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.

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

Saving Stevie

Written by Eve Richardson

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-540-0

228 pp.

Ages 14-17

November 2016

When her obnoxious older sister Tiff gives birth to Stevie, it's thirteen-year-old Minto who delivers him, so it’s not surprising that the girl feels bonded to the baby.  But when her sister disappears and her mother has an accident that sends her to hospital and rehab, the decision is made to put Stevie in foster care, and Minto refuses to let it happen.  In a planned escape, she packs up two and a half-month-old Stevie in a sling beneath her mother’s winter coat and, with a laundry bag laden with formula, diapers, food and her sketchbook, heads out across a ravine to Shacktown, a menagerie of shelters constructed from dumped garbage.

     I could, this moment, change my mind, go back inside, make it unreal.  And lose Stevie. 
     Or cut, and keep him. (pg. 15)

There Minto asks for shelter from Dawn, an Aboriginal young artist, who lives with her large dog Niijii in the make-shift neighbourhood.  Amidst the odd assortment of characters are the older Ginger and her nineteen-year-old son Matthew; the hyper Palma who speaks of her own baby, Janine, whom she’d given up to care; Palma’s “sister” Cass;  the handsome Damian to whom Minto is attracted; an older, one-armed dump diver Scrap; and a couple of jerks, Lex and Cody.  Everyone has their own way of surviving life on the edge, including prostitution, but Dawn sells her art and encourages Minto in her drawing, helping to sell some of her doodle designs as cards.

When Dawn has to leave to help her suicidal brother, leaving behind Niijii who has appointed himself Stevie’s canine guardian, Minto must ensure she can keep Stevie safe, fed, and clean, a tall order in such precarious circumstances.  When survival is the priority for all, it’s hard to know whom to trust, especially when desperation dictates much.  Too soon Minto learns she’ll have to save Stevie from far more than foster care.

Saving Stevie is a raw initiation into life in the tenuous urban neighbourhoods hidden in plain sight and those who make them their homes.  Minto may be distressed by her situation i.e., the possibility of losing Stevie and feel the need to react by running away with the baby, but she learns soon enough that there are worse places to be.  Eve Richardson pens a story of desperation and action that reveals that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the ravine.  In fact, it’s pretty darn scary, even if there are a few friends around to mitigate the apparent hopelessness. Eve Richardson is especially good at giving Minto voice, a voice that is both young and mature, vulnerable and strong, with her heart and head working together to save Stevie.  As a debut, Saving Stevie is an accomplished story, hopefully a portent of more YA from Eve Richardson whose own voice takes us into places we need to see but rarely do.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The book launch for Saving Stevie takes places tomorrow in Toronto. Details are posted here.

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.

The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Nicki Haddon Mystery

by Caroline Stellings

Second Story Press

978-1-927583-63-0

152 pp.

Ages 12-16

March, 2015

I'm so sorry that I missed Caroline Stellings' first Nicki Haddon mystery, The Scratch on the Ming Vase (Second Story Press, 2013), but now that I've enjoyed The Secret of the Golden Flower, I'll go back and learn how this young kung-fu champion and spy-in-training found herself on an action-packed trajectory in aid of international security.

In The Secret of the Golden Flower, sixteen-year-old Nicki Haddon arrives in London, England with her handler and former family butler Fenwick to further her training with the British Secret Intelligence Service.  But, whilst Fenwick is summoned away to Buckingham Palace, Nicki heads to Fenwick's sister Emma's place where she will board.  Though her 40-something punker band mates, Dawn and Anika, and Anika's 18-year-old son Sid, are welcoming, Emma is less than kind and keeps Nicki en garde, just as the teen is about a flower vendor at the airport who was taking photos of her or with a friend of Sid's named Todd Bead, a heroin addict and gang member who had been stalking Nicki though he comes to warn Sid about the cops coming.

But Sid is arrested, ending up in Limehouse Prison, an unhealthy place for someone suffering from respiratory illness, such as the tuberculosis rampant in London's East End, and Nikki tries to unravel the connections between a major heroin syndicate, a series of lectures at the Natural History Museum, an old book Queen Victoria's grandsons had in their possession, and the involvement of Todd, Sid, one of Nicki's intelligence instructors, and others.

