The Starlight Claim

Written by Tim Wynne-Jones
Candlewick Press
978-1-5362-0264-9
240 pp.
Ages 13+
September 2019

Nathaniel Crow is a sixteen-year-old boy who is looking forward to a few days away at his family's remote cabin during March break. Though he and friends Dodge Hoebeek and Paul Jokinen had planned this trip a year ago, having been well-schooled by Nate's father Burl how to work and repair the snowmobile, to clear snow from the solar panels, what to do if they encounter any trouble, and more, the trip becomes a solo endeavour of survival and gumption for Nate, one that will bring him face-to-face with his past in more ways than one.

From the onset of The Starlight Claim, Nate is tormented by nightmares of his friend Dodge who is presumed dead after he with younger brother Trick and father Art Hoebeek had attempted to cross a lake in November to deliver a propane fridge to their neighbouring cabin. With Dodge missing and haunting his dreams with guilt about Nate not joining them and perhaps preventing their dangerous venture, and Paul getting grounded, it's only Nate who goes up to the Crow camp, hopeful of perhaps finding Dodge or just proving himself more gutsy than he feels.

But when Nate arrives at the camp, an arduous journey by the Budd Car train and snowshoe, he discovers a couple of scary dudes making themselves at home in the Crow cabin. He can't even head up to the abandoned shack of old miner Japheth Starlight–the only spot where cell connectivity is possible–because it's evident they're using it for the same purpose. Instead Nate holes up in the Hoebeek camp and, discovering Dodge's drone, attempts to send a message home via an airborne cell phone, while planning his escape to catch the Budd Car the following day.

By this time tomorrow night, he'd be sleeping in his own bed. All he had to do was hang tight. Nothing was going to go wrong. Nothing else. (pg. 75)

Sadly, Nate's plans are thwarted by a third man, arriving by snowmobile, who advises Nate not to go near the Crow cabin, and takes away his skis and snowshoes. Though the lout who hides behind his mask tries to help Nate out somewhat, he's holding back some secrets and seems to know more about Nate, the two men and even Dodge than he will admit. That is, until Nate reveals what he has learned through his own surveillance and observation. Then it's a cat-and-mouse game for Nate to evade some ruthless criminals and stay safe while putting to rest a few ghosts.

Though The Starlight Claim refers to characters from Tim Wynne-Jones's Governor General award-winning middle-grade novel The Maestro (1995), it can be considered both a stand-alone story and an intergenerational sequel. It may follow the story of the son of The Maestro's protagonist and draw on a history that has impacted, though not limited, its main characters, but The Starlight Claim is still Nate's story. With Burl–whose own survival is told in The Maestro–as Nate's virtual mentor, reminding the teen how to handle most indoor and outdoor difficulties, Nate plays a steady hand and head throughout The Starlight Claim. He is his father's son and a young man who deserves to persevere.

"You remember yourself, son," Burl had said... (pg. 129)

Though most of the story takes place over the course of just a few days, it is peppered with memories of Nate and Dodge's time at the lake and what is known to have happened to Dodge and his brother and father. In this way, Tim Wynne-Jones reminds us how much our past experiences create our present. But never, never, never is it suggested that our pasts determine how our lives will turn out. If that was the case, Burl would have been an abusive father, an inconsiderate husband, and worse, and Nate would have learned the same from his dad. Instead we meet an incredible young man who is clever and resourceful and compassionate and makes very good choices, unlike Dodge and Burl's father.

The thriller aspect of Tim Wynne-Jones's The Starlight Claim will hook young adult readers with its bad guys and good guys and those who walk the blurred line between the two, while others will be grabbed by the mystery embedded in a family drama. Regardless of why they pick it up, teens will be riveted by the psychological journey of Nate as he balances what he knows, what he's been told and what he learns as he confronts an unyielding northern Ontario winter landscape and those who seek to claim what is not rightfully theirs.

Look for my interview with author Tim Wynne-Jones next Monday (September 16, 2019) as he answers questions about The Starlight Claim, creating an intergenerational sequel, and the power of the past and memory.

Sadie

Written by Courtney Summers

Wednesday Books

978-1-250-10571-4

308 pp.

Ages 14+

September 2018

If you notice that the book cover is larger than I usually post, it's because Sadie, the book and the girl, should not be relegated to the back or to a corner to be forgotten. In her life, Sadie was neglected and abused and she may have felt insignificant, but she is courageous and responsible, and she deserves to be noticed–and not because of her stuttering–and her extraordinary efforts appreciated.

Sadie begins with the murder of Sadie's thirteen-year-old sister, Mattie Southern, after she'd left their home in Cold Creek, Colorado, ostensibly to search out their mother Claire, who'd left 3 years earlier. Mattie had never given up hope on her mother, an addict who'd showered her meagre love and limited attention on her youngest daughter and essentially ignored or was hostile to her eldest.

I can't even put into words what it's like to swallow down a moment like that, but I can tell you exactly how bitter it tastes. (pg. 55-6)

Sadie had given all of herself to her baby sister and mothered Mattie even more, when at 16, it was just the two of them, abandoned and living in a trailer park run by their surrogate grandmother, May Beth Foster.  When Sadie disappears eight months after her sister's murder and her car found abandoned the next month, May Beth contacts WNRK New York to get some media attention and help. So begins a serialized podcast, The Girls, by producer West McCray, who pursues Sadie's story and consequently Mattie's as well.

