T Is for Terry: An ABC of Courage

Written by Denise Dias

Illustrated by Noémie Gionet Landry

North Winds Press (Scholastic Canada)

978-1-0397-0679-8

32 pp.

Ages 3–8

July 2025 

 

Terry Fox's story of his cancer and of his Marathon of Hope is one that is firmly established in Canadian history. When he embarked on his cross-country run in 1980 in support of cancer research, he could not have imagined the impact his story and his undertaking would have on the world. For us, he was a champion and a warrior. And now his story is told in such a way that our youngest children, perhaps those who will still be having this book read to them, will understand who he was and what he accomplished. 

From T is for Terry, written by Denise Dias, illustrated by Noémie Gionet Landry

Denise Dias who is involved with the Terry Fox Foundation tells Terry's story using the alphabet as her guide. She begins pre-diagnosis with Terry enjoying play with his siblings and sports. With the letter C, readers learn that Terry became ill and had the courage to face losing part of one leg. (Thank you, Denise Dias, for not making Cc for cancer.) Then there is his treatment and his training, but the text is all about the positives: the dream, the effort, his friends, and his gratitude. 

From T is for Terry, written by Denise Dias, illustrated by Noémie Gionet Landry

With the letter H, Denise Dias begins Terry's Marathon of Hope, still always emphasizing the positives of the kindness people showed him, the pride they felt sharing in his marathon, and the example he was by inspiring people everywhere to carry on his dream. Sure, there were some details about his shoes and how tired he was, but the highlights of T is for Terry is the young man and his worthwhile efforts to help others who were sick through fundraising for cancer research.

From T is for Terry, written by Denise Dias, illustrated by Noémie Gionet Landry

T Is for Terry is a complete illustrated biography for young children, introducing them to this extraordinary young man and his mission in a way that is not scary and very inclusive.  Denise Dias may keep the text inspiring rather than disheartening but she gives everything to his story so it is thorough. What Denise Dias leaves out in the text New Brunswick's Noémie Gionet Landry includes but with care. Her digital artwork blends realism with cheerful illustrations that both inform and amuse. We see Terry and other cancer patients receiving chemo treatment, the solitude of his running through all kinds of weather, and his distinctive running gait. We also see the landscapes of Canada that Terry ran through, from the Atlantic Ocean through forests and neighbourhoods. Noémie Gionet Landry keeps the story but makes it more Terry.

 

I am often wary of themed alphabet books as they can seem contrived, trying to fit a story into the alphabet. T Is for Terry is not forced in its alphabetical storytelling. Terry's story is complete as an illustrated biography in T Is for Terry; it just happens that it is told with the use of the alphabet to organize information. With great honesty and philanthropy, Denise Dias tells how Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope united a nation and committed us to working to fund cancer research. With all author royalties being donated to the Terry Fox Foundation—in fact, the text and illustrations copyrights are held by the Terry Fox Family—Denise Dias furthers that support now and in perpetuity. By encouraging discussions through T Is for Terry, I hope that teachers and parents will grab this book and further the support for the Terry Fox Foundation and the good work they do, and thus move us all closer to finding all the cures for cancer.

The Momentous Expiration of Tremmy Sinclair

Written by Michael F. Stewart

The Publishing House

978-1-989133-05-7

259 pp.

Ages 13+

June 2021

 I can do anything at all, but now there's not time. How do you live a lifetime in four months? (pg. 4)

Tremendous Sinclair, talented and privileged son of wealthy parents, has been dealing with brain cancer over the summer before his senior year, keeping his diagnosis, treatments and prognosis from his best friend Jenkins and everyone at Amborough Private School. His parents, desperate to give him anything, including a miracle, are taking him on a first-class trip around the world. That is, until Tremmy decides that what he really wants is to return to school, and live out what little time he has being the head boy, a drone war general, captain of the swim team and his best self. Unfortunately, Tremmy soon realizes that...

Nothing can be truly fantastic anymore. Now fantastic is coated in a prickly sweat of impending doom. (pg. 42)

Still he returns to school. What he had hoped would be a stellar few months of accomplishments and camaraderie soon becomes something different. His symptoms slowly begin to affect his daily life, though he tries to cover it up. But when his medical circumstances are leaked to all, the school's administration does whatever it can to get him out, not wanting a student's death at school on their hands. And his friends? Audra wants to run a social experiment and record photographs of his dying. Girlfriends Jodie and Mona come out of the woodwork and make him think about his relationships. Margot, scholarship student and head girl prefect, supports him and makes him consider how he needs to fight. As for Jenkins? He may be pompous, privileged, self-absorbed, and perhaps criminal–Tremmy has to get him out of at least one bad situation–but Tremmy may need him because his attempts to procure medical or parental assistance in dying is not happening.

With each day, and those days are counted down in chapter headings that record "days to demise," Tremmy tries to enlighten his classmates about death and dying, knowing it will help him as much as them. 

