Jackie's Drawing

Written by Andrew Katz

Illustrated by Tony Luzano

CrackBoom! Books (An imprint of Chouette Publishing)

978-2-898025679

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

May 2025 

There have been more than several novels, picture books, and short story collections that have been based during in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic with its lockdowns (stay-at-home orders) and other measures. Though never mentioning the pandemic, Jackie's Drawing sees a child's perspective on the resulting isolation and a rebound to normal in terms of nature's response and her own inspiration for creativity.

From Jackie's Drawing, written by Andrew Katz, illustrated by Tony Luzano

Jackie's story begins with a rusty haze befalling her community. This haze forces everyone to stay indoors and to isolate from everyone and everything, including the mountain she'd often visit for inspiration for her art. At first, Jackie is still able to draw, gathering ideas from memory and her own experience. But, with time, it becomes more difficult as she had "lost the heart to do anything."

From Jackie's Drawing, written by Andrew Katz, illustrated by Tony Luzano

But one day a flash of silver in the canal beneath her window gets her attention. An unexpected dolphin has appeared, and with it a menagerie of other animals, from a bald eagle to moose and deer and foxes who have begun to make their way onto the streets, into the air, and into the water where only people had ventured. Jackie is enthralled and takes up her drawing pencils, determined to draw them all.

From Jackie's Drawing, written by Andrew Katz, illustrated by Tony Luzano

But as she draws them all, a wonderful dragon with antlers, a tail fin and feathers appears and transports her to the mountain where her drawing inspiration always lived.

From Jackie's Drawing, written by Andrew Katz, illustrated by Tony Luzano

While Jackie's Drawing speaks to a child's loss of enthusiasm for her drawing with her separation from nature, Andrew Katz's note at the conclusion of the story reminds us that the natural world too responded to the pandemic or could have. So, as Jackie had lost her creative muse the longer the "haze" drenched her community, the animals who normally would have been relegated to outside that community were able to find their way onto the quiet waterways, skies and land within. And for Jackie to find that nature was coming to her to awaken her imagination was a lovely positive during a dark time. Of course, it is still Jackie's imagination that helps her create a chimera–Andrew Katz discusses this in his appended note too–of the animals she sees, allowing her to travel in a flight of fancy to her beloved mountain to re-experience the joy of drawing outdoors.

 

Andrew Katz and Tony Luzano have previously collaborated on a picture book, I Want to Be Super!, so there seems to be a harmony of styles that works. Jackie's Drawing is again about an imaginative kid and Tony Luzano's digital art reflects every nuance of a child who is enthusiastic but then loses that enthusiasm when troubled with isolation and then finds a way to regain that passion for her art. His use of bold colours and distinct animals places the emphasis on the wonders outside and in Jackie's artwork, not on the grim haze that permeates their world for such a long time. He finds the light for her and for the reader to get beyond that haze of bleakness. 

The first year of the pandemic was especially difficult for many people but for children whose creativity was stifled, it might have been more challenging. Finding new things to do helped many but only coming after feeling the loss of their routines and familiar activities. Finding their new normal involved grief, courage, and imagination. Thankfully for Jackie, she found her ability to express herself from the very same source of encouragement she'd always relied upon, just in a different configuration.

People Are My Favorite Places

 

Written and illustrated by Ani Castillo

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

978-0-316424660

40 pp.

Ages 4-9

January 2024 

While we are still living with a pandemic, we are no longer subjected to lockdowns and the isolation that came with them. For many, the inability to go places had more to do with not seeing people: family, friends, and newly-met acquaintances. As she did in her earlier picture books Ping and Spark, Ani Castillo shares an important message about appreciating those who are part of our lives, whether we know them or not. 

From People Are My Favorite Places, written and illustrated by Ani Castillo

Although a young girl recognizes all the things which she can no longer do or see when "I was stuck in my room, all alone, forever and ever," she realizes that it's the people involved in those activities that she really misses. Visiting places like her grandparents' house or the movie theatre or travelling is not about the place but the people with whom she spends time.

