Me Three

Written by Susan Juby

Puffin Canada

978-0-735268722

224 pp.

Ages 10+

March 2022 

Reviewed from audiobook

Rodney's dad used to be famous as the author of the best-selling poker book Get Lucky and the host-poker player of Get Lucky TV who took celebrities to high-stakes poker games. Now it's because of accusations by Missy Stephenson of inappropriate behaviour. Eleven-year-old Rodney believes his dad when he says it's all a misunderstanding but his father is still at a facility, apparently to help him deal with how it feels to have his actions, like hugs, misconstrued. Meanwhile, Rodney, his older sister Kate and their mom, now using Mom's maiden name, have moved from the opulence of their life in Las Vegas to the small home of cousin Maria in Stony Butte, Arizona, four hours away.

From Me Three by Susan Juby

Rodney is desperate to connect with his best friend Larry, the son of Get Lucky TV's producer Isbell, but all his texts, etc. have gone unanswered. So Rodney writes unsent letters to Larry to tell him about life in Stony Butte and about trying to fit in and make friends. But Rodney has a lot to learn about navigating a new school that is very different from his private school Circle Square. He tries to follow Dad's "10 Rules for Living a Lucky Life" but it doesn't always work. That's especially so when Kate, who is furious with her father and believes her brother is in denial about their father, is losing weight and obsessed with her food consumption. And their mother has to take a job at an insurance company and teach Pilates in her off-hours so they can afford anything extra. And he really misses his old friend and has to keep his old life under wraps though he looks forward to when things will be back to normal.

Then things start to look up. He makes friends with Ben who comes from a family of stunt people and who gives Rodney his first taste of danger. Rodney also begins to hang out with a few other kids including Rigmor and Fisherman and Dave. But when popular Van Johnson, a wild man YouTuber, performs a song about J. Crederman and the allegations made against him, and a classmate discovers an online photo of him with Rodney, the family is devastated with being exposed and with the negative attention.

My emotions felt tired out. Like someone smeared all the colors together and now I just felt muddy.

In a time of #MeToo and social media, Susan Juby has given young readers a new perspective, taking us into the head and heart of a child whose father has been accused of sexual harassment and perhaps worse. (Details are suggested but never revealed.) Rodney's dad is a jerk, caring more about his brand, his reputation and the impact on his finances, though he is learning to say all the "right" things, but he's squirreled away in a treatment facility while his family is forced to live in diminished circumstances and under a cloud of shame and acrimony. Rodney, Kate and their mom are the heroes of their own lives, getting on with things, regardless of the "power shamer" J. Crederman. They're learning to balance the past with their present circumstances, even if Kate has become "a Death Star of bad mood." Wisely, their mom tells them that...

The best thing you will ever learn is to deal with what is versus what you wish was.

Sexual harassment and abuse are heavy topics for a middle grade novel but even more so when allegations are made involving a parent. Still Susan Juby keeps her story balanced with humour and candour. The honesty is in the plot and the humour comes through her characters. Both Rodney and Kate are cheeky and have a dry, almost dark, humour. He groans at her fashion sense–"Kate dresses like she wants to hurt people's eyes"–and she can laugh at their situation, claiming that "What doesn't kill you makes a better Instagram poet." But I would expect nothing less from Susan Juby who has won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. She makes us laugh while she makes us think and feel. 

Though the full extent of the sexual abuse perpetrated by Rodney's father is unknown, it is the driving force behind the story of Rodney, Kate and their mother in Me Three. But by making Rodney the focus of the story and giving him the voice of a child who develops from one completely in support of his father to one who wants to know the truth and then hears his father's words as sound bites of rationalizations and mandatory apologies, Susan Juby gives us a different viewpoint. She lets us lace up a pair of Rodney's shoes and deal with the aftermath of his father's misconduct as he, Rodney, experiences it, with a loss of friendship, security and support in the shadow of shame and secrecy, and yet still able to come out with a solid support system of family and friends.

On the Spectrum

Written by Jennifer Gold

Second Story Press

978-1-177260-042-1

336 pp. 

Ages 13-18

September 2017

The push for books that reflect diversity has been extending more recently to include those with characters on the spectrum or with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as does On the Spectrum.  But, unlike the recently reviewed Slug Days by Sara Leach (Pajama Press, 2017), On the Spectrum takes a different approach, placing the character on the spectrum in a secondary role, as a step-brother to the teen protagonist, thereby providing a different perspective to life on the spectrum. 