Silence is when I am most alone. That's when the shadows of death's in the room. (pg. 235)

But how do you convince anyone to listen when you're stripped of your achievements, squirreled away in an unused room, growing weaker and less able, and your best friend is either not talking to you or doing things you're starting to see as questionable? Tremmy has more than one fight on his hands, and whether he wins any of them may not be up to him.

Michael F. Stewart’s latest young adult novel–earlier ones include Heart Sister, Counting Wolves and Assured Destruction–may ask readers to think about what a good death is but more importantly it reminds us that it only comes with living a life that is of value. And that value does not comes from wealth or bountiful experiences, both of which Tremmy has available to him.  It’s value that comes from meaning.

 ...it's at the point of discomfort where life gets important. (pg. 149)

From the onset of The Momentous Expiration of Tremmy Sinclair, it's clear that Tremmy's circle of friends and family are highly advantaged, wealthy beyond imagination. 24K gold-trimmed double-screened cell phones with firefly companion drones. Caviar served in the cafeteria. Selling of transcripts of one teacher's lectures for $10,000. These kids and their families have gobs of money. But it won't save Tremmy from death or others from poor decisions and bad behaviour. Michael F. Stewart may take us into their world but he doesn't leave us there. We're like the drones the kids fight with, watching Tremmy and his classmates, the school's administration and his parents, and others who flit into their lives. We see the calamities and the injustices, the insights and the fears. And we see the resolution, for Tremmy, at least. Surprisingly, that resolution brings both tears and cheers. Tremmy couldn't change the life he'd lived prior to his diagnosis but he sure added value to it with his death. In that way, Tremendous Sinclair's expiration is truly momentous, as is Michael F. Stewart's telling of it.

Last Words

Written by Leanne Baugh

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-576-9

320 pp.

Ages 13+

2019

"I'm sorry" are the last words that Will Szabo speaks to a stranger on the Lion's Gate Bridge before he jumps to his death, but they are the beginning of a new chapter in sixteen-year-old Claire Winters's life as she struggles to understand his suicide.

Just before he jumped, Will hands Claire his cell phone–complete with passcode taped to the back–and this becomes the focus for Claire's probe into his death. She discovers a suicide note, emails, voice mail, text messages and more that help her reconstruct his life. But learning about the young man just leads her to question the way of the world and what hope there is. In fact, Claire's own life begins to unravel as she delves deeper, causing riffs with her boyfriend Ty, friends Izzy and Declan, and straining her relationships with her parents and older sister Belle who is moving to a group home–Belle has Down Syndrome–while also impacting her passion for painting. She speaks to different people, trying to get advice as to how to proceed, including from Paul, the executive director of a hospice, who suggests that

"Sometimes the best way to get to the other side is to go right through the pain, yelling, kicking, and screaming like a crazed fool." (pg. 173)

Then Claire meets Kiki, a teen with cancer, who sees life as a gift and a challenge that she will not deny and Claire begins to wonder who got it right.

It's not unusual for young people to look at the world and see the good and the bad as extremes. Except for a person like Kiki who is on the cusp of losing her life, many become distressed by break-ups and environmental disasters and changes that compel them to take a different perspective from the one with which they've become comfortable. They're not wrong to be distressed but they might not always see the circumstances in the realm of a big picture that might suggest these situations are not worth ending a life.

"...if there's meaning in life, there also has to be meaning in suffering. They go hand in hand." (pg. 241)

Leanne Baugh does not take sides. She doesn't make Claire seem over-the-top in her pursuit of Will's story or a victim of wrong-place-wrong-time circumstances, though it was unfortunate that Claire had to witness something so shocking. Leanne Baugh could have made Kiki into a saint who fights her illness with valour and perseverance but she doesn't. And she certainly doesn't depict Will as a victim or a young man in control of his own life. The paths for these characters, as are our own, are never set in stone and suggesting otherwise would be unfair. Ultimately, Leanne Baugh twists her plot to enable Claire to see her life and those of Will and Kiki from a different perspective, for good or bad, and recognize that, as Emily Dickinson is quoted, "Hope is the thing with feathers."

My Deal with the Universe

Written by Deborah Kerbel

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-5756-8

240 pp.

Ages 8-12

June 2018

The uplifting cover of My Deal with the Universe hides the anxieties with which twelve-year-old Daisy is overwhelmed but thankfully it does tip us off to a resolution that is lightness and sparkle.

School is ending for the year and, though Daisy enjoys days with her best friend Willow playing at their Junglecamp, scheduled days of activities, too soon Willow would be off to summer camp for seven weeks. Sadly, there are no other friends, as Daisy, often called "Weed" lives in a house overgrown with vines and a yard dense with vegetation–called the Jungle–which is a source of ridicule and even contempt by schoolmates and neighbours. Mr. and Mrs. Pitt, next door, are especially horrid, always filing complaints against Daisy's parents and spraying Daisy with water "accidentally." Though the Jungle may be a source of embarrassment, Daisy loves her home, especially the quiet and darkness that comes with vine-covered walls and windows.