From People Are My Favorite Places, written and illustrated by Ani Castillo

She recognizes that there are a lot of people she knows and missed, from her piano teacher to her friends and the locals she meets when travelling. It's all the "sweet, lovely people who were once there with me" with whom she laughed, ate noodles, chatted, held hands, and more. And she recognizes the people she missed came in all shapes, colours, ages, and textures, but she missed them all for their touch, their smell, their warmth and so much more.

From People Are My Favorite Places, written and illustrated by Ani Castillo

But most of all, she realizes that she had learned an important lesson during that time:

Because now

I see clearly

that the landscape, the place

most precious to me

is the world inside someone

I love

very dearly.

From People Are My Favorite Places, written and illustrated by Ani Castillo

The innocence of the child in expressing how she feels will be very familiar to children who missed out on a lot of things during lockdowns, from schooling, and family visits, to travel and socializing. They will all remember how isolated they felt and how much they craved being somewhere other than their rooms or their homes. But this child has the insight to realize it wasn't just being someplace, it was being with someone that made it all that it was: rich in experience, embracing in affection, uniting in companionship. That insightful innocence comes through in Ani Castillo's artwork. Using black coloured pencil, watercolour, and gouache, Ani Castillo makes us see every one of those people who are the landscape of this child's life.  There are her peers, her teachers, her family, and those people that she might meet when travelling. Known or unknown, these people are what make those places vibrant and significant.

Though I worry that too many people have forgotten what it was like to be without the people in their lives, I hope that People Are My Favorite Places will remind them so that we don't have to go through further isolation such as lockdowns to appreciate the magnitude of their contributions to the fabric of our lives. They take our landscapes from barren to lush and vibrant, and even if we don't want to partake in that vibrancy every moment, knowing that we can reach out to it any time is important.

Once, a Bird

Written by Rina Singh

Illustrated by Nathalie Dion

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-3143-8

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

September 2023 

 

I know many people are trying to forget a time of lockdowns and restricted movements during the early years of the pandemic. But Rina Singh and Nathalie Dion's story reminds us of the gifts of nature and community that were revealed during those tenuous times. And though their story takes us out of those times, it never lets us forget what discoveries were made when tensions were high, isolation was the norm, and health was insecure.

From Once, a Bird, written by Rina Singh, illustrated by Nathalie Dion

Without words, Rina Singh tells a story of the arrival of a robin to a land of complexity and quiet. There may be snow on the ground but as the bird travels over parks, highways, and agricultural fields, there is no one to be seen. It is people-less and still. It could be a dystopian landscape, but Nathalie Dion gives us hope and light in the greenness of the fields, the blues of the skies and the unscathed infrastructure.

From Once, a Bird, written by Rina Singh, illustrated by Nathalie Dion

The bird finds its way to a budding tree outside a walk-up apartment building where an elderly woman spots it. She alone is looking out her windows as her neighbours keep their blinds and curtains closed. But then others take in the sight of the robin, each in their own way. Whether it be a grandson and grandfather watching it with binoculars, or a young person taking photos with her phone, or two children chatting between windows. Even a new puppy dog is held up to witness the bird.

 
As life goes on for the bird, building its nest, laying its eggs, and feeding its young, the neighbourhood begins to open up: a door, a window, a walk with the dog. And, with time, the neighbourhood returns to normal as the bird and its young fly off, having taken the people through the tough times.

From Once, a Bird, written by Rina Singh, illustrated by Nathalie Dion

Although the audience for Once, a Bird is listed as 3-5 years of age, the depth of the storytelling is far greater, and could be for all ages. Rina Singh has given a nuanced story of isolation and connection with nature that may have been born of a pandemic, and all who have been living with solitude and/or withdrawal, whether because of distance, mental health, or even personality, will also understand. She offers hope that separation does not mean desolation, and that opening oneself to the natural world can help sustain us.

I've reviewed a number of picture books illustrated by Montreal's Nathalie Dion (e.g., The Big Bad Wolf in My House, I Found Hope in a Cherry Tree, The Dog's Gardener) and her watercolour and gouache art lends itself well to contemplative stories such as Once, a Bird. There is an intangible, almost divine, sense of beauty that comes from both introspection and deep relationships depicted in her illustrations. Her art is sensitive to the ephemeral nature of challenges, keeping her colours subdued but calm, and introducing brighter colours, initially only on the robin, as the people emerge, and the neighbourhood returns to life.