The Girls explores what happens when a devastating crime reveals a deeply unsettling mystery. It's a story about family, about sisters, and the untold lives lived in small-town America. It's about the lengths we go to protect the ones we love. . . and the high price we pay when we can't. (pg. 1)

Sadie alternates between The Girls podcast and Sadie's telling of her pursuit of justice for her sister. West's podcast includes narration and interviews with persons of interest as he tries to locate Sadie, all the while unravelling her story. There's May Beth Foster who acts as his home base for information and clarification, and then the people Sadie meets along her journey. The chapters based on Sadie's pursuit of Mattie's murderer begin at an out-of-town diner where Sadie suggests she's looking for her father, always showing a photo of her family with Claire's ex, Keith. From that starting point, she gets one lead after another, desperate to locate the man she is convinced is responsible for Mattie's death. Mixed with reminiscences, many unsettling, as triggered by those she meets, Sadie must uncover Keith's story, told from the points of view of those who considered him a good guy and those who won't reveal much from the cloak of shame and trauma. Regardless, she pursues and inevitably helps in ways she might never know.

Courtney Summers always tells bold stories, whether based on zombies (This is Not a Test, 2012; Please Remain Calm, 2014), on sexual assault and shame (All the Rage, 2015), on bullying (Some Girls Are, 2010) or self-destruction (Cracked Up to Be, 2008). They immerse the reader in tense situations of agonizing brutality, emotional and physical, that rarely have happy endings. But that's reality. Life is not neat and it's not fair. It's raw and real and not for the faint of heart. Courtney Summers sugarcoats nothing. Nothing at all. Even as West McCray speaks to witnesses or persons of interest, they spin Sadie's story with an effort to make themselves look better. It's not honest but it's real. Take Claire, for instance. This woman cared more for the child who looked like her than the one who didn't (and blames that on her youth, her mother's death and May Beth); neglected her children in favour of her addiction; sends an abuser packing only when she suspects he might have attacked her favourite; abandons her children for years; and blames West McCray when he can't find Sadie. Yikes. Sadie's story is gut-wrenching in itself: bullied for her stuttering, neglected by her mother, abused by her mother's boyfriend, abandoned, becoming a surrogate parent to a resentful child, and grief-stricken for her beloved sister. Her story is almost too much to take.

Don't look for a happy ending in Sadie, and it's not because Courtney Summers ends Sadie with another tragedy. It's just hard to tell what kind of an ending Courtney Summers has given readers. While there is justice, Courtney Summers also leaves a gaping hole in Sadie's story that readers will need to fill, either with hope for a new story for Sadie or with another tragedy to complete her original one. Read Sadie and let me know what you think happened to this fierce young woman because her story is far too important to let her be forgotten.

All That Was

Written by Karen Rivers

Farrar Straus Giroux

978-0-374-30246-7

384 pp.

Ages 12-18

January 2018

Seventeen-year-olds Piper and Sloane are friends. On the surface, they are very similar, or at least make themselves appear similar in hair style and colour and clothing, and spend all their time together or they did until the No-Boyfriend Rule is broken.  But Piper and Sloane's friendship is one of contradictions: love and hate, appreciation and disrespect, and camaraderie and rivalry. With that kind of a basis for a friendship, what happens when one of the friends is gone?

Though Sloane Whittaker thinks of herself as common compared to the more exotic Piper Sullivan, Piper is actually more like the flirty alpha in their friendship. If she wants something, she goes after it and is oblivious to the nuances in their friendship that might indicate Sloane may think differently.  So when they attend an art show that includes the work of Soup Sanchez, a boy Sloane has liked since fourth grade, Piper teases her shamelessly until Sloane denies liking him. The next day Piper reveals she and Soup connected after the show and are now going out. Now Sloane must endure Piper's personal divulgences about their kisses and sex while secretly yearning for the boy she has always liked and coincidentally seems to like her. But it's hard to say "No" to Piper. So when Piper decides that Sloane must experience sex, and she sets her up with a boy, James Robert Wilson, Sloane goes along.

But trouble is brewing as Soup and Sloane are regularly thrown together and Piper, oblivious until one fateful night, continues to direct their lives and her story to her best advantage.  That all changes when Piper dies.

All That Was is told in the voices of Sloane and Soup in terms of "Before" and "Now" relative to Piper's death. Most of the story is the "Before" in which we learn about the basis for Sloane and Piper's friendship; their revealing discussions which are both friendly and hostile; Sloane's aspirations to be a documentary filmmaker; and Soup and Piper's relationship. The "Now" brings to light the police investigation and arrest of a murderer, the guilt Sloane and Soup harbour, and the necessity of perspective and forgiveness, even of oneself.

Although many would consider Piper and Sloane frenemies and their friendship essentially doomed, I think it goes far deeper than that. The two girls sincerely love one another as friends but there is an inherent meanness to their interactions.  Theirs is a dance of sarcasm and one-upmanship, trying to be individuals but scared to be separated.  It's a very real relationship though not one to which anyone would aspire. Although I like some aspects of Sloane, probably identifying her as the underdog of the two, neither Piper nor Sloane are very likable. Karen Rivers made them very real–I suspect most teens know a Piper and a Sloane at their high schools–and their connectedness authentic though strained. Whether there is a message here about forgiveness or getting past tragedy, I don't know.  I do know that Karen Rivers makes it clear that not all friendships are rainbows and unicorns, just as she did in her earlier book Finding Ruby Starling (2014).  Some relationships are darker and deeper like crows and tumultuous waters, but they still build our life experiences, good or bad. Sloane and Soup, and yes, even Piper, can take from this chapter and move forward. Sometimes it is what it is. And All That Was just was.

The Ruinous Sweep

Written by Tim Wynne-Jones

Candlewick Press

978-0-7637-9745-7

400 pp.

Ages 14+

June 2018

You're a traveler in a land that is part memory, part dream, and with all vestiges of the kind of pain that only the living can feel.  (pg. 127)

Donovan Turner, 17, is a reluctant traveler but one just the same. He is everywhere and nowhere.  He is running away from his sleazy dad Allen, with whom he's supposed to stay while mom Trish and boyfriend Scott are off camping in Algonquin Park. He is hitchhiking in the rain. He's hallucinating, he is disoriented and nothing seems real.  But it's far too real.