But Daisy's greatest concern is for her twin, Jack, who'd been diagnosed with cancer just before they turned eight. At the time, she'd made a deal with the universe: her life for Jack's. Coincidentally, as Jack went through treatment and started getting better, Daisy stopped growing. Apparently her deal worked. But now her parents are taking Jack, who is in remission, for doctors' appointments and tests, and Daisy comes up with a new plan to save him.

Then the Pitts' great niece and nephew, Violet and Zack, come to stay and befriend Daisy and Jack. This new friendship could change everything but would it help or hurt?

As in her most recent middle-grade novel Feathered (Kids Can Press, 2016), Deborah Kerbel makes us realize that young people, when faced with difficulties, find the means to mitigate those concerns through action. They may do so by unconventional means but making deals with the universe is probably less offbeat for children and those who are desperate than some medical treatments purported to benefit those who are ill. It would seem that Daisy is far more normal than she suspects: she's embarrassed by her parents but loves them; she's angry when she feels ignored by her friend; she doesn't want her twin to die; and she wants to be liked. But Deborah Kerbel makes it clear that normal is different for everyone and it can change with circumstances and these are lessons that Daisy ultimately learns. But she learns more than that. Daisy also accepts that some answers to life's problems can be a lot closer than anticipated and even a child can help make things right.

And how sometimes life's not all that different from a crossword puzzle.  How there's usually a solution lurking behind the blank spaces. You just have to keep trying different things to find that one that fits. (pg. 231)

Jon's Tricky Journey: A story for Inuit children with cancer and their families

Written by Patricia McCarthy

Illustrated by Hwei Lim

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-145-4

70 pp.

All ages

July 2017

The fact that Patricia McCarthy, a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, wrote this book is a sad reminder that there are many children, including Inuit children, who must endure treatment for cancer. Their childhoods should be filled by play and learning and friends and family and not the medical traumas involved in being diagnosed with and then treated for cancer.  Jon's Tricky Journey, which is both picture book story and resource guide, takes the reader on that journey and provides a compendium of supportive resources for navigating pediatric cancer treatment in the North.

Jon is an Inuit boy who lives with his parents (anaana and ataata) and two siblings and their husky dog Nanuq in Nunavut.  He loves camping, watching the northern lights and hearing stories about his ancestors.

From Jon's Tricky Journey 

by Patricia McCarthy

illus. by Hwei Lim

When Jon starts to feel pains, a visit to the nursing station ends up sending him to the hospital far away south.  Only his anaana goes with him to a land of trees and noise and busyness that made him fearful.  A social worker helps him and his anaana adjust, including finding them a place to stay, while he visits with the oncologist Dr. Lewis who tells him that he has a lump called cancer inside his body.  An operation is needed to remove it and then he'll have to take special medicines.

From Jon's Tricky Journey 

by Patricia McCarthy 

illus. by Hwei Lim

From the nurses and child-life specialists, pharmacists and special visitors, Jon is helped through what he calls his "tricky days," those days when pain, fatigue and homesickness overwhelm him.  (The above art illustrates Jon's trick of thinking happy thoughts, such as camping, to get through episodes of pain.) As he deals with his chemotherapy (a word not used in the story) and becomes more familiar with the routines and the hospital and meeting other children with cancer, Jon begins to appreciate that he is showing strength and resilience, just like his Inuit ancestors.

Patricia McCarthy's intent for this book is to "serve as a source of comfort and useful information for families who find themselves far from home, facing a cancer diagnosis in a strange and sometimes frightening environment." (pg. 37)  Jon's Tricky Journey, the story, is a reassuring depiction of what a child might need to go through when being treated for cancer but that story only takes 34 pages.  The remainder of the picture book lists children's hospitals and cancer treatment facilities and a map of flight paths from Arctic locations to these facilities; navigation and coordination services by region; descriptions of all medical team members; answers to FAQs; the northern pain scale, most appropriate for Inuit children; a glossary; an art project; and additional resources.  Jon's Tricky Journey, brilliantly translated into Inuktitut so that it can be read by all family members, should be available at every treatment centre accommodating Inuit children and their families as well as the nursing stations of their home communities.  By depicting Jon's Inuit life and his oncology journey with simplicity and realism, Malaysian illustrator Hwei Lim ensures that any child of the North dealing with cancer will see himself or herself within the pages. This is as it should be.  Sadly, Jon's Tricky Journey could be the journey of far too many children but, within the pages of this book, there is some solace that it's a journey that is not taken alone.

Undiscovered Country

Written by Jennifer Gold

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-031-5

320 pp.

