to trust. What's worse is the news coming from her dad about her mother's health situation.  Walking out into the water until the darkness envelopes her or trying to swim out to Prince Edward Island, knowing she'd never make it, continue to overshadow her regular visits to the shore until she starts to live beyond others' words.

Jean Mills, who wrote the Red Maple-nominated Skating Over Thin Ice (Red Deer Press, 2018), knows how to tell a story about dealing with expectations from family, school and self. She gets what it's like to trust and not trust your own feelings and to be confused about how those you care about conduct themselves around you. From an addicted mother to an unfamiliar grandmother and peers that are both charming and deceptive, Larkin must look at every interaction as a potential disaster and possibly harmful. Sadly this is probably not unusual for teens who are trying to understand a world in which they are expected and allowed to take on greater responsibilities but may be unsure whether they have the strength or understanding to meet them. For Larkin, it may not always be evident which is the safe world or the dangerous one, not unlike a shore that borders land and water, but she is developing the courage to choose her heading and a solid intuition about good people that will guide her.

Level 13

Written by Gordon Korman

Scholastic Press

978-1-338-28620-5

241 pp.

Ages 8-12

July 2019

Cameron Boxer is a middle-grade slacker. He acknowledges this and is happy with a life style that allows him to play video games, hang with his friends Chuck and Pavel, and eat junk food. Of course, most parents and schools aren't supportive of slackers and so Cam has had to find a way to appease them with a façade of effort (see Slacker by Gordon Korman; Scholastic 2016) and he's done this by establishing P.A.G. a.k.a. Positive Action Group. But things tend to get out of hand when Cam is involved and his community service club has ballooned to 874 kids who think Cam, president of P.A.G., is a stand-up kind of guy who wants to do good work. So while all the paggers are working on a fundraiser for the public library, Cam is trying to avoid getting involved in anything that would take him away from his gaming and potential money-making endeavour as a live streamer.

Being the slacker he is, Cam comes up with a plan that would give him all the time needed for gaming and still look good. He lies to all, except Pavel and Chuck, that he's failing in his schoolwork because of his commitment to P.A.G. and allows Chuck's new girlfriend Daphne to take over as an interim president. To cover up his gaming, Cam creates a new account as GameFox229 and wears a disguise of an old Zorro mask and stuffs gummy worms in his mouth. When Chuck brings Elvis, the beaver the kids helped out in Slacker, over to Cam's house–Daphne is worried how thin he is–the number of followers and subscribers watching Cam explodes. Seems the rodent is mesmerized watching Cam play, getting into the game with sounds and expressions that suggest he knows exactly what's going on. Moreover, when Cam discovers an old version of the Guardians of Geldorf game with a banned Level 13 and is determined to make history with it, Elvis is all in.

But the Awesome Threesome, Cam, Pavel and Chuck, are struggling to stay a cohesive group while Chuck tries to balance his commitment to Daphne and Pavel struggles to keep up his stellar grades while always helping to transport Elvis to join Cam for his streaming sessions.

You know things have to go wrong. Soon all the paggers, without letting anyone else know, are taking over Cam's schoolwork to ensure that his marks improve so he can once again lead them in P.A.G. Elvis is not getting any fatter and Daphne is starting to worry about his health and the frequency of his absences from his habitat. Chuck and Pavel, knowing the truth of Cam's successes, are dismayed to see him held up as a hero of good works and marks. Even Cam's sister Melody gets into things by blackmailing him. Cam and his schemes are a runaway train and he has to get things back on track before he loses everything: his reputation, his friends, and even his health.

When he got mixed up in things–even dumb things–they could balloon to Hindenburg size in the blink of an eye.

     Then again, remember what happened to the Hindenburg. (pg. 122)

Gordon Korman gives kids a story they'll laugh at while envying Cam. Think about how many children would admire Cam for his artful scheming, continued luck, and ability to avoid scandal. He may call himself a slacker but he puts so much effort into his plans and their realization that he becomes a slave to his hobby. Level 13 could be considered a cautionary tale about the dangers of addictive behaviour and taking advantage of others but it's more a laugh on how the best laid plans can go wrong, even for those like Cam who were born under a lucky star. Regardless of the glitch in Cam's plan to becoming a professional gamer, he keeps leveling up, learning more about himself and others and appreciating a life beyond that of a slacker. For the Win!