In On the Spectrum, the protagonist Clara is a sixteen-year-old whose issue is orthorexia i.e., an unhealthy preoccupation with how much and what she eats.  After a social media faux pas and the intervention of social workers disturbed by her ballerina mother’s own extreme healthy lifestyle fixation, Clara heads to Paris to spend the summer with her Dad, his new wife Mag and her half-brother Alastair, a six-year-old child on the spectrum.  While visiting Parisian tourist attractions and adhering to Alastair’s routines, Clara begins to learn about her little brother’s behaviours and needs, like his weighted vest and use of noise-cancelling headphones to help him calm, and starts to really care about him.  Conversely, Alastair is learning about his sister, putting together the pieces of what he overhears from his parents’ discussions and interpreting her words and actions, convinced that, though Clara denies it, she must be on a spectrum herself, on an eating disorder spectrum.  Complicating matters for Clara is Alastair’s friendship with Michel, the son of a local baker, who whips up amazing pastries and meals with Alastair and is convinced he can help Clara enjoy food once again.  

Young adult author Jennifer Gold, whose previous books Soldier Doll (Second Story Press, 2014) and Undiscovered Country (Second Story Press, 2017) have been reviewed on CanLit for LittleCanadians, gives Alastair voice through Clara’s narration; only through his sister’s interpretations do we hear what Alastair says and does.  It’s still a valid voice but it reads very differently from the first-person narrative of Slug Days or Spaghetti is Not a Finger Food (Jodi Carmichael, Little Pickle Press, 2013), both of which are written for younger audiences.  But then again, On the Spectrum is Clara’s story and Alastair is akin to her sidekick who is there to help steer and illuminate her thinking, which he does so effortlessly both about his autism and her issues.  He may be on the titular spectrum but apparently Clara is on one as well.  The spectrum, whatever it may be based upon, is broad, indicating that there is no one way of being autistic or having eating issues.  Even being different is different for everyone, and Jennifer Gold's Clara and Alastair and all those in-between make that abundantly clear.

✈✈✈✈✈✈✈✈✈

(A version of this review was originally written for and paid for by Quill & Quire but space limitations prevented its inclusion in the recent October issue.)



Counting Wolves

Written by Michael F. Stewart

978-0-993757945

217 pp.

Ages 12+

August 2017

"For the last three years I've been hunted by the wolf–wait."  I hold a hand up.  "I  know it sounds crazy–but I've been holding it back with my count.  It works like a magic spell, and it keeps others safe too, everyone.  I've felt the wolf.  I've seen it." (pg. 140)

We all have wolves at our doors.  Some just howl louder or claw more violently.  They may be the wolves of past events come to haunt us, or bad thoughts that want to become actions, or the ones that portend disaster.  But how do you survive the wolves when they're always, always waiting to get you?

Fifteen-year-old Milly Malone is convinced that she has found the magic spell to banish the wolf to the Dark Wood and survive: she counts.  She counts to 100 each time she passes through doorways or eats a single bite or speaks.  Perpetuating the predator theme, Milly will only cross a door's threshold by hopping.  Needless to say, she's often late for class, eats very little in the time allotted, and people get frustrated waiting for her to express herself verbally.  Her boyfriend Billy is her rock, defending her to those who might ridicule her, but even he can't help her when she hears the smacking of jaws, sees the welts of claw marks on her back and collapses, "Lost in the blackest of fairy tales." (pg. 6)

After a visit to Emerg with her step-mother Adriana who believes Milly's issue is an eating disorder–Milly's mother passed away three years earlier and her father is away on business–Milly is admitted to the Pediatric Psychiatry ward where she meets an assortment of characters.  There's Peter, a large boy who is convinced he's a fairy (a leg cast is indicative of a recent flying attempt off the building); the manic Vanet who "is like some stoned fairy godmother who's as liable to kill you as help you"; pg. 81); Red, a girl who dresses in red and is plagued by nightmares; Eleanor a.k.a. Pig, the aggressive homeless girl who likes to burn stuff; Wesley whom she calls Rottengoth whose parents hate him; and Sleeping Beauty, a girl who is on IV constantly and rarely awakens. And then there's Wolfgang, the scary dude with the dead eyes in an acute care room.  Through meals, group therapy, recreational activities and interviews with Doctor Balder all the young people reveal their own wolves, sparring in words and actions and ultimately forming a community of support to keep the wolves away.