Ages 13+

April 2017

I feel the familiar wave of sadness overtake me, trapping me underwater, stealing my breath.  Here in the jungle, it is easier to forget my grief.  Sometimes, it feels like something I forgot to pack, something there wasn't room for in my suitcase, and I feel I've won, I've escaped.  Then I remember, and it feels as fresh and raw as it did the night she closed her eyes for the last time. (pg. 125)

Seventeen-year-old Caitlin Marks' grief is as raw and unrelenting as the environs of Bolivia  to which she has thrown herself as a volunteer for nine months with Students Without Boundaries. SWB is Cat's way of running from Ohio and the recent death of her mother from cancer and a father too wrapped up in his own anguish to be a parent to his daughter. But what Cat discovers is that grief resides everywhere, in different forms, and can travel as easily as she does.

Told in alternating perspectives of Before and After, Undiscovered Country is Cat's story of the months leading to her mother's death from cancer and then her experiences as a volunteer in the village of Calantes, a community of poverty, violence and political unrest. As the reader learns of Cat's mom finding the lump in her breast and subsequent gruelling chemo, loss of hair, struggle for dignity and affliction with brain cancer which ultimately takes her life, Cat struggles with balancing being the support her mother needs and going on with her own life, taking her SAT, dealing with peers who see her in terms of her mother's illness, and planning for school at Stanford.  Each step is a struggle of emotions and logistics, helped only somewhat by her sessions with Dr. Shapiro who diagnoses her with Bipolar II.  Bolivia undoubtedly seems like a chance to really help while escaping the overwhelming torment of her sadness.

Sadness is like cancer that way, an unwelcome guest that takes the body or the mind hostage, stripping the joy... (pg. 138)

In Calantes, Cat meets bunkmates Margo who's there to appease her ultra-competitive parents and outdo her cousin who just got into law school; Taylor who'd flunked his first year of college after coming out as gay to his wealthy family; and Melody, a devout Christian, whose self-righteousness masks hidden traumas. And, though everything reminds her of her mother–make-up, Diet Coke, pretzels–Cat soldiers on, meeting the handsome local Rafael and others in the village where she ends up working in the rudimentary infirmary.  But, as she and fellow SWBers  struggle with their emotional baggage, the people of Calantes must deal with their social and political strife, troubles which Rafael is adamant can only be solved with dangerous actions.

The ambiguity that is Cat is normal after a tragedy.

Sometimes it feels as if there are two Cats–the one who longs for love and companionship, who's lonely and desperate for affection, and the other one, who's desperate and desolate and pushes people away, almost determined to stagnate in her grief. (pg. 187-188)

It's unfortunate that Dr. Shapiro and others in Undiscovered Country are so quick to label sadness and grief as mental illness in need of medication.  Cat's foray into a third-world country to volunteer and ease her impotence in helping her mother may not be ideal for all but it works for her, allowing her to discover herself and others in new circumstances.  Without realizing it, Cat's explorations abroad and within challenge her to accept her new normal.

Jennifer Gold, author of Soldier Doll (Second Story Press, 2014), again takes the issue of grief and connections and creates a story of loss, confusion and redemption, with honest characters dealing with realistic challenges but this time in a contemporary setting.  Her characters are dealing with grief, cancer, sexual abuse, foster care, sexuality, family expectations and the teen angst of relationships, peer and romantic.  It's a lot for them to deal with and a lot for Jennifer Gold to tackle.  Still Undiscovered Country, unlike most of us and most definitely Jennifer Gold's characters, never stumbles, instead exposing different paths of salvation to life's struggles, some safer than others, but all viable and very real.

Stay

Written by Katherine Lawrence

Coteau Books

978-1-55050-681-5

128 pp.

Ages 9+

April 2017

Stay is a simple middle-grade novel in its length, its form and its story.  But within those few pages and free verse form is a powerful story of a family in transition and a young girl’s need to make a family from its pieces, adopting a few more bits as required.

With her dead twin brother Billy as her sounding board,

My twin is buried in a wooden box
lined with white silk
soft as dandelion fluff, the stuff I blow
to the wind, to you,
Billy. (pg. 1)

pre-teen Millie attempts to survive the “family squalls” that have sent her father first to the basement and then to his own apartment. After helping to rescue a starving dog, Millie’s desperate longing for a dog becomes an obsession that pervades her days and nights.

Is love like a tree leaf that browns and drops to the ground? If I had a dog, I would love my puppy evergreen. (pg. 30)

But the two-residences situation is a stumbling block to getting a dog–Dad’s building has a no-animals policy and Mum refuses to be responsible when Millie and her older sister Tara are away–as well as to the copacetic custody of the girls, especially after Mom goes off on a weekend with her new love interest and Dad forgets it’s his weekend with his daughters.  Though Millie is convinced she will be saddled with a “companion named Baggage” for the rest of her life, a chance encounter with the compassionate Mrs. Irene Tootoosis, who’d adopted the dog Millie and her friend had saved, and an unexpected cancer diagnosis brings the family together in a new configuration.

