Don't Tell, Don't Tell, Don't Tell

by Liane Shaw

Second Story Press

978-1-927583-95-1

272 pp.

Ages 12-16

April 2016

Frederick, 16, in Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, would loathe to be lumped into a group of individuals with Asperger’s syndrome or labelled with his “disorder”.

Giving me a label groups me together with many others who share a cerain number of common characteristics that would then define me as a syndrome or a disorder rather than a person with a mind of my own.  I don’t want to be a syndrome, and I am far too orderly to be a disorder.
     I just want to be me. (pg. 50)

Though Frederick is different from many of his peers in his love of numbers and math, of routines, and of the dictionary and in the difficulties he has interpreting idioms and slang with which he is unfamilia, he is relatively comfortable in his own skin, having developed some stellar coping strategies for dealing with verbal abuse,  and ensuring that he is able to meet his needs for quiet and routines.  But, when he is befriended by another awkward teen, his routine becomes far more  tenuous and Frederick is taken outside his comfort zone.

Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell begins with Frederick being questioned by the police about the disappearance of the teen who’d befriended him, Angel Martinez.  Though their friendship had been discreet and primarily involved Angel using Frederick as a sounding board, Frederick gets lassoed into keeping a secret for her.  Questioning by the police, however, has Frederick carefully choosing his words, always reminding himself “Don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell.” When it seems that Angel’s secret plan isn’t as perfect as anticipated, Frederick begins to rethink that promise and find a way to stay true to himself and bring order to a very disordered situation.

The mature situations that have Angel scrambling for a way out makes Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell more appropriate for a young adult audience but the issue of labelling and keeping secrets are far more universal.  Liane Shaw, whose previous books Fostergirls (Second Story Press, 2011) and The Color of Silence (Second Story Press, 2013) capably dealt with difficult issues of foster care and guilt, continues to demonstrate the empathy needed to understand and help teens with the emotional, behavioural and physical problems.  Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell takes us into the world of a boy with Asperger’s and a girl whose efforts to make friends take a bad turn and demonstrates that we all are looking to find a way to fit into the world, whether it’s a world we make for ourselves or one into which we try to insinuate ourselves.


(A version of this review, in conjunction with one about Everyday Hero by Kathleen Cherry, was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)



Kubiw, H. (2016, May). [Review of the book Don't Tell, Don't Tell, Don't Tell by Liane Shaw]. Quill & Quire, 82 (4): 37.

Live to Tell

by Lisa Harrington
Dancing Cat Books
978-1-77086-217-3
170 pp.
Ages 13+
2012

Just having been awarded the White Pine Fiction Award in the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading program last week, I willed myself to go back to 2012 to review Live to Tell.  I suspect that many readers, including author Lisa Harrington, were surprised by the book's selection by high school students as their favourite book but, as I always say, if a book wins an award, it deserves to win it.

Teen Libby Thorne wakes up after twelves days of unconsciousness in a hospital, trying to piece together how she got there from the bits and pieces her parents, nurses and friends are able to share.  They can't tell her much because the police are involved now and she needs to provide her account, not one pieced together from others' information.  Two visitors are especially critical in helping bring back Libby's memories.  First, her best friend Kasey, whom Libby's mom has always thought of as a bad influence on Libby, sneaks in to visit and update her on what happened and how the outside world is reacting to the car accident and Libby's role in it.  Second is Cal McInnis whose good looks and devotion to Libby while at the hospital has everyone cooing about him being her boyfriend.  Thing is, the boyfriend she remembers is Nate, though slivers of memory do start to poke into her consciousness and she recalls a rather crude break-up and subsequent drinking.

I know that my students dislike the use of a character's amnesia to develop a plot, but in Live to Tell Lisa Harrington does not use it as a device to keep the whole truth hidden.  The loss of memory is used to reveal Libby's thinking as she tries to make sense of what she is told, what she feels, and what is the truth.  Because her future depends on her remembering–she has been arrested for manslaughter–Libby wants to learn the truth quickly but she isn't always making sure how reliable the information is.  Fortunately, with some friendly direction and because human nature eventually leads us to show our true selves, the twisted plot and surprise revelations bring a swift resolution to Live to Tell.  

Lisa Harrington has penned a young adult mystery with hints of romance and teen angst that obviously reached many teen readers, garnishing a major Canadian book award for young people.  Though Libby's story does jump back and forth between her memories and her present, the plot is essentially a linear one: girl awakens with amnesia and tries to fill those gaps in her memory.  I think Live to Tell could have benefited from some additional subplots to enrich the story but I tend to enjoy more complicated story-telling and those that provide me with the context for considering larger social issues than, say, drinking.  But the readers clearly appreciated the tight storyline and its convolutions, and that's good enough for me.

Congratulations on your White Pine Fiction award,  

Lisa Harrington,

for Live to Tell!