Breaking Faith: Book launch (Burlington, ON)

Join

E. Graziani

author of

War in My Town

(Second Story Press, 2015)

for the launch of her new young adult novel

Breaking Faith

by E. Graziani

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-024-7

248 pp.

Ages 13-17

March 2017

Review here

on

Sunday, April 2, 2017

2 p.m.

A Different Drummer Books

513 Locust St.

Burlington, ON

In addition to a book reading and signing, 

youth mental health expert Dr. Vimala Chinnasamy will give a talk.

From Second Story Press' website about the book:

Faith Emily Hansen just wants to be loved and to live without the weight of addiction. But the lure of drugs is strong. The relief that she gets from being wrapped up in the cozy little cotton ball of heroin is impossible to ignore.

Faith’s story starts in her earliest days, before drugs, before her family falls apart. Before her mother leaves. Before her sister betrays her, taking away Faith’s last connection to home. She eventually becomes consumed by the need to “chase the dragon” – the heroin addiction that seems to keep the Darkness at bay, but leads her to live on the street. The determination to find love and comfort that lures Faith to drugs is ultimately the same stubborn force that can drive her to recover.

Retrieved from https://secondstorypress.ca/teen/breaking-faith on March 13, 2017.

Breaking Faith

Written by E. Graziani

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-024-7

328 pp.

Ages 13+

March 2017

Reviewed from advance reading copy

For most people, turning points help define them in terms of before and after.  They are sparks of tragedy or ecstasy that depress or elevate, twisting the trajectories of lives onto paths unpredicted.  For Faith Emily Hansen, her turning points began with those of her mother, Lacey, but when her own begin to accumulate, they lead her down paths that are both random and dangerous, and sadly all her own.

Life for Faith’s family has never been easy.  Her mother had been devastated when her husband Simon had died, leaving her with a two-year-old daughter Constance.  She tried to get on with her life, moving back in with her criticizing and argumentative mother Dot, and even getting involved with two different men and having Faith a year later and Destiny two years after that.  Still Lacey’s life is tenuous at best, and out of control at worst.  Although her love for her children is evident–including coming to Faith's rescue when the four-year-old becomes an innocent victim in a horrific act of violence–she leaves them when Faith is just seven, moving to Toronto and making promises she'll never keep.

When Constance moves in with her other grandmother, the affluent Josephine, Faith is left to mother her younger sister and navigate her own Darkness, ever difficult as she is overwhelmed with sadness and anger, hurt and loneliness.  And she is just a child.  As they all deal with Lacey’s spiral into drug use, Faith yearns for normal but is unable to make choices that support that.  Even some counselling and making friends with Norma and Ishaan in middle school can't keep Faith from eventually breaking and heading to a life on the streets of Toronto and into using heroin, eventually hitting rock bottom.

"And my soul was broken–I'd lost Faith.  Lost hope. Lost my belief in my own destiny." (pg. 264)

The story that E. Graziani tells with heart-breaking power and poignancy is devastating in its sadness and bleakness.  Though Faith's reactions are her own, the circumstances of her life were thrust upon her by a mother with her own addiction and mental health issues, by a random act of violence and by familial circumstances which burden her and for which she, as a child, was unprepared emotionally and physically.  Even happiness was a burden.

"And the feeling of constantly being on edge, walking on eggshells, and feeling guilty (though outlandish as that may seem) if I felt a positive emotion." (pg. 17)

But, though Faith sees little positive in her life, she is the poster child for the Bob Marley quote she repeats throughout: "You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice."
The reader may be hopeful that, since it is a nineteen-year-old Faith who is writing about the events and conditions that led her to a point where she needs to be rescued, Breaking Faith must have a happy ending i.e., she survives to write her story.  But I don't think there are any happy endings here.  As the Afterword by psychiatrist Dr. Vimala Chinnasamy states, Faith's story is not an uncommon one, one in which mental illness and addiction are perceived as emotional weaknesses and for which inadequate support, both within the family and outside, is provided, thus contributing to the tragedy.  And Breaking Faith is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.  The only saving grace is that Faith survives these chapters of her life and that E. Graziani provides a deep look into a life we need to witness so that we might walk with the Faiths of this world before we need to pull them up and rescue them or worse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check out the next post for details of the book launch for Breaking Faith this Sunday at A Different Drummer Books in Burlington, ON

Finding Hope: Blog tour and online book launch

Written by Colleen Nelson

Dundurn Press

978-1-45973-245-2

224 pp.