Three tents, two canoes, one pup
sounds like a family. (pg. 115)

Though the plot of Stay is relatively straightforward, Katherine Lawrence’s writing is not.  An accomplished writer of several books of poetry for adults, Katherine Lawrence pens a novel in verse so profound and complex in its voice and subtle in its story that rereading Stay will be necessary to appreciate all the nuances.  She gives Millie the freedom to obsess about a dog, talk to her dead brother (and play soccer against his headstone), sneak reading of her mother’s cell phone texts, and  be a good friend, while still looking to reconstruct her family as it was or as it might be.  Stay may be a quick read but it’s one that should not be hurried.  As Millie might attest, staying with it is definitely the preferred option, though it might be a lesson that needs to be learned both by dogs and people.



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

Kubiw, H. (2017, June). [Review of the book Stay, by Katherine Lawrence]. Quill & Quire, 83 (5): 35.

If This is Home

by Kristine Scarrow

Dundurn Press

978-1-459736504

184 pp.

Ages 12-15

January 2017

The bright sun and wheat fields of the cover may hint at the Saskatchewan setting but not the darkness and confusion of If This is Home, Kristine Scarrow’s second novel for young people.  And though the story resolves itself to a setting in which a swing, grain fields and fresh breezes prevail, don’t expect a happily-ever-after ending because If This is Home is more real than that.

Even with their mother working two jobs, there is barely enough food in the house for sixteen-year-old Jayce  (J.J.) Loewen  and her four-year-old sister Joelle.  But now their mom is missing shifts, barely able to get out of bed, and their dad Joe, a touring musician, hasn’t been in the picture for years, never even having met Joelle.  When J.J. meets the intriguing senior Kurt at detention,  he shows interest in a friendship with her which she tries to nix.

My mom has kind of given up on everything and stays in bed all the time.  My four-year-old sister pretty much fends for herself.  I'd invite you in, except I'd have nothing to offer you but a hot, steamy bowl of oatmeal and, really, my life is getting far too complicated to add something new in, so it's best if we cut ties now. (pg. 22)

However, after her mom is taken to hospital and diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, and J.J.’s best friend Amanda pays little attention to anything but her own dramas, J.J. finds Kurt a valuable support as she seeks out her dad, as instructed by her dying mother.

However, the search for Joe does not lead to the comforting family the girls need.  In fact, J.J. discovers Joe is no longer the bad-boy musician she’d remembered and is harbouring secrets that stun and anger her.  Meanwhile her mother is reaching out to her own mother who’d stood by when J.J.’s grandfather kicked J.J.’s mother out upon learning of her pregnancy at 18.  Will J.J.’s father and grandmother be able to offer the support her family needs?  Does she have it in her to forgive their trespasses against her mother and sister and herself?

I'm done letting people walk in and out of my life at their whim. It's better just to keep them out altogether. (pg. 119)

When  troubles overwhelm, most of us seek out family.  After all, they’re the ones who are supposed to take you in when no one else will.  But what happens when history and disappointment and anger impede that happy reunion?  Do you look elsewhere or find the means to forgive?  Kristine Scarrow creates a tenuous situation of an ill mother trying to find caregivers for her children when there seems to be no one around and worrying that she will die before she is able to restore familial links.  But more than that, If This is Home is about a teen trying to be the adult in a family untethered, trying to secure assistance without showing her vulnerabilities or forgiving those who’ve neglected them for so long. While Kurt, a young man who lives and cares for his ailing grandmother and is very forthcoming about his own parents’ inadequacies, provides a sharp contrast to J.J.’s own situation, he provides her with the unconditional support she requires.  He becomes the family she desperately needs while helping her to reconcile the family she has.

If This is Home is all about finding home in whatever form is available to you.  For J.J. and Joelle, home is what is made for them by those who want to do right and it's a home and a family as real as any.

Feathered

by Deborah Kerbel

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-341-7

144 pp.

Ages 9-13

April 2016

Hope can take many forms and be elicited in a myriad of ways.  For Finch Bennett, an eleven-year-old girl in the summer of 1980–a time of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope, the hostage crisis in Iran, and the Rubik’s Cube-she needs to find some hope, somewhere, anywhere.  Her father died of cancer less than a year ago, her grieving mother is despondent and oblivious to Finch and her older brother Harrison who is also seemingly indifferent to the young girl, allowing his friend Matt to relentlessly torment her.  For Finch, hope might be found in the tiny scar on her neck from which a single white feather had been removed at age 3.  With that scar, Finch reassures herself that a better life, perhaps one of feathers and flight, might emerge.