As the reader accompanies Donovan from one precarious situation to another, the teen's confusion is palpable. He worries that he has caused an accident that kills a man with a briefcase full of money, which Donovan takes. He finds his way to a farm where he hides the money and discovers his bruised and bloodied father drinking and playing cards with two rough-looking men. How could that be? Donovan can't figure out what he did, if he's guilty of anything for which he is accused and all he wants to do is find a way to connect with his girlfriend Beatrice.

Bee too is trying to figure out the story but she's starting at it from the side of Donovan's hospital bed. The story she hears from the police is that Donovan was a victim of a hit and run just outside his home, but they're also investigating the death of Donovan's dad. Bee doesn't believe that Donovan killed his dad but the few murmurings from Donovan, which she records in her journal, have her determined to protect him and learn the truth herself.

While Donovan is navigating new worlds, trying to understand his circumstances, wondering if he is dead or can make things right, Bee is looking for the answers the police will not pursue. Allen was a reprehensible person whose actions "had landed him in a country tattered around the edges and peopled by all manner of fallen comrades: addicts and losers and barstool prophets; the let-down, it-wasn't-my fault crowd" (pg. 93) and Donovan intended to stop seeing him. But would Donovan take his own baseball bat to his father?

Tim Wynne-Jones knows how to tell a great story.  He has won two Governor General's Awards for English-language Children's Literature (Some of the Kinder Planets, 1993, and The Maestro, 1995) and his last three novels have been short-listed for that same notable award. Though his middle-grade fiction is unsurpassed for its empathetic characters and depth of plotting, I believe his young adult suspense novels (check out my review of Blink & Caution), to which we can add The Ruinous Sweep, are unparallelled in the complexity of their mysteries and magnitude of their stories.  The Ruinous Sweep is a layered and woven story of so many dimensions that the reader can be forgiven the need to pause. While Bee's story line is essentially one of progression from learning of Donovan's accident and solving the mystery, with the occasional memory of their dating, Donovan's is complicated. His story is a tragic one that goes backwards and forwards and sideways. It's one of anger, shock, violence, running from and to, and connecting.  He's in limbo and looking for salvation. 

Readers may recognize references to Dante's Divine Comedy throughout The Ruinous Sweep from characters including Beatrice, the Pagans, and the Virgil-like Jilly, and other attributes such as the deadly sins of wrath and greed.  While these references to Dante's epic work provide additional scope to Tim Wynne-Jones's story, they are not everything. The Ruinous Sweep is, in its lyrical telling and intricate mystery, as daring as YA just as Dante's work is as epic poem.

✜✜✜✜✜✜✜✜✜✜

Check back tomorrow for my interview with author Tim Wynne-Jones and an opportunity to win a free audio book edition of The Ruinous Sweep, read by Tim Wynne-Jones. This giveaway is open to Canadian and US residents.

Strangers: The Reckoner, Book One

Written by David A. Robertson

HighWater Press

978-1-55379-676-3

216 pp.

Ages 14+

October 2017

David A. Robertson, author of the Governor-General's literary awarded illustrated children's book When We Were Young (illustrated by Julie Flett, HighWater Press, 2016), returns his writing to young adults with Strangers, the first book in a new supernatural thriller series called The Reckoner. Still honouring his Cree roots with a story installed in the fictionalized Cree community of Wounded Sky, David A. Robertson shows us life on a remote Manitoba reserve where a past tragedy and current illness and murder have its inhabitants reeling in suspicion and anger.  And it doesn't help that that trickster Coyote is playing a leading role.

Seventeen-year-old Cole Harper has been living in Winnipeg since his Aunt Joan and grandmother moved him there to forget "everything he'd lost in the tragedy and his role in it" (pg. 13) ten years earlier.  Now his friend Ashley Ross is summoning Cole back to Wounded Sky with cryptic messages about needing to come home.   But Cole's return is far from welcome and he learns from Ashley that his phone had been missing and he'd never sent any messages to Cole.  And he tells Cole this minutes before he is shot dead.  While he awaits RCMP Constable Wayne Kirkness, Cole is visited by Choch, the anthropomorphized spirit being Coyote, who reminds Cole of a deal they'd made ten years earlier when Cole had saved two friends, Eva and Brady, from a burning school in which everyone else perished, including Cole's mother. Now Choch expects payback though he doesn't tell Cole exactly what he needs of him.  After Ashley's murder and an illness hits the community, Cole is sure it is to make things right here at Wounded Sky.  But then two more murders and deaths from the illness have the community turning on Cole, whose arrival coincided with the newest tragedies.  How can he do right by Wounded Sky when it's obvious the community, except for a few, resent his return from the city and his earlier role in the fire in which he only saved two lives?

There are mysteries aplenty in Strangers and not all are able to be solved in this first book in the series.  Who murdered Ashley?  How is the research facility, now closed, involved in the tragedies at Wounded Sky? How did the fire at the school start? With the advice of his grandmother to find his peace and "If you accept yourself for who you are, you belong anywhere" (pg. 109), Cole faces the challenges of an angry community, the antics of an arrogant and reckless Choch, and his own anxiety to be the hero needed to heal himself and others.

All legends, Cole, come from some place of truth. Whether they're about Coyote or a sky that was cut and bled the heavens like tears, or a boy that saved others. Look at your own scars. (pg. 124)

Beyond David A. Robertson's intricate plotting, he creates a character of Wounded Sky itself.  He makes sure that readers, Indigenous or not, get an authentic glimpse of life on a reserve: remote, ignored, self-reliant, challenged, vulnerable and cohesive.  From Elder Mariah making hot muskeg tea and Cole's tobacco tie, to the northern lights of spirits playing and Coyote's pranks, Strangers is both singular and inclusive, educating readers and encircling many in its story. I look forward to Book 2 in The Reckoner series so that I can witness how David A. Robertson resolves mysteries first revealed in Strangers and undoubtedly creates a few more for Cole to confront.

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.

Me (and) Me

Written by Alice Kuipers

HarperCollins Canada

9781443448826

288 pp.