Ages 14+

March 2016

I am so pleased to be part of Dundurn's blog tour for Colleen Nelson's newest young adult book, Finding Hope.  If you've followed CanLit for LittleCanadians, you'll know that I've previously reviewed her The Fall (Great Plains Teen Fiction, 2013) and 250 Hours (Coteau, 2015) and appreciated her compelling reads about tough issues like death, guilt, bullying and discrimination.  Finding Hope is no less than what I would expect from Colleen Nelson: a gripping novel about the tragedy of shame and the faith that somehow, some way things will right themselves.

Told in the alternating voices of fifteen-year-old Hope and her older brother Eric, Finding Hope examines the sibling relationship and the direction it takes when Eric becomes addicted to meth.  But the story is so much more than that because of a monumental concept called shame and all it entails for both young people.

The story starts in late August just as Hope learns she’ll be leaving their small town of Lumsville and heading to a private school named Ravenhurst School for Girls.  This is something her mother really wants for Hope; in fact, she wanted it for Eric too, pushing him to succeed in hockey, hopeful that it would be his ticket out of Lumsville.  He was good at hockey.  Very good.  So good that he became a “special” mentee for his coach, a relationship that leads to the shame that sets Eric on the meth-addled path to “make it all go away.” (pg. 10)

Shame isn’t a weight or something that gets worn.  It’s elastic, stretching and strangling anything in its reach. (pg. 222)

After Eric's progression through drugs leads him to stop going to school and start doing meth, his mom and step-dad, Hope’s father, kick him out of the house.  But that doesn’t stop Hope from leaving him money and food and whatever else he needs.  Sadly, because of his drug use and the paranoia and anxiety that results, their relationship becomes one of Hope enabling Eric: she feeling guilt for the life she has and he feeling that drugs is the only way to live with his secret shame of sexual abuse by his coach.

But after Eric breaks into a pharmacy, he’s on the run and heading to the same city where Hope is now going to school.  Both are now looking for the means to survive on their own in new environs where unexpected threats continue to arise and for which they are both unprepared.  For Eric, it’s finding the basics of life, like food and shelter, and feeding his addiction.  For Hope, it’s finding a friend, even a boyfriend, with whom she can be herself.  The saving grace for Eric is a discarded puppy he finds, whom he names Storm, and for Hope it’s her ability to put her feelings into poetry. Neither one really knows how to help themselves or each other but somehow that’s what they manage.

Finding Hope is a tragic story of looking for something better, and Colleen Nelson tells it with such beauty and poetry. For Eric and Hope, hope–the concept–is not wishful thinking.  It is an appropriate expectation that the world should right itself.

Broken,
My brother sits beside me
Twisted and used, both of us.
Tangled together
We will find a way
Jumping over
Remnants of our lives,
Making a new path
Together.
(pg. 219)

Online book launch

Tired of never being able to attend book launches?  

Then enjoy the online book launch for Finding Hope.

Visit Colleen Nelson's website at colleennelsonauthor.com to participate in the online book launch for Finding Hope.  If you purchase a copy of the book today from Amazon.ca, you can redeem bonus 'gifts' (all downloadable) including a $1 donation to Pink Shirt Day, an organization that raises funds to support anti-bullying initiatives and awareness.

Cut Off

by Jamie Bastedo

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-511-0

340 pp.

Ages 12+

June 2015

From Guatemala to Calgary and to the Yukon, Cut Off takes the reader on a nerve-racking journey from exploitation to addiction and reclamation and finally to self-acceptance.  It's a uncertain ride, with lots of disquieting edges that may look like safe shores and tortuous currents that need to be navigated.   But the destination, self-acceptance, is always evident, though not necessarily easily tenable.

Cut Off starts in Guatemala where teen Indio McCracken lives a privileged life courtesy of his Canadian father's position as a mining executive.  Though the boy also lives with his Guatemalan mother, younger sister Sofi, Great Uncle Faustus and best friend and dog Loba, it is his father that controls everything for Indio.  Edgar McCracken's zealousness–that Indio become a world-famous classical guitarist–is relentless and has him dictating Indio's tutoring, booking his performances, restricting his computer access, and constructing a fully-loaded practise room in which Indio is locked for hours daily. But everything changes when Indio turns 14 and begins to attend the Xela British School twice a week where he finds refuge on the computer and in a blog he starts at www.CagedGuitarist.blogspot.com.  The freedom to share his music and his thoughts, however, is tempered with learning how his father's company has been exploiting and persecuting the local people.  A particularly terrifying event leads the family to pack up and head to Calgary.

