Miss Match (Orca Currents)

Written by Susan Hughes

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-459842069

144 pp.

Ages 9–12

RL 2.8 

April 2025 

With Grade 8 almost finished and summer just weeks away, thirteen-year-old Polly, along with her friends Dev, Zoey, Roger and Matt, starts thinking about how to make a little money for summertime fun like going to the movies and baseball games, enjoying fast food, and shopping. Polly, ever the entrepreneur, comes up with the idea of a matchmaking service for all the Grade 7 and 8 students attending the end-of-year dance.

When they advertise their service and get students to submit applications with a $20 fee–money-back guarantee–they are overwhelmed with responses. They pull in over $2000 and Polly is tasked with setting up a dedicated bank account for the money. When she is unable to do so, Polly lies. It becomes the first of several lies she makes to her friends and her mother to cover up her embarrassment and fears of how they will judge her. Readers will wonder what her classmates would think about the accuracy of the nickname they've given her, i.e., Miss Match, if they knew the discrepancy between what she promises and what she actually does.

Susan Hughes has dazzled this reader with the breadth of her writing. I have reviewed her picture books (e.g., What Happens Next), her middle-grade novels (e.g., Four Seasons of Patrick), her YA (e.g., Virginia), and her non-fiction (e.g., Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World). Each time, Susan Hughes writes with sensitivity and understanding. In Miss Match, she reminds us that everyone comes up with ideas some time, and some of them will be fantastic and some will be ludicrous. How we deal with our successes or our failures will speak more to our natures and strengths than the accolades or the judgements. Susan Hughes knows this and ensures that Polly comes across as a real person, who actually has a great idea but can't always deliver on it because she is shy, she is nervous about being judged, and she is young. Fortunately, she hangs around with a great bunch of people whose understanding of what it's like to be 13 is evident. They don't just forgive, they empathize.

 

While Miss Match is part of the Orca Currents series of high-interest novels for middle-grade students reading below grade level (reading level here is 2.8), Susan Hughes does not take short-cuts by giving readers a simple plot with little substance. She packs in issues of dishonesty, first crushes, inclusion–her friends are diverse in their abilities and disabilities, in their nationalities, and even in their gender-loving nature—and more. She tells the story with sensitivity and understanding but gives readers an ending that is satisfying without being contrived. Perhaps after celebrating a few more birthdays and with a little more experience, Miss Match could see herself in business again, providing a valuable service and growing her entrepreneur skills, one match at a time.

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.

Liam Takes a Stand

Written by Troy Wilson

Illustrated by Josh Holinaty

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-161-9

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

March 2017

In the aftermath of Family Day here in Ontario, I think little Liam would have a thing to say about family and brothers in particular.  Twin older brothers actually. And brothers so overwhelmingly competitive that nothing else matters.  Fortunately Liam is an insightful child who is determined to “win” his brothers’ attention and, though they are too busy outdoing each other, Liam perseveres, making for a happy family in the end.

From Liam Takes a Stand 

by Troy Wilson 

illus. by Josh Holinaty

Lester and Lister’s competitive spirits take them from sports activities to creative endeavours and finally to entrepreneurship when they each open lemonade stands for the summer.  It’s Lester’s Lemonade Universe vs. Lister’s Lemonade Multiverse, and Liam wants to help but is told he’d just told them back, ostensibly from winning this latest venture.  So Liam, determined to show his brothers how hard he can work, takes on a series of neighbourhood jobs, paid in cash by all but Mrs. Redmond who pays him in apples.

From Liam Takes a Stand 

by Troy Wilson

illus. by Josh Holinaty

While Lister and Lester continue to grow their businesses to outrageous proportions, trying to outdo and to outsell the other, Liam works hard, saves his money and eventually opens Liam’s Apple Avenue.  He takes a soft touch to his business, though, unlike the hard sell and gimmicks of his older brothers, and Liam’s business becomes a resounding success.  Hard-pressed to be outdone by their little brother, Lester and Lister start their own apple drink stands, too busy with hype to work on making the best product possible.

Fortunately, Lester and Lister recognize what they must do to win even a little bit, and Liam is smart enough to hold onto what he has accomplished while getting what he’d always wanted i.e. play time with his brothers.

Troy Wilson’s take on sibling rivalry is over-the-top and yet so realistic.  Two brothers willing to do whatever it takes to succeed over the other—success itself is never the goal—and ignoring their little brother who ends up being their biggest competitor yet.  In starting to believe their own hype, they disregard all else in the pursuit of domination. And it’s little Liam who initially loses out but finally wins in the brother game of life.