“That night, I dream about my feathers.  They’ve grown in all white and fluffy and smooth.  And I’m happpy because it means I’m finally able to fly away. I spread my feathered arms and fly up, up, up to where I think I’ll find heaven…where I know I’ll find Daddy.” (pg. 49)

With the arrival of their new neighbours, Finch sees another opportunity for hope, especially with making a new friend of eleven-year-old Pinky Nanda.  This would  be particularly important once dreaded school starts.  School is where Finch is called slow and lazy. It’s where she has major difficulties with writing. And it’s where she sees her former best friend, Karen, has blossomed into a young woman and hangs out with similarly pubescent girls.  But Pinky and her younger sister Padma are staunchly protected by their parents, who argue about how Punjabi Hindus are treated in Canada and do not permit the girls to interact with others.

“It’s at that moment when I see myself right there in her face.  I see a girl who’s trapped in a mess of grown-up problems.  A girl who’s struggling just to figure it all out.” (pg. 94)

Strangely Finch’s only friend becomes an anonymous writer with whom she communicates on a bathroom stall door. That is, until Finch finds the courage to untether herself and communicate her feelings, good and bad, with those impacting her life.

Deborah Kerbel may have written Feathered as a middle-grade novel but Feathered is much more sophisticated than much pedestrian MG storytelling. The writing is brilliant, demonstrating  much depth of spirit and story, taking Finch and the reader beyond the obvious and into the realm of optimism and possibilities, where even a little girl can see that she has it in her to soar above the commonplace and anticipate greatness of action and virtue.  Just like Terry Fox, Finch learns to recognize that the will to try is within her and she may or may not succeed, but there’s always the promise that comes with dreaming.

Forever Julia

by Jodi Carmichael
Great Plains Teen Fiction
978-1-927855-20-1
262 pp.
Ages 14+
April, 2015

Julia Collins must feel like she's living her life from out-of-body. And with the life she has, I might want out too. Her much-adored dad has passed from cancer just 6 months ago, and her Mom is so grief-stricken that she can't even bear to speak of him.  They now live in a small two-bedroom flat above their bookstore and money is an issue, though Julia had never minds thrift-store shopping with her long-time best friend and creative fashionista, Annika, who understands about Julia's issues with depression and anxiety and watches out for her constantly.

But now Julia is going out with the obscenely wealthy Jeremy Thurston, a.k.a. the Third, jock and popularity icon, and he is pressuring her to have sex, though she has made it clear that she is not ready.  The gutsy Annika can’t stand Jeremy and makes it clear every time he pulls some stunt, like kicking Julia out of the ski chalet where they were supposed spend the night when she refuses his advances yet again.  Sadly, in her mind, Julia is convinced that she can have it all: the wonderful dating relationship with Jeremy who calls her “beautiful”; new friendships with the popular girls; a scholarship to USC for architecture; and the best friendship she has ever had.  Imagine thinking,

Maybe if I convince Annika to tone down her wardrobe, Jeremy would see how incredible she really is and then maybe everyone would get along. (pg. 105)

Sadly naïve, but probably not atypical for a teen who is trying to work everything out.

Then Grandma, who generally splits her time between Arizona and the cottage, arrives to stay–in Julia’s room–while being treated for breast cancer.  Now both Grandma and Mom are watching her and what’s going on around her, and they’re not always pleased by what they see.

It’s not surprising that Julia questions everything that she feels but what’s worse is that she never trusts her feelings to be legit or honest.  Whether that’s because of her anxiety or depression is irrelevant.  All that matters is that the life that was once warmed with Dad and Mom happily living in a modest home and with a reliable and loving BFF is now a life she doesn’t even recognize as her own.  Who is the girl who lets herself drink when she knows it’s verboten with the meds she’s on?  Who is the girl who kisses her boyfriend in public like there's no one else around?  Who is the girl who apologizes to a guy who thinks nothing of stranding her at a ski resort when she doesn’t want to have sex?  Jeremy may get a tattoo, even a temporary one, that reads “Forever Julia” but Julia can’t be forever when she doesn’t  know who she is, who she wants to be, or who she can be.

Jodi Carmichael gets inside of this Julia and gives her a true voice, albeit one mixed and confused with guilt, grief, envy, desire, and affection.  Julia definitely morphs over the course of Forever Julia though I suspect she hasn’t come into herself completely, yet. Forever is a long time to be someone, to love someone, to trust someone, to be friends. It may be possible but maybe not.  Not everything can be forever: not life, not love, not lust, not even family nor  friends.  And Jodi Carmichael makes sure that Julia accepts this, even if only temporarily, in Forever Julia.