The subplots of The Secret of the Golden Flower are like petals of the titular flower: not dense and overwhelming but loosely overlapping, fragile and tender but foreshadowing something more powerful, even dangerous.  In fact, Caroline Stellings' Nicki Haddon is not unlike the flower itself, seemingly small and pretty, even delicate, perhaps a little vulnerable because of the secrecy of her heritage and adoption from China, but not one with whom you would mess, if you were wise.  Nicki is a teen with her own issues which help build her compassion for others, even heroin addicts and gang members such as Todd.

Their only option in life was to join a gang and learn to steal and use violence to try to get some control over their lives. (pg. 117)

I prefer Nicki to so many of the strong female protagonists of trendy YA lit. She is never over-the-top.  Sure, her being recruited as a spy for British Intelligence may seem unrealistic at first glance, but it never seems so in The Secret of the Golden Flower, and I suspect it is similar in The Scratch on the Ming Vase.  She just happens to be a clever and talented martial artist, with the right stuff to insinuate herself into situations in which she can problem-solve the mysteries within. And for those of you who wonder how she is able to manage all this with her family–e.g., don't her parents wonder what she's up to?–you'll need to read the books to see how seamlessly Caroline Stellings is able to integrate all these aspects of Nicki's life.

I've become quite impressed with the depth and diversity of Caroline Stellings' writing, from The Secret of the Golden Flower to her previous books including The Contest (Second Story Press, 2009), The Manager (Cape Breton University Press, 2013) and Gypsy's Fortune (Peanut Butter Press, 2014).  Whether it be picture books, historical fiction, middle grade fiction or action-mystery, I think Caroline Stellings will be on the CanLit for LittleCanadians lit radar from now on. 

The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing

by C. K. Kelly Martin

Dancing Cat Books

978-1-770864115

256 pp.

Ages 13+

September, 2014

The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing, as a title, suggests the lightness of song and joy. But those moments are few and far between in the actual story. That's because The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing is a story of secrets, confusion, anger, and grief, with only a few bars of a sweet song that may be heard in the background, leaving you hoping the song will make its way to the forefront and be sung loud and clear and passionately.

When Serena LeBlanc's older brother, Devin, trades a life of Mensa brilliance at university for drugs and life on the street, she could never have foreseen the impact it would have on her and her family.  Having endured Devin's plunge into drugs, theft and erratic behaviour, culminating with his disappearance, Serena's parents seem to have disassociated themselves from any life without Devin.  Mom is constantly on eBay purchasing new Swarovski figurines and Dad just seems to go through the motions of life. Her eldest brother Morgan, a celebrity VJ at MuchMusic, lives with his partner Jimmy in Toronto, but still tries to offer the support they all need to remain an intact family.  Serena, not yet sixteen, loses almost thirty pounds and begins dating Jacob Westermark, leaving behind her old friendships, and enjoying a new popularity.

But recognizing an incident at a party as an attempt at sexual exploitation, Serena swears off Jacob and guys in general, finding new friends in girls Nicole and Genevieve who have been humiliated by their boyfriends too.  Bonding with the girls over their disappointment in boys provides Serena some refuge from her parents' detachment, as does a part-time job as a cashier at Total Drug Mart.  But two events change everything for Serena.

A young man who regularly drops into Total Drug Mart begins to show an interest in Serena.  But Serena is torn between being loyal to her friends and their boyfriend-less status and becoming involved with a really nice guy, Gage Cochrane.  Worse still, Serena doesn't know how to be herself around Gage.  She still sees herself as the chubby girl who would need to throw herself at a guy to keep him interested.  Gage, on the other hand, seems fairly well-adjusted and is not impressed with Serena's sexual antics.

Then, while attending one of Jimmy's art shows in Toronto, Serena spots Devin on the street.  But when he flees from her, catching a streetcar, Serena is left with more questions about who her brother has become and whether he wants to come home ever.

It's painful to read Serena's attempts to understand and find her brother, especially as she examines her relationship with him and how she sees herself.

