The Beauty of the Moment

Written by Tanaz Bhathena

Penguin Teen Canada

978-0-7352-6374-1

384 pp.

Ages 12+

February 2019

Reviewed from advance reader's edition

They say that those who look to the past are often saddened, those who look to the future only are anxious and those who stay in the present are content. While this is tremendously oversimplified, it could describe the experiences of seventeen-year-old Susan Foster who has immigrated from Saudi Arabia with her parents to Mississauga. Actually, although her father, whom she calls Appa, came with them to purchase a condo and a car, arranged for driving lessons for Susan and registration for school, and generally got Susan and Amma established, he has returned to Jeddah to his work as a doctor, hopeful of soon joining them permanently. So, except for regular Skype visits and phone calls to friends and family, Susan and Amma are left to navigate their new lives in Canada essentially alone.

While Alisha, her best friend in Jeddah, insists Susan is lucky to be in Canada, away from dating restrictions, Susan sees the complexity of her new situation. She will be living alone with her mother, a woman who focuses only on Susan's academic excellence and is bitter that they've moved essentially for Susan's education, and away from Appa who seemed more amenable to Susan's artistic proclivities.

In Jeddah, my father played the role of a buffer, the water to my mother's fire, a tree that bent to her wind instead of resisting its pressure. (pg. 75)

Though Susan has always excelled at school, she is learning that she is much better at rote and memorization than at interactive learning like labs and even her driving lessons. And not doing well is not an option, especially as Appa is directing her to medical school and Amma to engineering. She can't even tell them that what she dreams about is going to art school.

And then there are the boys. Actually there is one boy, Malcolm Vakil, who has caught Susan's eye, as she has caught his. Dealing with the death of his mother and a father who is abusive and cheated on his mother, Malcolm turned his grief and anger into behaviours his teachers and father see as problematic. But, though he's had a history of sneaking out, drinking and smoking, doing drugs and dating the beautiful but capricious Afrin Patel, Malcolm finds himself drawn away from those behaviours and towards Susan.

The Beauty of the Moment, told in alternating chapters from Susan and Malcolm's perspectives, focuses on the merging of two teens' stories, rich with back stories and future ambitions. Because their story is neither straightforward nor uncomplicated, exactly as life is, The Beauty of the Moment takes the reader backwards, sideways and in circles as the two may or may not find their way to each other and contentment in their family situations.

Tanaz Bhathena rocketed onto the YA CanLit scene in 2018 with her debut novel A Girl Like That (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2018) that captured the tragedies of a Saudi teen's relationship with a boy in a place of gender inequality and religious restrictions. By moving this story to Mississauga, while tethering it to Saudi Arabia via Alisha and Appa, Tanaz Bhathena expands her story to one of immigration and cultural contrast.  Yet The Beauty of the Moment is still a story of teens because Susan and Malcolm could be any teens, dealing with family, school, dating and considering their futures. Their stories are just more complicated because of cultural expectations.

Still it is the way Tanaz Bhathena tells their stories, imbuing them with the distinction of their situations and with the eloquence of voice and thought, that uplifts the plot. It may be titled The Beauty of the Moment, but the book makes sure to see that the lifetime beyond the moment helps create that beauty. There are former lives that we think were better but also hold uncomfortable memories. There is the future which generates dread but holds the promise of opportunity and change.

"Nothing lasts forever," I say. "Not this snowflake. Not our homes, not our families. But it doesn't mean you can't live in the beauty of the moment." (pg. 221)

It's being mindful of that moment and all the beauty it entails that brings contentment, and that's what Susan and Malcolm ultimately attain. That's a beautiful thing.

Ophelia

Written by Charlotte Gingras

Illustrated by Daniel Sylvestre

Translated by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou

Groundwood Books

264 pp.

Ages 14+

March 2018

Ophelia is what she calls herself, though her peers at high school have affixed the label of "rag girl" on her.  But Ophelia, like Shakespeare's tragic character, is much more than she appears.  She is a complex teen, overridden with fears and anger and anxiety and isolation that goes far beyond the teen angst label many use to underplay overwhelming personal issues.  

Ophelia's story, past and present, is told in letters to an author, Jeanne D'Amour, who visited Ophelia's school and gifted the teen with an ink-blue notebook. The unsent letters reveal Ophelia's crushing worries of abandoned children; of being seen as ugly; of her struggles at school; of being alone or of finding love; of a mother who had been undeclared unfit once, forcing Ophelia into foster care, and could be again; of never knowing her father; and of her sexuality, especially as she harbours trauma from an incident of childhood sexual abuse.  