Counting Wolves is an intense read about young people dealing with mental illness and how those around them, medical professionals and family, deal with them.  The stories in which these young people embed themselves are tragic, not unlike the fairy tales that Milly reads or was told as a child.  Like many of the original Grimm fairy tales, whose stories are not always obvious at first read, they are frightening.  There may be lessons within but they are devastating to body and soul, with fear often the prevalent emotion. Michael F. Stewart, whose earlier Assured Destruction series (Assured Destruction, Script Kiddie, and Assured Destruction with Zombies) revealed clever plotting and great characterizations, is able to get into Milly's head and give her a voice that is legitimate though perplexing.  Granted, he's the one who has created that head with its confusing thoughts and beliefs but Michel F. Stewart melds her mental illness with grim fairy tales so flawlessly that it's a wonder all issues can't be viewed better in terms of fables. Even as she works through her anxiety, independently–including with the use of a 1960s workbook–and with her established and new support systems, she is challenging the wolf. There is a surprise revelation when Milly recognizes that her wolf is not whom she believes it to be but that's a secret the readers will need to discover for themselves.

Counting Wolves illuminates the treachery of mental illness, including the distorted thinking that can override all and twist stories even more.  Keeping the wolves at bay under these circumstances can be even more challenging.  Still Michael F. Stewart provides some indication, maybe even hope, that help and protection is available, even where least expected.

Bent Not Broken: Madeline and Justin

Written by Lorna Schultz Nicholson

Clockwise Press

978-1-4998-347-03-5

224 pp.

Ages 13+

March 2017

Lorna Schultz Nicholson's first two One-2-One books, Fragile Bones: Harrison & Anna (2015) and Born With: Erika & Gianni (2016), introduced high school students in the Best Buddies program.  In those books, students with autism and Down syndrome partnered with other teens who volunteered to provide physical and/or emotional support.  But, better than the support, they share friendships that grow and establish a community that reaches beyond the school.  Bent Not Broken is the newest book in the series, providing an uplifting tale that demonstrates the inarguable successes of the Best Buddies program.

Fourteen-year-old Madeline used to be faster, smarter, more accomplished than her twin Becky.  Then, at age eight, Madeline had an accident when the two were out on their bikes. Now Madeline feels defined by her brain damage that causes her to speak very slowly, to have regular meltdowns and experience wildly crazy emotions and to struggle in school.  Though Becky has been obliging her for years, still being one of the few who knows how to help Madeline when her emotions take over and she begins to hit herself about the head, Becky has found a new set of friends whom she begins to emulate though they are rude and engaged in inappropriate behaviours.  

Fortunately, Madeline has some positives in her life that ease much of her anxiety about her sister and her own vulnerabilities.  She gets to spend time with her Best Buddy, a senior named Justin ("I liked him because he didn't feel sorry for me; he just liked me"; pg. 16) who in turn finds being with Madeline helpful in coping with the death of his autistic sister who succumbed to an eating disorder.  Moreover, Madeline volunteers at a horse therapy barn where she once received therapy by spending time with the miniature horses.

The barn is Madeline's salvation and even becomes a haven for Justin and his mother, both finding some healing amongst the horses.  But Becky is less enthused now about fulfilling her own volunteering commitment there.  In fact, she begins to use the barn as an opportunity to sneak away with her friends and starts to take advantage of Madeline's affliction to benefit herself.  Though Madeline sees herself now as the weaker of the twins, she begins to achieve some wonderful successes socially and creatively while Becky begins a descent into dangerous circumstances.  Luckily, Madeline discovers she has the courage to step up and be there for her sister as Becky had been for her. 

Lorna Schultz Nicholson's books in the One-2-One series attest to the strengths we all have even when dealing with physical or mental trials, and that's why Bent Not Broken is the very best of titles and the very best of stories.  The imagery of something being bent not broken, like a willow bough, is a powerful one.  Being bent does not mean weak.  Think of bentwood furniture.  It's still strong, just in a different configuration than wood is typically used.  So too is Madeline after her accident and resulting brain injury but also Justin after his sister's death, his mother with her depression, Becky with her guilt, and Madeline's parents with their marriage.  None of them are the same.  All have been reshaped by circumstances.  Still there is resilience, the need to persevere and accept new postures.

There's a reason Bent Not Broken was selected by young readers as one of the ten titles recommended for Red Maple readers on the first  Summer Reading List of the Forest Kid Committee.  These young people could appreciate a book that spoke to them about being strong and compassionate regardless of the struggle.  Bent Not Broken, like the earlier books, speaks to the best of us and makes us want to be better, which we can be.