...I can see with absolute clarity how the tangled mess of my former blubber, personal insecurities, and stupid need for some kind of male appraisal have shaped me into a person I don't want to be. (pg. 114) 

As she did in My Beating Teenage Heart, Yesterday and Tomorrow, C. K. Kelly Martin expertly weaves a story based on the typical confusion of the teen years but with an atypical, devastating situation that impacts that confusion all the more.  In The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing, she imbues the story with a grittiness and harshness about young relationships, especially in the shadow of social media exploitation, and a young man's severance from his family, and creates a series of scenarios you hope you'll never have to experience.  You won't necessarily like Serena (or at least I didn't, at the beginning) but you'll understand how she has become the person she has.  Her life is messy but it's not until she takes some responsibility for that mess and faces that she can't force things to turn out the way she wants that life begins to feel better.  She can't make Devin come home.  She can't make her parents change.  She can't make Gage act like she thinks he should.  Serena cannot make her life all sweet and lovely but she can control herself and her choices and that makes things all the sweeter.  C. K. Kelly Martin gets that very right and, without making Serena's life a Broadway musical, she allows her to find a song that is sure to become sweeter. 

Rabbit Ears

by Maggie De Vries
HarperCollins Canada
978-1-44341-662-7
222 pp.
Ages 13+
March, 2014
 
Don't be deceived by the innocuous, seemingly innocent, title. Rabbit Ears is neither.  It is a tough story, and it's based on a true story which is devastating. 

Kaya is only 13 but life has not been kind to her, though almost no one knows what she has and continues to endure.  Her sister Beth, 16, watches out for her as best she can but she doesn't understand what motivates Kaya, and their mom continues to want to save Kaya from herself, sending the police out for her, excusing her adopted daughter's attitude, and giving her opportunities to recover from her troubled times.  It's an endless cycle of running away to unsafe situations, returning home, trying to stick with the "normal" life, and then abandoning it yet again.

Told in the alternating voices of Kaya and Beth, Rabbit Ears takes readers into the unseemly and dangerous dark side of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, to which Kaya is introduced by another student, Michelle, who rescues Kaya from a beating at school.  Though she enjoys the freedom of hanging with street kids, taking pot and avoiding school, Kaya tries to do the right thing, knowing that her sister and mother have her best interests at heart.  But, with school feeling more and more impossible, especially after a girl, Diana, whom Kaya obviously knows, starts going to her high school, and home not feeling like the right place for her to be, Kaya goes downtown with Michelle again. This time, though, Michelle trades sex for heroin and Kaya meets a sex trade worker, Sarah, who tells her to go home.  But Kaya returns and begins her own descent into heroin use and prostitution.

Though Kaya is gone for weeks, and her mom and sister continue to search for her, there is a trip to Kamloops which rekindles Beth's fascination with magic and reminiscences of her dad's passing. It's those memories that help Beth put together the fragments of Kaya's life that may explain her sister's thinking and feelings.

Just like the toy rabbit in Beth's box-to-box trick–in which it is made to appear in a different box from the one in which it originated–there is much that is mysterious about Kaya's disappearances and reappearances.  Her thinking is unpredictable, based on circumstances unknown to her family, even to herself.  She knows that home is the better place to be, but it continues to feel wrong to her.  No child should ever feel that, especially when the option is to find consolation on the streets at age 13.  Like those rabbit ears, barely poking out of the box, Kaya tries to stay put and on her mom and Beth's radars, but sometimes going elsewhere is her only choice.

As I plainly announced in the introduction, Rabbit Ears is a tough read.  There are drugs, violent sex, rape, swearing, assault, and painful emotional trauma. Maggie De Vries does not minimize the horror, though she does create a less horrific ending than the one that her sister sadly experienced. Kaya's very existence is so vulnerable, so fragile; it's able to splinter with a single word.

"Diane has shattered a very, very fragile thing.  And no claws, needles, or paid-for sex acts are going to piece it back together." (pg. 168)

But never deny the fragility of the whole family, finding ways to deal with that shattering, with food, magic, work, therapy, anger.  This is Kaya's story but Beth and their mom are taken along, nay, join her in it, as the significant supporting cast that they are.  Rabbit Ears is the gnawing heartache that no child or family should ever endure, but Maggie De Vries tells it as it needs to be told and she tells it very well.

