Briarwood

Written by Natalie Hyde

DCB Young Readers

978-1-770868199

246 pp.

Ages 9–12

March 2026 

 

"Sometimes, inspiration and creativity combine in weird and wonderful ways to produce something unexpected." (pg. 99) 

 

It's whispered that Briarwood is a camp of magic, and Callie Garcia is desperate to go there. When a teacher accuses her of cheating on the entrance test and Smedley St. Claire is selected to go instead of her—though she'd scored 98%—Callie believes her dream of following in the tradition of her grandmother's grandfather, Theo Garcia, is lost. GG Theo was a man of ideas who'd left a journal of scientific formulas and inventions' designs and a final message to "Find Archer." But then the director of Briarwood, a Dr. Archer, intervenes and offers Callie a job as a mechanic and she wonders if she has been fated to attend.

 

Briarwood is a camp in the trees, with bunkhouses, walkways, bridges, and all workings powered by steam. So, while her bunkmates Smedley, Shawna, Hank, Tiffany and Dan participate in activities like swimming, alchemy, ropes, and rocketry, Callie is told she'll be reporting to Mr. Davenport. Instead, it's Dr. Archer who takes her to a treehouse lab where she will be fixing things. But there's also a secret lab which she is not allowed to enter, although Dr. Archer tells her that if anything happens to him she is to hide or destroy the special wrench that will allow access to it.

 

When Callie sees inventions that resemble those in her GG Theo's journal, like a hovering bicycle, she knows there must be a connection. But she's too busy trying to figure out the nature of the special metallic water that powers the machines at Briarwood. She is warned against touching the water ever, and not to tell others about what she has seen. With readings of journals at the lab and that of her GG Theo, as well as with her observations, Callie starts putting together a story or two of deception, surveillance, sabotage, and science. And when Dr. Archer goes missing, Callie with a few bunkmates whom she may or may not trust sets out to save Briarwood and its director.

 

Briarwood is magical, but not magical in the supernatural sense. It's wonder comes from the automated nature of its workings, like food delivery at the table, mechanical chameleons that carry messages, and the zip bridges that appear and disappear. Natalie Hyde has created a weird and wonderful place of creativity and engineering, a camp where ingenuity is encouraged, and young people are challenged to see marvels in the mechanisms within. She has shown us clever middle graders who are neither stereotypes of nerdy brainiacs or unrealistic pre-teens with unbelievable skills or strengths. Natalie Hyde makes Briarwood and the mystery to be solved true to life. Moreover, Natalie Hyde makes science, specifically mechanical engineering and chemistry, a fantastical element to the story. The inventions are amazing and yet possible. Camp Briarwood is a marvel that would captivate any young person with imagination and a sense of discovery.

While many young people will be attending summer camps this year, I doubt any camps will be as amazing as the marvel that is Briarwood. Still, I hope that, wherever they go, they find friendship, challenges, perhaps a little mystery, and a whole lot of wonder, just as Callie did at Briarwood.

Death by Whoopee Cushion

Written by Vicki Grant

Tundra Books

978-1-77488-468-3

256 pp.

Ages 10–14

July 2025 

 

 Having parents who own a joke shop can be torture. (p. 3)

 

For twelve-year-old Manya, who hates the limelight, her parents' joke shop, Pranks-A-Million, is embarrassing. But Ronnie and Stephanie Brown love to laugh and make others laugh. Not only do they sell pranks that explode, smell, stain, and startle, they create new "artisanal pranks" like Barf-In-A-Bag, edible scabs, and the Gravy Blaster, a whoopee cushion filled with sulfur-scented gravy, in their backroom Funcubator lab. Manya likes serious science–she won last year's science fair–and is eager to take an after-school program called "Serious Science for Serious Kids" that is offered at the Museum of Natural History. Along with her best friend and neighbour, Isaac, the only other participants who attend Dr. Michael's course are Jack, another science kid from their school, and Brandon, a kid who wanted to do kickboxing but was forced to attend this instead. Together they learn about acids and bases and do fun experiments.

 

But when things that aren't a laughing matter happen, Manya is concerned, though her parents with their good-natured humour are not. First, they are questioned by police about a trick cigar that caused first-degree burns. Then, more seriously, when her parents are setting up for a presentation at Manya's school, the new custodian is killed by an explosion when handling their materials. Manya's parents are arrested, and Manya and their parrot Toots—who makes farting noises—go to stay with Isaac and his mother Delia next door. Now it's up to Manya and Isaac to put their STEM skills to work and determine who sabotaged her parents' Gravy Blaster that killed a man.

 

Vicki Grant is always known for the humour in her books (e.g., Hold the Pickles,  36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You, Short for Chameleon) but her stories are always more than cheap laughs. Her plots often look into deeper issues of family relationships or bullying, even loneliness or shame. Vicki Grant reminds us that even when there is much to laugh about, there are serious issues often lightened with humour. Manya may be a girl who has inherited a love of science and experimenting from her parents, but she is quite self-conscious and embarrassed by the silliness, and smells and noises, of the pranks her parents love. But when her parents are arrested, she realizes how much she loves them and how much the joke shop is a part of her. It's this realization, along with the application of some science, that helps her solve the mystery of the exploding Gravy Blaster and connect with those who care about her.