The Rule of Thirds

by Chantel Guertin
ECW Press
978-1-77041-159-3
192 pp.
Ages 13+
October 2013
Reviewed from Advance Reading Copy 

Most photographers will know The Rule of Thirds, the premise by which a frame is divided into thirds to help determine a photo's composition by placement.  This basic rule can make the difference between a photo that works and one that is solely documentation. Sixteen-year-old Philadelphia Greene, a.k.a. Pippa, photo editor of the school newspaper, president of the photo club, and daughter of a pro photographer, knows the rule of thirds.  And she can tell when there's something off about the composition of the parts.  But the photos that the new kid, handsome Ben Baxter, shows her to get in the photo club definitely work, thereby allowing him the opportunity to enter the Vantage Point photo competition.  Vantage Point, the temporal focus of all the chapter headings, drives everything Pippa does and wants, offering the opportunity to attend the Tisch School for the Arts camp at NYC.

"The photography competition–less than three weeks away, and whether I win or lose will alter the course of my life." (pg. 3)

But Ben's interest in her and confidence in connecting with her has Pippa perplexed, though somewhat intrigued. It's especially confusing when she gets a placement at St. Christopher's Hospital, the same hospital at which her father had died from pancreatic cancer just three months earlier. Here she reconnects with Dylan McCutter, an 18-year-old on whom she's been crushing for years.  Between dealing with panic attacks brought on by being around the hospital and other places associated with her father, and trying to get Dylan interested in her, even though he seems close to another girl who works at the hospital, Pippa continues to fulfil her placement obligations, visit her psychologist for grief counselling and keep photographing for Vantage Point.

Perhaps because of her grief, Pippa seems to be oblivious to a lot of goings-on around her, including how others see her.  So, when Ben continues to come on to Pippa, acting proprietary over her, and her best friend Dace starts running hot and cold, and there is a spate of technology thefts plaguing the school and the community, Pippa may notice but she doesn't take it in until it comes disastrously close to ruining everything she's been working towards.   

While Chanel Guertin does leave the reader satisfied that things will work out alright for Pippa in The Rule of Thirds, she doesn't distort circumstances to produce a blithe ending where the bad guy gets caught, the protagonist wins the competition, and boy and girl finally get together.  But things can and do still work themselves out, just as they often do in reality, though maybe not perfectly but credibly.  It's like that perfect photograph:  it might have all the right components but it's up to the photographer to see the art within and rearrange them to resonate for both the artist and the audience.  Chantel Guertin has accomplished that for the young adult reader, balancing fears, grief, romance, friendship, angst, ambitions and common sense, in different proportions to produce a picture that works.

Not With a Bang

by Gail Sidonie Sobat
Magpie Books
978-1-926794-12-9
118 pp.
Ages 14+
September 2012

While reading Not With a Bang, I felt as if I was holding a cousin of Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat and Wept (1945) - a novella of such intensity and poetic intelligence that it does not spend the time drawing readers towards a climax but simply catapults us to it and keeps us there for the entire book.  Although the title of Gail Sidonie Sobat's newest book is derived from a line in the final stanza of T. S. Eliot's poem, The Hollow Men, 

"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper" 

suggesting an ending of indifference, Not With a Bang harbours no such apathy, but rather presents its beginning, middle and end with zeal for living.

After he is charged and convicted of a crime, seventeen-year-old Jan is instructed to stay away from Snake, the drug dealer with whom he'd been associating, and given community service at the Glamorrah Seniors' Hospice.  Although his community service seems tortuous at first, Jan finds himself curious about his charge, seventy-two-year-old Al Coxworth, a man who seems to know a lot about music, poetry and life in general.  More importantly, Al is the man "who bothered to listen to him." (pg. 56)  Without even noticing, Jan begins to appreciate and recognize the validity and value of Al's comments and opinions, taking Jan from an angry, self-absorbed teen (still dealing with his father's infidelity and his parents' subsequent and acrimonious divorce) to a compassionate, open-minded young man.  It's not surprising that with his growing attachment to Al and the guidance he provides that Jan is determined to help Al when he asks for assistance. 

While Not With a Bang has a commanding plot and one that I choose not to give away in this review, it's the characters that drew me to embrace its story.  Jan is hard-edged in his vocabulary, his actions, and his relationships and is probably more similar to a typical teen than not.  Al sees him as "a kid who coulda." (pg. 8) On the other hand, Al is a man with a poet's heart who lived through the "make love, not war" 1960's but still seems a mix of contradictions.  As different as the two are, the emotional guidance and unconditional support that Al provides brings Jan to provide the same for his new confidant.

Gail Sidonie Sobat is an expert in addressing critical issues for teens in uncharacteristic story lines.  Her teens are always real (though not always likeable) with authentic voices, likely taken from her vast experiences as a teacher and writing mentor for YouthWrite, a camp for young writers.  She eloquently tackled homosexuality and homophobia in Chance to Dance for You (Great Plains, 2011) and anorexia and mental illness in Gravity Journal (Great Plains, 2008) and now suggests readers think about drug use and euthanasia as embedded issues.  Without forcing her own ideas on her readers, Gail Sidonie Sobat allows glimpses into worlds that some readers may never experience, thereby increasing awareness, or that some have experienced, thereby providing validation for their realities.  Not With a Bang is neither far-fetched nor commonplace but insightful, challenging to views usually long-held, and sublimely powerful.  I've learned never to expect less from Gail Sidonie Sobat; I've never been disappointed.