Swimmers

by Amy Bright

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-513-4

216 pp.

Ages 12+

July, 2014

Amy Bright burst onto the youngCanLit scene with Before We Go (Red Deer Press, 2012), a novel that did not shy away from tough issues like cancer, death and grief, and she felt no compunction to bring it all to a happy conclusion.  As such, I expected another emotionally-engaging story in Swimmers, and I was not disappointed.

Hunter Ryan is returning home to Victoria after spending the past 3 months in Lethbridge, living with his Aunt Lynne and being home-schooled with a twelve-year-old girl, Poppy, by her mother.  When his friend Lee arrives delivering news about Hunter's friend Niall, they board a Greyhound bus to return home, surprisingly bringing Poppy along with them, without her mother's permission.

The events and discussions on the journey home in December are juxtaposed with Hunter's recollections of events primarily from the previous two school years when he'd become close friends with Niall Black, a guy with a lot of issues and always on some drug or another.

"He didn't like the way things were when they weren't blurred around the edges, stretched out and slow." (pg. 17)

And, though a lot of other teens found Niall to be dangerously enigmatic, never knowing what might set him off, Hunter saw something different in Niall.

"The big Niall thing, the one that kept him golden even when everyone started turning on him, was that he was like no one else." (pg. 15)

But, about a year before the trio travel from Alberta to BC, something happens that will change everything for both Niall and Hunter. Much later, Hunter recognizes that,

"You take that step forward and lose the way back" (pg. 91)

Not the same teen who left three months earlier, Hunter proves that sometimes a step forward is just that, hopefully bringing clarity where there was none.  Amy Bright brings Hunter and Poppy through the confusion of misunderstandings about others' actions and their own roles in those choices, burdening themselves with more than just guilt. What's worse is when others attribute that same blame, such as in Hunter's situation.  While Hunter attempts to make sense of his confusion, through interactions with a school counsellor, friends, and family, Poppy suffers in silence, just ruminating about it, wrapping it up in a tight bundle of resentment.

How we see others' flaws and accept responsibility for their choices is a basic theme of Swimmers, a novel in which young people are just trying to keep their heads above water, even attempting to save those who cannot.  Not surprisingly, there are those who should take some responsibility for others' actions, including Hunter's family, Niall's family and Lee, but Hunter and Poppy are not two who should accept it.  They have not only accepted it, they have chosen to carry that burden themselves, never realizing how that load could have been  lessened sooner.  Drowning in it did not have to be an option.

The Throne

Written by Beth Goobie
Red Deer Press
978-0-88995-496-0
281 pp.
Ages 14+
June 2013

Most of us know where we would like to sit in a room, whether a movie theatre, a concert hall, an auditorium or a classroom.  There are always advantages and disadvantages to every location, and it just depends on what's most important to you.  When fifteen-year-old Meredith Polk arrives first to her high school homeroom, the school's music room with tiered seating, at the beginning of her Grade 10 year, she selects the prime spot behind the drums on the uppermost tier.  Unfortunately, in a homeroom of multiple grades, Seymour Molyneux, a senior in Grade 12, has already co-opted The Throne for himself, at least in his own mind.

As Meredith maintains her daily claim to the throne, regardless of the cautions i.e., veiled threats from Seymour and repeated incidents of gum ending up on her backside, she continues to be friendly to everyone, including Seymour's class cohorts, Grade 11 students Morey and Gene.  But as the gum attacks continue, forcing her to wear a rain hat across her backside and then find another recourse, Meredith learns the extent of Seymour's network and those willing to do his bidding.  Moreover, she begins to question her need to keep the throne and delves into the details of her parents' deaths when she was 5.  Living with her mother's sister, Sancy Goonhilly, Meredith gets a very biased perspective about her father and the Polk family, the founders of their town.  Aunt Sancy is relentless in her criticism of the Polks and their apparent arrogance and hunger for power, which Meredith begins to see in herself.  Is she like her parents?  Is the throne just a seat or is she really out for power?  If so, is she any different from Seymour?