Ages 14+

April 2017

Lark Hardy’s seventeenth birthday should’ve been a fun day, and it had begun that way, a first date with Alec Sandcross canoeing at Pike Lake.  But one moment changes everything.  As the teens are about to embark on some swimming, a cry from Suzanne Fields, the mother of five-year-old Annabelle whom Lark had babysat, draws their attention to the child face down in the water. Alec dives in but hits his head and starts going down.  And as Suzanne yells at Lark to do something, the teen hesitates, not knowing whom to save.  So begins a novel split in two voices, both Larks and both Lark’s.

The first Lark begins to describe the days after the near drowning in which Alec has been saved and Annabelle lays in a hospital bed in a coma. Alec and Lark’s new relationship is blossoming, and he begins to teach her how to do parkour, climbing, running and jumping across obstacles such as buildings and bridges. Becoming so entwined with the attentive and charismatic Alec, Lark starts blowing off best friend Lucy and bandmates Nifty, Reid and Iona to spend time with Alec.  When she starts getting weird messages on her phone about Alec not being saved, Lark is disconcerted but has no answers. But when she visits Annabelle in the hospital, and hallucinates that she’s drowning in water and then glimpses a girl who is but isn’t her, Lark starts to think she’s going crazy.

In an alternate voice and chapters, a second Lark, one who cuts her hair short and dyes it red, recounts those same days, but ones in which music exec Martin Fields and wife Suzanne are ever grateful to her for saving their young daughter while Alec’s family sits by his hospital bedside, contemplating turning off the machines that are keeping him alive.  Lark still harbours much anger about her mother’s passing and translates that anger into petty shoplifting of items she doesn’t even want.  But though this Lark is starting to connect with bandmate Reid, she too is baffled by freaky messages including those of a not-hospital bound Alec and an intimate relationship with him.

Lark, whether the long- and dark-haired one or she of the red hair, have similar circumstances: a musical mother who has passed; a dad with heart issues; best friend Lucy; a passion for writing songs; and playing with bandmates Reid, Iona and Nifty.  She is also starting to suspect she’s losing it, seeing things like imaginary water near drowning her and disappearing messages.

The linchpin for Lark becomes the lyrics her mother started penning before her death.

Perhaps you see it differently
You and me
It’s just a case of who tells the story
Perhaps you see it differently. (pg. 86)

Showering her intense text with astounding lyrics, Alice Kuipers  brings both Larks together to juxtapose the parallel lives they lead after the near drowning at the lake.  Confused by grief, fears and even guilt, both girls (or are they really two?) attempt to make sense of a world in which their own choices for actions have consequences that they wish they could undo.  They are two halves of the same whole, different but similar. They are Me (and) Me.  (There’s even a crazy moment when the two face off and shout, “Who even are you?” “Who the hell are you?”; pg. 240) It’s hard to say whether the two will come together equally, though Lark recognizes that,

I have to stitch myself back together.  I have to make myself whole. (pg. 270)

or whether Lark will become more of one than the other.  However, it’s clear that Alice Kuipers in her daring storytelling and almost maternal concern for her characters wants to help keep Lark together. Life is hard enough without questioning your decisions, especially those made under pressure, and when literally being torn apart by them.  I can’t tell you how it ends (you’ll see when you read Me (and) Me) but I can tell you that the story comes full circle, secured in its own way, though not tied up as you might expect.

Check back tomorrow for my Me (and) Me blog tour stop with a guest post by author Alice Kuipers.  Ever enlightening, Alice Kuipers speaks about why she writes YA.

A Month of Mondays

by Joëlle Anthony
Second Story Press
978-1-77260-026-1
340 pp.
Ages 9-13
March 2017

I was reminded of the Boomtown Rats song "I Don't Like Mondays" when I read the title of Joëlle Anthony's middle grade book and I couldn't even imagine a month full of those oppressive days.  It's just too overwhelming.  Not unlike Suze Tamaki's life.

Suze Tamaki is twelve years old and a Grade 7 student at Maywood Junior High in Victoria, BC.  She lives with her father and her slovenly sister, seventeen-year-old Tracie, in a cramped apartment.  Her Aunt Jenny a.k.a. AJ and Uncle Bill essentially round out her family.  That is, until her mother Caroline who’d abandoned them when Suze was 3 returns to town and wants to reconnect with her daughters.  Everyone has an opinion about that happening, especially Tracie who vehemently refuses to have anything to do with Caroline or allow Suze to do so.

At school, things aren’t any more settled. Suze, who regularly spends time in the office of the principal, Mr. Farbinger, and seems to be quite content to coast through her coursework, is moved into Honours English to work with best friend and super achiever Amanda on a speech presentation.  With the aim of presenting to the school board, the two decide to take up the cause of the custodians who are set to lose their jobs to more cost-efficient contractors.  But even that becomes a fiasco when Suze finds some unorthodox ways to research the custodians’ impact on schools.

Meanwhile, Suze is trying to navigate a potential relationship with a mother who seems to be out of touch with her children, though she has plenty of money to try and make an impact.  The question for Suze is whether any of her hurdles–her schooling, her mother, the rest of her family–are worth the effort necessary to overcome them and lead to some positive resolution.  Unfortunately or not, it’s up to her how she proceeds.  And when life feels like a month of Mondays, it’s hard to get up for any of it.

It’s nice to see a kid who neither has it all together or sits at the bottom of the heap trying to crawl out of the despair of a horrific life. Suze is probably more like most kids, at neither extreme but somewhere in the middle, just trying to make sense of the people and circumstances of her life.  She may not always choose well–her recurrent trips to the principal’s office attest to that–and may get distracted and discouraged but she keeps on plugging away.  Without creating a superhero for the middle grade set, Joëlle Anthony has created a very realistic young teen who’s just trying to find her way.  She may drag a few people along for the ride, and it’s sometimes a bumpy one, but she keeps heading somewhere and in her own time. I guess that’s as real as it gets, isn’t it?  And Joëlle Anthony ensures the reader comes away with a lesson in stick-with-it-ness, demonstrating that things always resolve themselves somehow, sometimes more and sometimes less positively than you might imagine.

