Prince of Pot

Written by Tanya Lloyd Kyi

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-944-7

216  pp.

Ages 13+

September 2017

I live in the middle of a forest.  On a grow-op. With bears.  And I get shot at on my way home. (pg. 61)

This is definitely living on the edge.  Isaac Mawson's family has been keeping a marijuana grow-op for forty years, starting with Isaac's grandfather Walt who is now debilitated by a stroke.  Their rustic lifestyle includes a cabin with few amenities and a quintet of bears as companions and homeschooling until Isaac and his older sister Judith reached Grade 8. But, though he's in town regularly for school–he's in his final year–and for the grow's supplies, and to see his sister who'd been desperate to leave, Isaac has always found solace in the woods, as well as his artwork.

Once we're in the trees, my lungs expand.  I suppose most people relax when they open their front door and smell dinner cooking.  For me, it's as I step into these hemlocks. (pg. 51)

Then, on one of his routine scouting expeditions, he meets Sam Ko, a new student at his high school and Isaac is smitten.  Sam is a big personality with lots of grit and guts and a flair for drama, on stage and in life.  Too soon he's crushing on the sixteen-year-old and she's bringing him more attention than he wants, bragging about his interactions with a bear (it was the lovely tame Hazel, a bear his father had rescued) and dragging him to her home and parties and sharing his special places with her friends.  And then he learns her dad is a RCMP corporal.  Isaac is torn between having Sam in his life and keeping his family and their lifestyle safe from attention, especially of the law enforcement variety.

Tanya Lloyd Kyi may be better known for her numerous books of middle-grade non-fiction (e.g., Canadian Girls Who Rocked the World, Whitecap Books, 2011; 50 Underwear Questions, Annick Press, 2011; Eyes and Spies, Annick, 2017) but her collection of teen fiction is growing.  Prince of Pot is her fourth YA book and Tanya Lloyd Kyi capably tackles typical teen issues like first loves, grief, and independence with less common ones of pot grow-ops, teen pregnancy, and dyslexia, grabbing her readers with the familiar and the unusual.  Tanya Lloyd Kyi astutely recognizes that for some the atypical is the familiar, and by writing about these unusual circumstances, she's actually letting many teens see themselves in her writing.  Isaac's situation of living in the woods and helping with his family's grow may seem foreign to many of us but, you can bet, somewhere there is a young person who knows that life, those fears and restrictions of living outside of the law. But there's another who knows the dangers of habituating wild animals such as bears, and another who is infatuated with another and doesn't know how to reconcile the conflict of being with that person and the life they want to or need to live.  This is what works in Prince of Pot.  Tanya Lloyd Kyi makes readers completely sympathetic to Isaac's life with his family and the grow and even his actions which can be criminal or gut-wrenching or wholly innocent.  While my heart broke at a turn of events that should never, ever happen in real life, I could see how the story was leading to that moment.  I know Prince of Pot is just fiction but I suspect somewhere someone is living this kind of life.  I can only hope that, while we enjoy the book as an entertaining read, this story might provide guidance to living well, both within the family and independently, as well as within the law and outside of it, if that so happens.

Hannah and the Salish Sea

by Carol Anne Shaw

Ronsdale Press

978-1-55380-233-4

200 pp.

Ages 10+

2013

On a map showing the town of Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island, you couldn't imagine a more serene, contemplative setting, tucked into a bay across from Saltspring Island and surrounded by parkland.  But this Cowichan Bay, of Carol Anne Shaw's Hannah and the Salish Sea, has some dark goings-on.  All is not well in Cowichan Bay.

The sequel to Carol Anne Shaw's Hannah and the Spindle Whorl (Ronsdale, 2010), Hannah and the Salish Sea revisits Hannah Rae Anderson, fourteen now, who still has trouble convincing her best friend and maybe boyfriend Max Miller that she'd somehow connected with a young girl, Yisella, 150 years earlier,  after finding an old spindle whorl.  But two years later, she and Max have no trouble finding other concerns in present-day Cowichan Bay.  While on a hike, they find dumped garbage bags of horticultural materials, including burned out extension cords.  At night, Hannah who lives on a houseboat spots some mysterious activity around the old rusty tuna boat, Orca I.  And Jack, the raven that has adopted Hannah, is bringing her odd gifts of a cigar butt, an eagle talon, a sliver of abalone, and such.  Then, when a bald eagle dies after hitting the power lines and its body disappears, Hannah and Max are sure they've seen more evidence of the rumoured poachers.

Meanwhile, rebellious teen Izzy Tate who is part Cowichan is shipped off from Saltspring Island to stay with her mom's friend, Ramona in Cowichan Bay, and work at her Salish Sea Studio where she knits sweaters and such in the Cowichan tradition.  Though resentful of this move, Izzy loves drawing, bird-watching and kayaking and quickly adopts an eagle's nest with two eaglets (who she names Oscar and Tango) and their father, Two-Step, ensuring their safety and keeping them fed with fish.

The two girls' stories are told in parallel veins, even for a time after they meet. And when Izzy and Hannah do meet, they see something shocking in each other:  Izzy sees the legendary red-haired white girl with a raven on her shoulder who came from the future, and Hannah sees the likeness of Yisella.  But their lives continue to follow independent paths, with Hannah trying to solve the mysteries of Jack's gifts, the Orca I, and the red 4x4 that seems to be associated with illicit activities, while Izzy tries to resolve issues with her mother, her heritage, and just do the right thing.

I'm so pleased to see that I can add Carol Anne Shaw's name to the list of youngCanLit authors who have successfully targeted the middle-grade book readers. With Hannah and the Salish Sea, Carol Anne Shaw provides young teen protagonists with contexts for their own parent and family issues, first attractions, peer pressures, jealousies, trust, and reactivity while learning to be themselves, not what others want them to be.  Just as in life, some things work, some don't; sometimes they're wrong, sometimes they convince others of their rightness. But, these are journeys they must endure, time-travel not excluded, to solve the mysteries within and without.  Within the framework of a gloriously natural setting, a First Nations history, and contemporary environmental issues, Hannah and the Salish Sea is sure to draw new readership from those who don't want to relive too much angst in their books.


n.b. A third book, Hannah and the Wild Woods is planned, taking the teens to Haida Gwaii and dealing with the detritus from the horrific tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.