 

I don't want to give away too much—the mystery of the Whoopee Cushion Murder must be solved—but suffice it to say that the laughs will be had courtesy of a fart-noisemaker of a parrot, a poopy baby called Poppy, a plethora of pranks, and a pair of mischief-makers who drive around in a yellow Beetle adorned with googly eyes and a clown nose. But with a little science, a whole lot of fun, and much familial affection, the mystery is solved, along with a few welcome surprises, and only the culprit is left with egg on their face, figuratively of course.

Hungry for Science: Poems to Crunch On

Written by Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming

Illustrated by Peggy Collins

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

978-1-55455-396-9

32 pp.

Ages 6-9

June 2018

It's Science Literacy Week in Canada and Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming use rhyming verses and inclusive and diverse perspectives on biology, chemistry and physics in Hungry for Science: Poems to Crunch On to help children see the science in everything.

There are poems about geology, structures, life cycles, chemistry at work, seasons, magnetism, brain waves, senses, botany, force and differentiating between living and non-living things. It's the primary curriculum plus in a fun package of poetry and dynamic illustrations by Peggy Collins. And everyone is doing science: girls, boys, monsters, armadillos, physically-challenged individuals, kids with braces, kids with glasses, and kids of all hues and abilities.  It's science learning at its best and most lively.

She's hungry for science.
Her hunger's so great.
Stirring her mixtures
who'd guess that she's eight?

It's the manner in which the concepts are shared that makes Hungry for Science so entertaining. The life cycle of a flea in "An Ode to Flea" details the birth and death of Little Miss Pesky Flea who

Lived three months and caused such strife
a doggone long and itchy life!

Captain Chemistry helps unclog a sink drain with an all-purpose cleaner of baking soda and vinegar, and Scary Miss Mary shares how her odd garden of "carnivorous snappers and large creepy wrappers and that stinky, zombie-faced rose" grows.

From Hungry for Science: Poems to Munch On by Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming, illus. by Peggy Collins

With a glossary and descriptions of the concepts taught in each poem, Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming complete Hungry for Science with the expository text perfect for a book on science. Peggy Collins, who also illustrated Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming's earlier STEM picture book, Hungry for Math: Poems to Munch On (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2015), ensures the lightness and brightness of tone is reinforced in her artwork, adding quirky creative details like a rainbow of plumes from the primary sense organs and an evil below-ground carrot in Scary Miss Mary's garden.

From Hungry for Science: Poems to Crunch On by Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming, illus. by Peggy Collins

Have some fun with teaching simple science concepts to children with Hungry for Science: Poems to Crunch On and inspire a child to become a scientist everyday.

The Opposite of Geek

by Ria Voros

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-0484-5

224 pp.

Ages 11+

September, 2013

Don't let the pink on the book cover fool you: The Opposite of Geek is not chick lit. It's not light and comedic and romantic.  Yes, there are some light moments and some humourous t-shirts and a first love for our protagonist, sixteen-year-old Gretchen, but The Opposite of Geek is more about cliques and friendship and grief and poetry and the toils of being human and being a teen.

Three things you'll learn very quickly about Gretchen Meyers are: 1) her best friend is the brilliant Nemiah Hershey; 2) she's failing chemistry (which is disastrous considering her parents expect her to go into medicine); and 3) she loves reading and writing haiku and poetry (a passion she shares with Ms Long, a guidance counsellor at school).  When Nemiah joins the swim team and its clique, and Gretchen gets seventeen-year-old James Tarden to tutor her in chemistry, her world begins to fracture and reconfigure itself.  

James, who suffers from an embarrassing skin condition and is regularly victimized by a couple of jocks, wears his heart on his t-shirts (e.g., Geeks Rule the World) and has deep philosophical discussions with Gretchen about being a geek.

This is the problem with the social community of high school.  No one understands the value of geekdom.  How come what I love makes me a geek, but what Henry Gladstone (basketball star) loves makes him a stud? (pg. 42)

He takes her to his uncle's deli where she meets James' cousin Dean (18), and the three start hanging out together, giving Gretchen the sense of togetherness she's lost with Nemiah. Unbeknownst to James, Gretchen and Dean start dating.  But after a night of bowling and brawling, Gretchen and Dean go off to be alone and James is in a car accident, and everything becomes broken again, reconfiguring itself into a new social structure.

Gretchen's coming-of-age story is very much linked to her friendships and her ability to recognize what she really wants, and Ria Voros reflects this in the form of The Opposite of Geek's text. Initially, in prose with the occasional haiku by Gretchen or her favourite poets Bashō, Issa and Buson, Gretchen's life seems dense and stilted with infrequent breaths of lightness.  But as James and Dean become part of her life and she joins The Foodies group (cooking club) at school, Gretchen's voice is more expressive and thoughtful, emulated by the richness of the free verse text and poetry she shares with others.  

While the ending of The Opposite of Geek is not a happily-ever-after, it is fulfilling.  Gretchen begins to accept and advocate for herself, and find the courage to see the superficiality of others and reject their attitudes as anything other than meaningless. 

I'll have to break it to them that I am not,
maybe never was, whatever normal means–
there was a geek inside me all the time. (pg. 169)

As she did in Nobody's Dog (Scholastic, 2012), which is a 2014 nominee for the Silver Birch Fiction award, Ria Voros has presented a survivor's story without the heroics or refined sugar of happy endings.  In The Opposite of Geek, the heroes are the geeks, like it or not.