Optimists Die First: Book launch (Victoria, BC)

There's a reason to celebrate!

Award-winning author

Susin Nielsen

Word Nerd (Tundra, 2008)

Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom (Tundra, 2010)

The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen (Tundra, 2012)

We Are All Made of Molecules (Tundra, 2015)

has a new book coming out

Optimists Die First

by Susin Nielsen

Tundra Books

9781770497825

240 pp. 

Ages 12+

February 2017

will launch

Sunday, February 12, 2017

2 p.m.

at

Greater Victoria Public Library

Central Branch

735 Broughton Street

Victoria, BC

Here's a little bit about the book from the publisher Penguin Random House  Canada:

Petula's funny, and a crafting genius, but no social star at high school, and it doesn't help that she's isolated herself after her adored toddler sister died. Petula feels responsible for this death, though her parents say it was a tragic accident. No one's fault. Now, Petula sees danger everywhere: every activity and every bite of food could kill you. Then a new boy, Jacob, joins Petula's group in the school's lame art therapy program; he has a prosthetic arm and darkness behind his sunny surface. Petula and Jacob become friends, then, something more. But a secret behind why he's in the group could derail them.

A heartbreaking yet humorous first YA from award-winning author Susin Nielsen, Optimists Die First continues Susin's tradition of creating memorable characters and genre-bending narratives.

Retrieved from http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/240466/optimists-die-first#9781770497825 

on February 8, 2017.

There will be books for sale (courtesy of Munro's Books), 

a reading,

 Q & A, and   

book signing.

The Secrets We Keep

by Deb Loughead

Dundurn

978-1-459737297

184 pp.

Ages 12-15

December 2016

Not all secrets are bad; in fact, The Secrets We Keep ends on a very sweet one.  But the secrets being kept in Deb Loughead's newest young adult novel are the destructive kind, the kind that destroy relationships and souls, the kind that erode slowly the edges of what is good until it becomes a slippery slope with a pit at the bottom.

Ever since that field party at the quarry last June when challenged teen Kit Stitski disappeared and was later found dead, drowned in the water, fifteen-year-old Clementine has been tortured with guilt, convinced that she played a role in his death.

It’s like his ghost will not go away and leave me alone.  And now that I know his mother’s still hunting for answers, my secrets are spooking me even more. (pg. 15) 

Worse than her own guilt, Clem’s supposed best friend, Ellie Denton, who had also been secretly at the quarry, partying with Mac, a boy on whom she’d been crushing, is manipulating Clem with the threat of exposure.  With excessive demands on Clem to always be available to cover for her and Mac, Ellie becomes a menace that Clem can’t seem to shake.  Though Clem wishes she could speak to her family about this, she finds some relief when she convinces her tech-addicted parents and younger brother to agree to put aside their devices regularly for some quality family time, including at night when Ellie regularly texts Clem.

That might get Ellie somewhat off her back but Clem is still plagued by a guilty conscience and a crush on Grade 10 student, Jake Harcourt, with whom she’d once been part of a Circle of Friends support group for Kit in middle school.  When the two finally reconnect as friends who've both taken on blame for Kit’s death and recognized how the circumstances have changed them, Clem and Jake look for ways to be something positive in the lives of Kit’s mother and younger brother, as well as expose a lot more secrets concerning the young man’s death.

Though The Secrets We Keep is not a mystery, there is a problem to be solved and secrets to be exposed and Deb Loughead never lets the reader’s adrenalin levels subside.  The tension that Clem suffers at the hands of her friend drives the story and her to find some resolution, one with which she can live.  And though it is never obvious, Jake, the boy who defends another teen rumoured to have fought with Kit that night, is the means to that resolution, as well as a sweet respite from the strain of keeping secrets and harbouring guilt.  The Secrets We Keep has both the strong plot and character development to hook teen readers but its strong message about connecting and disconnecting, both personally and digitally, makes the story one worth reading and heeding.

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Reviewed just in time, The Secrets We Keep launches this Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at Harbourfront's Lakeside Terrace in Toronto.  Details here.

Small Displays of Chaos

by Breanna Fischer

Coteau Books

978-1-55050-661-7

102 pp.

Ages 13+

May 2016

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  Everything in her life was supposed to be better when she was thinner. (pg. 50)

For Saskatoon teen Rayanne Timko, her eating disorder began with a Phys Ed class fitness goal of healthy eating and improved exercise regime to get a good grade to match those of her academic subjects.  But the recording of all foods and monitoring her physical appearance became a ritual she couldn’t let go, ever hopeful of finding “the person who she wanted to be…hiding somewhere underneath.” (pg.  9).

Now a high school senior, Ray’s life is a complex existence of school counselling sessions, community service at a dog shelter, crushing on Josh Reid who’d witnessed her purging at a party, and convoluted family dynamics with a twin sister, an angry father, a conflicted mother and an impending family wedding that requires her dreading her participation as a bridesmaid.  And I haven’t even mentioned the voice of her judgemental thinner self Edie for whom Rayanne never seems to be good enough.

But even with a referral to an eating disorder specialist, Ray doesn’t know what she needs and finds it hard to ask for help.  It’s not until the family wedding that the desperate teen realizes that she’s been in the “final stage of a grand Disappearing Act” (pg. 74) from which she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone and could finally just give up.

With all the positive affirmations about body image and awareness campaigns about eating disorders and mental illness, Small Displays of Chaos is still a timely and relevant story that needs to be told and heeded.  Breanna Fischer has based Small Displays of Chaos on her own experience being diagnosed with anorexia with bulimic behaviours and convincingly shares her skewed thinking and dangerous pursuits with candor and insight.  Luckily both Rayanne and Breanna Fischer are able to survive their crises and find the words to astutely convey the depth of those crises to provide valuable lessons. 