With the nasty media attention regarding the mine, and with difficulties he experiences at his new high-school, Indio–now 16– finds the need to reinvent himself so he asks to be called Ian and starts a second blog, BEIN'canadIAN.blogspot.ca.  But a series of episodes at school and at home, and an unforeseen tragedy and horrific car accident indicates Indio cannot free himself from his tech devices.

They just didn't get it.  How could something that felt so good be so bad?  The Internet was buena medicina for me, right?  It took my mind off the pain, off the loneliness.  It fought my depression.
Made me somebody.
They'd see.
There was no stopping me now. (pg. 193)

His family's response is to send him away to a wilderness-based rehab camp called Camp Lifeboat in the Yukon where the "campers" all suffer from some addiction or another.

Simply different poisons, same dead end. (pg. 210)

Through journaling, camping, and a 50-day canoe trip, Indio and the others are compelled to face the beast which they fear most.

Cut Off is a very full young adult novel.  There are the issues of exploitation and addiction and rehab and self-acceptance. There's tragedy across two countries and experiences in the big city, village and wilderness.  The characters include the indigenous peoples of both Canada and Guatemala, and the poor and very rich.  There's also a lot of self-examination, though not always enlightened, and complete oblivion to everything and everyone.  Jamie Bastedo packs a lot into Cut Off.

But, for me, the rampant exploitation, from the mine's impact on the Guatemalan people, to Indio's father's violent fervour regarding his son's musicianship, to Indio's dangerous overuse of his technology and Morris' bullying of Indio, is dismaying.  Compassion does not show up much in Cut Off–though the heart of a few individuals like Indio's Great Uncle Faustus offers some hope–but I guess that's the way Jamie Bastedo wrote it.  His sub-plots are persuasive, though perhaps somewhat incohesive.  And the duplicity and selfishness of a number of characters and the number of tragedies, including the death of several dogs, were hard for me to welcome.  But, Jamie Bastedo's writing is generally strong, allowing the reader to infer much, so perhaps I can attribute my perspective to recent health issues that have me seeking out more positive and inspiring stories.

That said, Cut Off is a worthwhile read as a cautionary tale of how focusing on one's own desires, irrespective of possible consequences on others, is jeopardous. And, given the landscape of the story, Cut Off takes the reader on an experience not soon forgotten.

Accomplice

Written by Valerie Sherrard
Dundurn Press
978-1554887644
142 pp.
Ages13-16
2011

Dundurn's newly established Keystone Hi-Lo series hits the mark with Accomplice by Valerie Sherrard, enticing readers with a cover suggestive of a female criminal, a less likely combo than you might expect.  Our covergirl, fifteen-year-old Lexie Malton, starts her story with her arrest, and spends the remainder describing the circumstances by which she ends up nestled in a sheriff's van.

The story is fairly simple: Lexie gets her boyfriend, Devlin, to go to a party where she is enticed into trying heroin and encourages the reluctant Devlin to follow.  Unlike her, Devlin becomes addicted, eventually ending up on the street.  Though Lexie eventually moves on and starts going out with Oscar, her overwhelming guilt at her role in turning a great guy into a junkie continues to compel her to get what little money she can for Devlin whenever he calls.  Regardless of Devlin's insistence that he's going to stop the drugs and get clean, even returning to rehab, he thoughtlessly wrenches Lexie into a brutal situation that results in a death and Lexie marked as an accomplice.

The mandate of Hi-Lo books, i.e., grabbing the reader with its engrossing plot without dissuading reading with challenging vocabulary, can result in uninspired writing around a weak storyline.  However, in the hands of an accomplished writer such as Valerie Sherrard, most recently winner of the 2011 Geoffrey Bilson Historical Fiction for Young People Award for The Glory Wind (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2010), there is no chance of mediocrity.  Accomplice presents a straightforward but not light-weight plot involving common teen trials dealing with curiosity about drugs, discriminating between right and wrong, dating and communicating, and accepting responsibility.  More than just a hi-lo read, Accomplice provides a glimpse into how innocent errors in judgement can produce unfathomable consequences.