Beth Goobie knows her way around a teen's mind, as evidenced by her award-winning YA fiction, including Before Wings (Orca, 2001), winner of the 2001 Canadian Library Association's Young Adult Book of the Year.  She has created a young teen who just wants to "take up space" and be recognized by her peers and others as existing in their sphere, a common want of teens looking for their place in the world.  Without her parents and deferring to her Aunt Sancy's perspective, Meredith needs something or someone to which or whom she may become tethered.  Her best friends Reb and Dean are supportive,  but they're only Grade 10 girls too.  Justifiably, Beth Goobie has Meredith looking to clarify her connection to her parents (beyond their framed wedding portrait), resulting in her recognition of the parallels between Seymour's influence and the leverage of the Polk family.  Perhaps she learns more than she wants to about her family, but with that knowledge comes the strength to stand up for herself, the wisdom to appreciate what supports she does have in her life, and the concession that power is a commodity that reinforces partisanship.  As long as there are thrones to which some aspire, there will be chairs.

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.

I'll Be Home Soon

by Luanne Armstrong
Ronsdale Press
978-1-55380-180-1
200 pp.
Ages 10+
Available September, 2012

Gritty girls have become the new heroes of popular fiction and movies, ready to take on any foe, physically, strategically or emotionally.  Though their challenges may be contrived in the lines of speculative fiction filled with vampires, game-makers, werewolves, and other contenders, these protagonists compel the readers to cheer for them, regardless of the horrific circumstances, countless deaths and violent outcomes.  But, these heroes have nothing on thirteen-year-old Regan of Luanne Armstrong's I'll Be Home Soon.

Regan's less-than-comfortable life has become even grittier since the disappearance of her mother, Joanie Anderson, who goes out on an evening job to make a few extra dollars and does not return.  For the first few weeks, Regan uses the money her mother left for food and continues going to school and even her kung fu classes, though unable to pay.  But things get more desperate when she's scrounging for food out of garbage bins, when there's no money for laundry and when she spends most of her time watching for her mom, staying under the radar of her teachers, the local street youth worker and the police.  While she finds solace in the discipline of kung fu at the dojo and the caring of the kung fu master, Sifu, Regan's sole friend is Mike, a sixteen-year-old homeless busker, who encourages her to go to the police, still keeping her updated on anything that he hears on the street.

Though Mike seems a casual acquaintance, someone who Regan seeks out when she needs help, he becomes instrumental in helping track her mother, as well as keep Regan safe.  After visiting Clayton, the man whose poker party Regan's mom worked, Regan unwisely checks out the player, George Miller, with whom her mother has apparently gone off.  But, George Miller is less than gracious, alleging that Regan's mom stole money from him, and tries to grab Regan, even sending men to pursue her.   After brief stays at the tent city of Ramona and other homeless people, at a group home, and at the home of a grandmother she hadn't seen for years,  Regan is being threatened by George and his goons to reveal where her mother, who has apparently stolen millions, is hiding.

While there is no evidence of a romance between Regan and Mike, they seem to be forging a strong bond founded in their mutual admiration for the resilience and caring each demonstrates.  He shares his squat, sleeping bag and family history with her, even putting himself in danger, although he claims, "I'm good at staying uninvolved" (pg. 98) because becoming part of a "we" causes hurt.  Thankfully, Mike's repeated efforts to discover more about Regan's mother, plus the attentions of Sifu, Reg McDermid, a researcher on street youth, and a female cop, help resolve the mystery of Regan's mom's disappearance and reestablish Regan's and her mom's lives, even improving upon them.

Regan is not a character, because Luanne Armstrong has not written I'll Be Home Soon as a piece of fiction; it reads like a retelling of a few months in a young girl's life.  Regan is a young girl who, by nature of unprecedented circumstances, must make some hard choices that test her fortitude and survival skills, including knowing who to trust and not to trust.  Luanne Armstrong does an incredible job of leading the reader from subplot to subplot, looking for resolution, never setting up simple answers, whether it be the rescue of Regan's mom or a perfect happy ending for Mike and Regan.  For example, Luanne Armstrong could have wrapped up I'll Be Home Soon with all the homeless becoming homed, bad guys caught and jailed, and every less-than-sympathetic person redeeming themselves.  She does not.  What she does do is far more satisfying, demonstrating that coming home may be everyone's aspiration but where that home is or the nature of that home is not always so easily defined or even recognized.