Will to Survive: The Rule of 3, Book 3

by Eric Walters
Razorbill
978-0-670-06707-7
310 pp.
Ages 12+
January 2016

If you thought the darkness and powerlessness of Eric Walters’ first two books in his apocalyptic The Rule of 3 series (The Rule of Three, Razorbill, 2014; Fight for Power, Razorbill, 2015) were staggering, then Will to Survive will seem enervating.   But, as is said, it's always darkest before the dawn, and Eric Walters is nothing but hopeful in all his writing and definitely in Will to Survive.

The neighbourhood in which sixteen-year-old Adam Daley and his family, friends and others–about sixteen hundred individuals–have created in the aftermath of a power outage of epic proportions is establishing all the right stuff on which civilizations have been founded: government by committee, citizenship, security, food sharing, social welfare, medical care, etc.  But it's been a hard road, with tough decisions regarding security versus social responsibility, survival versus humanity, and life or death.

I know that our neighborhood was a small sliver of civilization in a land where civility had been lost.  Here we were surrounded by twenty-foot walls, protected by armed guards on all sides; we had food, shelter and a layer of order and fairness.  In here was safe.  Beyond was uncertain.  No, not uncertain–wild and dangerous and dog-eat-dog. (pg. 83-84)

Unfortunately that danger encroached on Adam’s feelings of safety at the conclusion of Fight for Power, and Will to Survive begins in the aftermath of Adam's killing of two men, in self-defense, after he was kidnapped by former ally Brett who'd joined with the bandits of the Division.  Even after the neighbourhood sends teams to destroy the compound of the Division, Adam is haunted by what he had to do and is plagued by Brett’s suggestion that he too has become a monster.

But Adam doesn’t have many opportunities to talk to counsellor Maureen about the trauma or spend more time with girlfriend Lori before the neighbourhood is hit by sniper fire that kills three guards.  Pinpointing the origin of the shots as the condo tower outside of the community, and concerned that Brett and his men are behind the attack, the neighbourhood committee, based on Adam’s suggestion, decide to extend the wall outward to engulf the condo community, offering them both services and training to keep them safer.

After more aerial reconnaissance that is both beneficial and terrifying in what they discover, the neighbourhood begins efforts to join with other communities, including one based at the island airport, one at an oil refinery and another at a hospital.

We can stop being a simple star and start to become a constellation of stars, the center of a series of connected neighborhoods. (pg. 110)

But you know sociopathic Brett is going to raise his evil head again and he does, targeting the neighbourhood physically and Adam psychologically, playing their compassion as a weakness.  Unfortunately for him, Brett doesn’t recognize that kindness can be very fortifying too.

Will to Survive is definitely an action-packed adventure, a highly plot-driven story, but the power of Eric Walters’ characters kept me most interested.  The astute strategist, Herb, is one of my favourites.  Knowing that the world might never get back to normal (“There is a very long end game here”; pg. 202), Herb lends his wise guidance to the neighbourhood and its new allies and mentors Adam in becoming a new leader.  His wealth of knowledge and astounding understanding of the human psyche makes Herb the ideal person to spearhead efforts in a crisis. But Herb is the real thing, not a superhero; he is a man with vulnerabilities, who can help make Adam realize what he himself has to offer.  Will to Survive is a coming-of-age story about Adam, just as it is for a post-apocalypse world that needs to recognize its weaknesses and play to its strengths in order for growth to happen.  Growing up can be scary but it can also be heartfelt and ultimately advancing.

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 Inn Between

by Marina Cohen

Roaring Brook Press

978-1-62672-202-6

208 pp.

Ages 8-12

For release March 2016

Don’t be deceived by the gold and green turquoise lightness of the cover of The Inn Between.  The story is nothing but dark and I believe that Marina Cohen has achieved her goal of a Stephen King novel for middle grade readers.

Eleven-year-old Quinn Martin is travelling by car with her best friend Kara Cawston and Kara’s family–parents and older brother Josh–to the family’s new home in Santa Monica.  The two girls had been inseparable in Denver and the linking of their two woven frienship bracelets, which seems to intrigue the non-Norm man running Norm’s Diner, shows how close the two really are.  After a weird bright light in the desert accosts the family car, they stop at the Inn Between, a gorgeous old-fashioned hotel straddling the border between California and Nevada, that promises “We’ve been expecting you.” (pg. 28)

As beautiful as the hotel is, the people within are very strange (and this is an operative word for everything at the Inn Between) and oddly overly hospitable.  There’s the desk clerk Persephone, the elevator operator Sharon (for the elevaor they are not allowed to use) and the valet-doorman, Aides.  And the guests are just as odd. From old Mr. Mirabelli who tells Quinn “They’re going to pull the plug” (pg. 34) to the little girl with the singed doll and Rico the guy who’d partied a little too hard and had come for a rest.  Most scary though is a tall, unshaven man in a black and yellow ball cap whom Quinn notices pursuing them.

After the first night, Kara’s parents are gone, apparently with the van that had to be towed for servicing, and the three kids spend the time swimming, enjoying the food and just hanging out.  But Quinn’s mind is perpetually troubled with memories of her little sister Emma and the guilt she harbours about her, and smells and sounds at the hotel continue to play on these memories.

When Josh goes awol too, Quinn and Kara go in search of Emma, convinced the crying Quinn hears is her young sister who had gone missing.  But what they find starts Quinn realizing who the guests at the Inn Between really are and why they must escape, without Kara’s parents and Josh.

The Inn Between is a mermerizing read of creepiness and suspense with a healthy dose of action and psychological tension.  Young readers who never get enough of spine-chilling drama (and it is very limited in youngCanLit) will be pleasantly disturbed by the eerie story, unnerving setting, and sinister atmosphere of The Inn Between.  Marina Cohen has done it.  She has written a spooky–but ghost-free–story about a place you wouldn’t want to visit and wrapped it in a cosy hotel robe of mystery and unsettling thoughts, without completely terrifying young readers, though there are some frightening scenes.  Best of all, Marina Cohen has something to say about friendship and grief and guilt but does so in a wonderfully unique and  horrific narrative.