The First Stone

Written by Don Aker

HarperTrophy Canada

978-0-00639-286-6

289 pp.

Ages 14+

2003

Note Bene: Published before I was even a teacher-librarian (just a teacher), The First Stone won both the 2004 OLA's White Pine Award and the Ann Connor Brimer Award.  I'm reviewing it here as it is the prequel to Don Aker's The Fifth Rule, a current White Pine nominee.  I will post my review of The Fifth Rule tomorrow.

Reef, 17, and friends, Jinks and Bigger, are not the most likeable fellows in Halifax, unless you like guys who spew profanities as easily as breathing, who think nothing of vandalizing property, and who think little beyond themselves.  Reef, a foster child since his grandmother died eight years earlier of cancer (his abusive drunkard of a grandfather died earlier), goes by his gut instincts.  Unfortunately, he makes a lot of poor choices, one which causes a horrific crash and leaves a teen broken and in a coma.

Sentenced to the North Hills Group Home, a set-up created by ex-con Frank Colville, to volunteer hours at a rehab centre, and ultimately to present talks to schools about his experiences, Reef isn't pleased; neither are many citizens, including the victim's mother, Diane Morrison, who are convinced he got away with almost murdering her daughter.  Playing the tough-guy, Reef begrudgingly does what is required of him, including following Frank Colville's rules and repairing a greenhouse on his own, but Reef continues to share very little of himself.  That is, until he begins his volunteering at the Halifax Rehabilitation Centre, where his usefulness is appreciated by staff and patients on the muscoloskeletal floor. 

He especially makes a connection with Leeza , a young woman dealing with multiple fractures and injuries which have her in constant pain.  Through their commonality in dealing with the death of a loved one, Reef and Leeza become closer, each having a positive impact on the other: Leeza making more of an effort in her rehab, and Reef finding it easier to respect himself and do the right thing.  

Frank Coville's rules (respect yourself; respect others; honor your commitments; be accountable; and do the right thing) become mantras that poke their way into Reef's consciousness, steering him to ensure he doesn't interact with his victim, to help direct Jinks and Bigger into making better choices, and to recognizing his own worth.  Meanwhile, Leeza is learning to deal with her anger, fear and pain, while accepting the attraction she feels for Reef.

Regardless of how unappealing Reef and his friends are, courtesy of Don Aker's expressive writing, the reader is compelled to read to the end, sure that Reef is one of those characters that can and will redeem himself, somehow.   Leeza can be a less sympathetic character, primarily because of her interactions with her controlling mom, but Leeza demonstrates her resiliency, grabbing the support of her readers.  Even the ending prepares the reader to accept that time is needed for characters and circumstances to resolve themselves before their story truly ends. And so, now comes Don Aker's reluctant sequel, The Fifth Rule.

Love is a Four-Letter Word

by Vikki VanSickle
Scholastic Canada
978-1-4431-0787-7
237 pp.
Ages 9-13
2011

Clarissa, whose mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in Words that Start with B (Scholastic Canada, 2010), continues to support her mom through her treatments, "Run for the Cure" training, and now budding relationship with her personal trainer, Doug.  But, except for her friendship with Benji, one that is experiencing its own ups and downs, Clarissa is naive about the role of love in different relationships.  

Always aspiring to be an actress, Clarissa envisions herself in a leading role in a local young people's theatre production of The Wizard of Oz, coercing Benji to accompany her to the auditions.  Unfortunately for Clarissa, she is not chosen but Benji is selected to play the Cowardly Lion.  So while tending to her bruised pride, Clarissa has to find a way to uphold her part in their intense friendship even though Benji is finding success and new friends without her.

Then, Mattie, a friend whose crushes seem to change weekly, makes Clarissa consider her feelings for boys, specifically Michael, a classmate who may like her.  Clarissa is unsure about her interest in Michael and learns through a series of missteps how careless comments can hurt.

Finally, Annie, Clarissa's mom, is finding love for the first time since Clarissa was born.  Before it was just Clarissa and her mom and her mom's hair salon, and Clarissa thought that had always been good enough.  But, Doug seems to be around a lot now, and Clarissa can't seem to balance her fears for her mother's health with her worries that she's losing her mom and that secrets are being kept.

VanSickle's writing gives her young characters, especially Clarissa, the clear and honest voices of youth, hopeful but laden with anxiety. Clarissa makes a lot of mistakes as she attempts to understand the different loves she sees and experiences, using trial-and-error to choose what she should be feeling or doing.  So, with some suitable direction from her supporting cast of youth and adults, plus a lot of apologizing, Clarissa seems to find a path that may work for her, at least for now.  After all, even if Clarissa doesn't know it yet, love can also be fickle (sorry, that's six letters).