From Liam Takes a Stand 

by Troy Wilson 

illus. by Josh Holinaty

While Josh Holinaty has illustrated for non-fiction books and for other media, Liam Takes a Stand is his first picture book project and his artwork is gloriously over-the-top, perfect for the story.  His big-headed stick figures and colourful displays of convoluted businesses ensure the focus is on the boys and their efforts and I can see children rolling on the floor laughing (yes, they do actually do this) with the boys’ uproarious results.  And I can see them all trying to copy Josh Holinaty’s characters, as children tend to do with favourite cartoons.

Beyond the obvious entertainment value of Liam Takes a Stand, as a teacher I could envision using the fun and hyperbolic attention of the boys to their work for lessons in advertising and economics as well as character education. That makes Liam Takes a Stand a nice little package of fun and life lessons for all to enjoy.

Flannery

by Lisa Moore

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-076-5

268 pp.

Ages 13+

May 2016

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Oh, Flannery Malone. Flannery, Flannery, Flannery.  You are one of a kind. From your conceptual-artist, parenting-blogger mother, to the father you’ve never met, cherubic-x-devilish half-brother Felix and poor but rich life in St. John’s, Newfoundland, I’m, as they say, delighted to meet you but wouldn’t want to be you.  Actually, for that matter, I wouldn’t want to be a sixteen-year-old girl again and maybe that’s what I don’t envy about you, but you are unstoppable–in a good way– and a delight and your readers should be grateful to Lisa Moore for introducing you to us.

Boys are becoming an issue for Flannery.  Well, one boy in particular: Tyrone O’Rourke.  Though they’d been the closest of friends as kids before he’d moved away when his mom married his step-dad Marty, Tyrone has morphed into a graffiti artist known as SprayPig, sought by the cops, and rarely attends high school.  Regardless, Flannery sees the whole package that is Tyrone, past and present, and she is seriously in love. When she is partnered with Tyrone for their Entrepreneurship class project, he suggests they make potions, just like they pretended to make as kids, marketing them as magic.  But, except for this suggestion, Tyrone is awol for all work on the project, and Flannery ends up conceiving, creating and packaging the four different love potions herself.

But while she is navigating her working and crushing relationship with Tyrone, Flannery’s best friend Amber seems to be steering herself away from Flannery and her competitive swimming and into an all-consuming first relationship with Gary Bowen, a classmate and lead singer of a band whose music video will be the source of their own Entrepreneurship project.  Though Amber is becoming brutally opinionated about Tyrone, Flannery tries to diplomatically warn her friend of Gary’s dark side.  But between first loves and parents as well as the trials of high school society, Flannery and Amber and Tyrone would seem to be going against the current and where they end up may not be up to them.

“So love is work and it’s always changing and it’s making and noticing and needing and giving and definite.  It’s definite.” (pg. 113)

Lisa Moore gets into the head and heart of a sixteen-year-old so effortlessly that it’s surprising that this is her first book of young adult fiction.  Of course, from her award-winning adult fiction–Caught (House of Anansi, 2013), February (House of Anansi, 2009) and Alligator (House of Anansi,  2005)–we know Lisa Moore flawlessly tackles issues of youth and relationships and recklessness head on, never wavering from the task of telling the story no matter how fragile the characters or precarious their situations. And her insight into the tenuous nature of…everything, is evident in Flannery’s outlook and beliefs.

"I had understood about evil. I had seen how it was ordinary and stupid and there was nothing magical or fairytale-like about it.
      It was just a grown-up taking his problems out on a kid. Because he could. Because nobody stopped him.” (pg. 103)

While Lisa Moore doesn’t make everything right by Flannery’s conclusion, she does create closure for most story lines and even a bit of hope–in a kiss– which, just as in life, is sometimes all you can expect.

"Not believing in something requires a lot of effort.  It is easier to believe.  Once I have accepted that something is true, I have a hard time losing faith in it." (pg. 104)

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I'm thrilled to announce that author Lisa Moore has graciously agreed to read at the Young Adult venue of this year's Eden Mills Writers' Festival on September 18, 2016.  Other YA authors attending include R. J. Anderson, Lena Coakley, Douglas Davey, E. K. Johnston, Sylvia McNicoll, Liane Shaw and Amanda West Lewis, Check back to CanLit for LittleCanadians for a full list of guest authors in the YA and children's venues and for more details.