I don't love anyone for real, Jeanne.  If I dive down, down to my very depths, all I find is dark and hard.  Nothing alive. (pg. 122)

But when Ophelia, a girl who goes out at night and tags walls with oil-pastel broken hearts, discovers an abandoned building with walls on which she might express herself artistically, everything changes.  She soon learns that her workshop had previously been discovered by another marginalized teen, a new student and fat young man who decides to call himself Ulysses.  The two work out a schedule so that they do not have to interact, and Ophelia can continue to work on her art–first an "upside-down girl" as a depiction of her namesake, then an empowered "right-side-up girl" and more–while Ulysses endeavours to dismantle an old van he has named Caboose, hopeful of setting it to rights so he could take it on a long journey. 

Ophelia is still overpowered by her anger and worries but the innocuous Ulysses subtly begins to share his own fears and pains and finds a way to connect with Ophelia.

He'd defused my suicide-bomber belt with his chocolate bars and calming voice. (pg. 86)

Similarly Ophelia's artwork begins to have a positive impact on the two teens, enabling them to become the warriors she creates on the walls.  But can those shifts in Ophelia and Ulysses be sustained and carry them through a violent invasion into their safe space as well as their emerging sexualities?

Ophelia is a powerful book of a teen's struggles, a deep and insightful introspection of her shattering anger and apprehension.  Though Ophelia writes with the chaotic musings of a young person in trauma, alternating recollections of the past, with current struggles and anticipation of the future, there is a lifeline of progression from out-of-control angst to increasing self-reflection and empathy to self-acceptance and empowerment that is so real that it is visceral.

From Ophelia 

by Charlotte Gingras 

illus. by Daniel Sylvestre

I am so pleased that Groundwood Books has brought Ophélie (Courte Echelle, 2008), the original French-language novel from Governor General-award winning author Charlotte Gingras, to English readers through this translation by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou.  Emboldened with the artwork of Montréaler Daniel Sylvestre, readers will catch glimpses of the fury and anxiety of Ophelia in her sketches and tags as they bear witness to her progress.  But it is the voice of Ophelia, heartfelt and agonized, as she verges on implosion and explosion, as well as that of Ulysses struggling with his own issues, that need to be heard and heeded by young readers and those who care for them.  There may not be a happy ending but there is hope for better.

2018 Stephen Leacock Student Humorous Short Story Competition

The Stephen Leacock Medal for Canadian Literary Humour is a prestigious annual which honours the great humorist Stephen Leacock.  While the award is generally given for books for adults, the Stephen Leacock Associates foundation sponsors a student competition.  What a great way to get more humour in our lives, get your students writing with purpose and maybe even win a few dollars!

Here are the details for the competition, as well as a teacher's guide for writing humour, which are posted at https://www.leacock.ca/studentaward.php.

Stephen Leacock 

Student Humorous Short Story 

Competition 

2018

Criteria:
Write a humorous story or personal essay in English with maximum word count of 1500 words.
• titled
• typed, double-spaced on one side of the page only
• pages numbered and without any other identifying marks
• cover page must be included and provide: title, student's name, name of school, school's telephone and email address


Judging:
Judging by 3 published authors is blind i.e., cover pages with key information are removed and the entry is assigned a number which is logged with student's info in a register which is only seen after judging is complete.


Submission:
Send 3 copies of each entry (plus $5 entry fee) by April 15, 2018 deadline to:
Christine Spear
Contest Registrar
8-40 Victoria Crescent
Orillia, ON
L3V 6N6


Deadline:
Post marked no later than April 15, 2018


Participation:
Limited to Ontario secondary school (public or private) students.


Prizes: 
First prize:  $1,000
  + • 2  tickets to the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal Banquet gala (June 9, 2018)
     • accommodation for two
     • an autographed copy of the medal-winning
     • 2 tickets for the Authors Night (June 8, 2018) at which all winners will read their stories

Second prize: $700
  + • 2 tickets for the Authors Night (June 8, 2018)

Third prize: $300
  + • 2 tickets for the Authors Night (June 8, 2018)


Announcements and Presentations:
Winners announced: May 15, 2018

Authors Night (for all winners): June 8, 2018, Best Western Mariposa Inn, 400 Memorial Avenue, Orillia

Gala Dinner (for 1st place winner):  June 9, 2018, Geneva Park Conference Centre, Orillia
   

Contact:
Christine Spear
studentawards@leacock.ca

Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal

Retrieved from https://www.leacock.ca/studentaward.php on October 2, 2017.

Saving Grad

Written by Karen Spafford-Fitz

James Lorimer & Co., Ltd.

978-1-4594-1252-1

160 pp.

Ages 13+

RL 5.0

August 2017

Mandy is right about one thing.  I have no idea how to be fun.  I had it beat out of me a long time ago. (pg. 97)

It's been beat out of her by her alcoholic, cocaine-abusing step-dad, Duncan, who has made her life and that of her mother Sophie a misery for two years.  Her mother is reluctant to leave, accustomed to the fine home and life style of wealth, but Vienna sees beyond the facade of a good life, apprehensive what could eventually happen if they stay.  When Duncan has a fall that lands him in hospital, Vienna is determined to pack themselves up and flee.  They head to Edmonton where, with the help of an outreach worker, they get a basement apartment and begin to make a new life, slowly.