Girl on the Run

by B. R. Myers

Nimbus Publishing

978-1-77108-352-2

332 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2015

I’m sorry I didn’t review this book sooner but I should have recalled how much I’d been impressed with B. R. Myers’ debut novel, Butterflies Don’t Lie (Nimbus, 2014).  But, here I am again, reviewing in winter a book that takes place during summer. Let’s look at it this way, though:  it’s that time of year when high school students are thinking about summer jobs and parents are anticipating signing up their children for summer camps.  So, it’s still all good: both Girl on the Run and reviewing Girl on the Run now.

Seventeen-year-old Jesse Collins used to be a runner and a very good one.  But that all changed four months ago when her father died suddenly.

I used to care about provincial records, and even the Olympics, but not anymore.  Those were things I no longer had, and no longer deserved.  I put my hand on my stomach, on the heaviness that was always there.  A reminder of what I’d done and what I’d lost. (pg. 49)

Now it’s all she can do to push forward through her days, convince her mother that she’s not depressed and give in to her BFF’s attempts to get her dating and meeting the right guy.  Jesse needs a fresh start and two months at Kamp Krystal Lake as a counsellor is what she plans to do.  What she doesn’t plan on is there being a mix-up with the camp thinking she was a male and entrusting her with Cabin 4A, a small makeshift cabin, and four twelve-year-old boys: the camp owner’s terror of a son, Spencer; twins Liam and Duff; and the kindest of all, Scotty.

While Jesse tries to make the best of things, which isn’t always easy, she does meet new people who don’t know about her past and she’s so good with that.  There’s Devin, another counsellor (or so she thinks) that is making the moves on her; Lewis, recent grad and part of the kitchen staff; Alicia, a friendly lifeguard; Lacey, the perfect counsellor to a cabin of pink cupettes, as Jesse calls them; and Kirk, the head counsellor who always seems to catch her at her worst but whose milk chocolate eyes consistently attract her notice.

But the pranks pulled by the boys, including a fake drowning that costs Jesse a special necklace from her parents, commemorating her first provincial running record, brings her to the attention of the camp director, Susan, who wonders, along with Kirk and Lacey, whether they should be looking for another counsellor for the boys.  And, though the camp is eager to have Jesse run for them in the annual lake triathlon against other camps, Jesse is adamant that she will not.

Still, guilt-ridden about her dad’s death, Jesse perseveres, through humiliation and misunderstandings and misplaced crushings and some kissing, to find that she has a lot more gumption than she first thought and is able to make Kamp Krystal Lake a positive experience for more than just herself.

B. R. Myers embeds a lot of constructive messages in this sweet volume of teen chicklit. Not only do readers get to share in a summer fling with Jesse and go through the full camp experience of  outdoor activities, dances, dining hall shenanigans and food, they will learn a lot about Jesse’s namesake, runner Jesse Owens, about working through guilt and grief, and about resiliency.  Lessons well learned and even enjoyed by Jesse herself, the Girl on the Run.

Movers

Written by Meaghan McIsaac

Tundra Books

978-1-7049-818-1

288 pp.

Ages 12+

February 2016

Reviewed from Advance Reader's Copy

Forget today's world.  Meaghan McIsaac will take you into the new world of 2083 when people live in tiny apartments, use droidlets as keepers of all information, where schools are 64 floors high, water is scarce, powerful winds called Eventualies bombard everyone and everything, and there are Movers, people with the special ability to move others called their Shadows from the future of war, famine and disease to their own time.  And, because there are Movers, there is the Bureau of Movement Activity Control (BMAC) and the anti-Mover group, We Are Now, and Movers' Prison and Shelving–whereby Movers convicted of moving their Shadows are Shelved i.e., put into "An endless sleep. A living kind of deadness" (pg. 2).  It's a totally different world and it's the world of fourteen-year-old Patrick Mermick whose father Michael was Shelved after Moving his Shadow, Oscar Joji, from the future, killing him in the process and causing considerable damage.  Problem is that Michael Mermick was a Phase 2 Mover and incapable of Moving his Shadow.

Now Pat and little sister Maggie, both Phase 1 Movers, and Mom Izzy, a Non-Mover, must live in a world of monthly Mover renewal forms and much discrimination.  Not surprising Mom is known as a Mover symathizer, protesting Shelving, and helping Movers falsity their FIILES–digital accounts of their lives–to keep them from being treated as criminals.

Then everything goes from bad to worse.  Mom gets called into Maggie’s school, because of Mags' new behaviours suggesting the need for a Phase upgrade, and they are both being taken to BMAC headquarters when Mom tells Maggie to make a run for it.  Maggie heads to Pat’s school where a Movement creates destruction and chaos while bringing over the Shadow of Gabby, a classmate of Pat’s and a favourite target of the bullies. Together, Pat and Gabby and Maggie become fugitives and must delve into the underworld of Mover society in order to survive and avoid Shelving.

Movers is an earth-shattering, action-packed futuristic adventure of the heightest proportions.  Set in a future that appears to be of our own making–depletion of most resources, scarcity of others, continued discrimination for those who are different–with new technology and supernatural elements of time-travel, Movers is incessant in its fast pacing and rife with villains of all natures–bureaucratic, school bullies and future warlords–keeping the action steady and plot unravelling.