Though initially happy to drown her sorrows, Sophie gets a job at a Starbucks and insists that Vienna get registered for her final year of high school.  To make it more difficult for Duncan to find them, Vienna decides to go by Vienna Fleury, using the last name of her Métis grandmother, Mémère.  Sophie and her mother may not have spoken for years–since they'd argued about her marriage to Duncan–but Vienna misses Mémère and calls her occasionally to keep her from worrying, though she never reveals where they are.

At her new high school, Vienna tries to stay under the radar but a friendly classmate named Mandy draws her into the school's social scene, enlisting Vienna's help on the grad party committee. Although Vienna begins to enjoy school and her mother is establishing a support system and relishing her independence, regardless of how financially strapped they are, you know things have to go awry.  Saving grad may be the least of Vienna's worries.

As part of Lorimer's SideStreets series of hi-lo (high interest-low vocabulary) books, Saving Grad is a fast read in plotting and word count.  But don't mistake a hi-lo read for a lesser story.  Author Karen Spafford-Fitz capably creates an intense plot of relationships between family and friends which can be positive and negative, supportive or destructive, and she makes sure to take us along on that bus ride.  Like Vienna and Sophie ending up in Edmonton in the middle of winter, the destination may not be an easy one at first but it is a fulfilling one in the end.  Saving Grad is bigger than the indisputable distress of physical abuse.  It's a story of resilience and strength and making something good out of something bad.  Karen Spafford-Fitz makes Saving Grad into saving Vienna and Sophie and others too.

The Throne

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

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

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

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

Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels

Written by Hélène Boudreau

Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
978-1-4022-6458-0
240 pp.
Ages 9+
Release February 2013

The cover of Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels may suggest a grad or a prom but the story only has Jade and Cori entering their first year of high school so no need to jump ahead too far.  While the transition to high school includes the promise of lockers, going for lunch off school grounds and new freedoms, it is often fraught with any number of worries about responsibilities, relationships and expectations.  Couple those with the recent discovery of your mermaid nature, the return of your mother who all thought had drowned and a budding first love, and you'll know what Jade Baxter is experiencing.  Plus she has to pretend that her mother is her aunt, Tanti Natasha, and the mermaid daughter of jailed mer-people Finalin and Medora is her cousin Serena from Tonganesia (explaining her poor English language skills) which recently experienced a volcanic eruption.  Deception can be so imaginative.

"Every student at Tonganesia High brings a dog to school," I continued.  "Dogs are very sensitive to seismic shifts in the earth's crust.  Since Serena's village was at the base of an active volcano, the dogs act as alarms during the students' mile-long walk to school.  Not to mention, protecting everyone from Komodo dragon attacks through the dangerous rain forest." (pg. 24)

But with deception comes the need for secrecy, and secrecy abounds.  Jade learns that their underwater hockey coach Laurena, who is engaged to marry Daniel, head cook at Bridget's Diner, is a Webbed One, as is Bridget.  Like Serena, Luke and Jade's mom Michaela, they are humans who started out as mer.  Unfortunately, the Mermish Council is ordering the Webbed Ones back to the ocean, intending to enforce Tidal Law at the next supermoon (in nine days!), to help fight a revolt that intends to see all Freshies (like Finalin and Medora) freed from the Talisman Lake jail. 

Everything seems to be folly. In fact, it is.  Keeping their Webbed Ones from returning to the ocean becomes lunacy for Jade and her friends and family, as the pull of Tidal Law is impressively strong. There's the upcoming Fall Folly, the dance where the girls ask the boys, made difficult for Jade's second-guessing of her relationship with Luke.  And there Folly's Passage, the narrow channel that once connected the upper end of Talisman Lake to the Atlantic Ocean, and the cause of the legendary shipwreck of Fortune's Folly.  It too may be folly for those mer who aim to reach the ocean without detection by the Mermish Council so they may provide support for the uprising.

But folly can mask wisdom ("If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise" wrote poet William Blake) and the actions of Jade and her cohort in Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels are always grounded in good intentions, even if things do go awry occasionally.  A slip of the tongue, an unexpected reveal of a tail, a misunderstanding.  However, one of the best features of Hélène Boudreau's Real Mermaids books is the weaving together of the multiple and sophisticated subplots into a satisfying and upbeat ending.  We know that life doesn't often have happy endings, but when a book is embedded with mer-people, first-love and the confusion of puberty and transitioning to high school, isn't it refreshing to put aside the expected angst and enjoy the pleasure of a story tied up beautifully in a glittery satin bow of turquoise and pink?

⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲ ⌲

For new readers to Hélène Boudreau's Real Mermaids series, links to reviews of her earlier books and our interview with her are provided here:

• Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings reviewed here February 21, 2013

• Real Mermaids Don't Hold Their Breath reviewed here February 22, 2013

• interview with author Hélène Boudreau as part of her blog tour, on February 23, 2013