Another blast sends tremors rippling through the building.  The cement begins to give way under my right foot and there’s nothing I can do.  My body is in freefall and I cry out.  My brain shuts down, and there’s only one thought–I’m so dead–but my hand still has a grip on the metal bar.
I dangle there, scream-crying with Gabby while the rough rusty bar cuts into my palm.  My vocal cords feel ready to snap while the rest of me is consumed by fear.  No Gabby, no Movement, just – falling.
My temples start buzzing, like the lightning has shot right through them, and I can feel him, my Shadow, suddenly aware of me.  He’s angry, overwhelmed by the emotion flooding out of my body and suddenly I’m furious too. (pg. 50-51)

It’s like Die Hard meets The Time Traveler’s Wife for teen readers except the threat is from within and a romance doesn’t drive the story.  But the threat is real and the time travel is real and the horrors of discrimination are real.  And, to cause even more discomfort for readers, the story of Movers isn’t over because Meaghan McIsaac leaves readers on the edge of time and place, literally, with an ending that can’t even begin to be resolved until Book 2 of this new series is announced.  Hang on.

#CanLitChoices: Alternatives to The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars
by John Green
Dutton Books for Young Readers
9780525478812
336 pp.
Ages 14-17
Rl lexile 850
RL 5.5
2012

The Fault in Our Stars, winner of the Teen Book of the Year by the Children's Choice Book Awards and the basis for a critically-acclaimed film, is a favourite novel read by teens across Canada and the U.S. The story focuses on the romance between Hazel, a cancer patient, and Augustus, a teen who lost his leg to osteosarcoma, who meet at a support group and bond over books, falling in love.

Themes upon which teachers focus lessons include the following:
• grief
• mortality
• relationships
• love
• fear

But we have a plethora of youngCanLit that can fill the same novel study bill and, of course, I would like to promote them here.  Each one of these deals with the same themes but in different ways and are all the better for the variety of storylines covered.

     †                    †                    †                    †                    †  

Before We Go
by Amy Bright
Red Deer Press
978-0-88995-471-7
222 pp.
Ages 12+
2012
Reviewed here

After visiting her dying grandmother in the hospital, Emily meets another teen Alex and his sister who too are dealing with death.

Crush. Candy. Corpse
by Sylvia McNicoll
Lorimer
978-1-4594-00627
219 pp.
Ages 12+
2012
Reviewed here

While volunteering at a long-term care facility, Sunny meets Cole and his grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer's.

The Death of Us

by Alice Kuipers

HarperTrophy Canada

978-1-44342-410-3

216 pp.

Ages 13+

2014

Reviewed here

Callie's reunion with former friend Ivy brings a summer of boys and, sadly, death.

Dying to go Viral
by Sylvia McNicoll
Fitzhenry & Whiteside
978-1-55455-271-9
251 pp.
Ages 12+
2013
Reviewed here

Jade's death in a skateboarding accident brings her back for one week to try to make things right for all.

My Beating Teenage Heart
by C. K. Kelly Martin
Random House
978-0-385-67042-5
288 pp.
Ages 13+
2011
Reviewed here

Ashlyn tries to piece together why her body-less self is watching teen Breckon who is dealing with the death of his younger sister.

The World Without Us
by Robin Stevenson
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-4598-0680-1
226 pp.
Ages 12-16
2015
Reviewed here

Though Jeremy and Melody make a pact to jump from a bridge, Melody chooses not to do so and is left behind to deal with that choice.

In each of the above books, the protagonist must deal with a death or imminent death of someone significant–a friend, a sibling, a grandparent, herself!–and must deal with that grief with someone to whom they are emotionally drawn. There is grief, romance, guilt and fear. What else does a book alternative to The Fault in Our Stars need? Absolutely nothing!

Leave comments if you have any other suggestions for The Fault in Our Stars alternatives or to select an age-old novel that needs refreshing with #CanLitChoices.

250 Hours

Written by Colleen Nelson

Coteau Books

978-1-55-5—641-9

152 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2015

“I don’t want to set them. But it’s like if I don’t do it, something worse will happen.  Watching something burn means I’ve saved a different bad thing from happening.”  He knew it sounded crazy, but maybe she’d understand because there was hurt inside of her too. (pg. 68)

And Jess Sinclair is right.  The hurt that compels him to set fires, hence his 250 hours community service, is also in 18-year-old Sara Jean whose grandmother’s garage is being cleaned out by Jess.  But, while both deal with abandonment issues–Jess by his father eight years earlier and Sara Jean at two months of age by her mother–and have significant relationships with their grandmothers, Jess’s hurt is wrapped up in living with the double-edged discrimination of being Métis as Sara Jean deals with being shackled to small-town life as primary caregiver to her 450-lb. grandmother, Gam.

While the two teens attempt to accept their responsibilities to their families and communities, they yearn to become independent of the hurts that define their lives, and they find themselves drawn to each other, particularly after Sara Jean discovers memorabilia of her Grandpa’s teaching at the local residential school.   But everyone seems to be keeping secrets and the discrimination Sara Jean detects from her boyfriend and his family, her own Gam and Aunt Mim towards Jess and Aboriginal People compels her to learn more, especially after she finds a small pair of moccasins that, unbeknownst to her, Jess is convinced his kokum had made.

Colleen Nelson tells another powerful story (see my review of The Fall, Great Plains Teen Fiction, 2013) in 250 Hours, but focuses on small-town mindedness, the injustice of the residential schools, and family expectations in such a way that the reader will sympathize for Jess and Sara Jean who feel trapped by the stifling suffocation of their histories.  How do you break free to make a new life for yourself when there is so much holding you back?

There’s always a reason to stay.  I guess there has to be better reasons to go. (pg. 69)

Don’t be surprised if you feel enraged by the injustices perpetrated against these young people and against Aboriginal people.  That’s good because we all should be.  I suspect that 250 Hours is a truer reflection of life for many who experience blatant discrimination, whether wholesale as evoked by the residential school situations or  randomly by ignorant individuals, and for youth limited by the influence of family and peers.  Not surprising that everyone seems to know what's best for others. Thankfully, Colleen Nelson makes sure that Sara Jean's and Jess's stories are told, albeit in a fictionalized tale, to give them voice, freedom and limitless possibilities to be themselves.  It’s a powerful story of redemption where none seemed possible.