 

For hope through difficult times, take note of how once a bird brought a community together, and how Rina Singh and Nathalie Dion were able to do the same to tell its and our story.

 

• • • • • • • 

A French-language edition is also available as Il était une fois un oiseau.

 

 

The House Next Door

Written and illustrated by Claudine Crangle

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-368-3

44 pp.

Ages 3-6

August 2021 

 

This is the story of a house, one house in an open field of long grasses. It stands alone but secure, standing its ground, whatever the winds and snows and rain may blow in. But when other houses blow in, how will the house respond?

From The House Next Door by Claudine Crangle

When the little red-roofed house with a red door and blue shutters first notices two other houses, far off but in his periphery, he ensures the back and side shutters are bolted tight so that only his grassy land is visible.

From The House Next Door by Claudine Crangle

Putting on those domestic blinders does work for a number of years but then the construction of a road tears a gash through the middle of his field. 

Soon they began moving in.

They lined up along the road.

And the road began branching into more

roads.

And more of them arrived.
Row upon row of blank faces stared back at the little house.

The suburbs had arrived and were upon his doorstep with their countless faceless houses. His response? He shuts his front shutters and waits in the dark.

From The House Next Door by Claudine Crangle

Occasionally he peeks outside but all he sees are more and more of those anonymous structures. So the house stays dark and still. After winter and spring pass into summer, he sees something a little different when he glances outside. He sees some colour and even a yellow house with a curtain waving out of an open window. In the dark the curtains reveal a golden light within. This is all it takes for the little house to open its shutters the next day to uncover a real neighbourhood of diverse homes.

 

Toronto author-illustrator Claudine Crangle's story of urban sprawl changing the landscape is really an allegory about shuttering oneself off from change and opening oneself to new possibilities. Though living harmoniously with others around you is not always easy (I was reminded of Norman McLaren's 1952 NFB short film "Neighbours"), perhaps what was worse for the little house was change. He did not know what to expect having never had neighbours and, rather than adapt, he shuts himself off. A little courage and recognition of the familiar help him feel safe enough to open the door, or rather the shutters, to the unfamiliar and see brightness where only anonymity once was.

 

The illustrations were created with paint and a variety of materials including cardboard and paper but also found objects and those scavenged from recycling bins. There's asphalt shingles, fabric and red wooden discs. By bringing life from waste, Claudine Crangle lets her artwork further the idea that there can be beauty and hope in the unlikeliest of places.

 

I know that The House Next Door is recommended for ages 3 to 6, undoubtedly because of its ease of readability, but I hope that parents and teachers will see the value in reading this book with older children. There's an important lesson here for all about anticipating the worse because it's different or unexpected to only discover that the worry is often worse than the reality.

Don't Stand So Close to Me

Written by Eric Walters

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-2788-2 (pdf)
978-1-4598-2789-9 (epub)

116 pp.

Ages 9-16

June 2, 2020

978-1-4598-2787-5 (pb) 
Available September 22, 2020

In a novel for right now, Eric Walters has found a way to reassure, inform, educate and entertain about life during the COVID-19 pandemic, and all within the safety of a new digital book for middle grade readers.

Thirteen-year-old Quinn along with her neighbour and best friend Isaac and their classmates in Grade 8 are anticipating their spring break and planning their spring dance when the COVID-19 pandemic hits North America. The young teens show a variety of responses to the news that spring break will start a little early and last for three weeks: ambivalence, concern, joy and anxiety. Not unlike most young people, their responses are varied and often contingent about what they hear from family and on the news. Because Quinn’s dad is a doctor and Isaac’s mom is a police chief, these two friends get a very different perspective on staying out of school. 

As the kids begin to accept their new reality which includes online schooling and social distancing, all the COVID-19 related issues are touched upon in a meaningful and authentic way in Eric Walters's story. We read about Dad’s need for PPE and consequent skin reactions, his long working hours and the need to isolate from Mom and Quinn. The very social Isaac must deal with the loneliness of staying at home by himself and find safe ways to connect with others. Their friend Reese is unable to visit with her grandmother in a long-term care facility but the kids find a way to reach out after learning how to make masks. The young people learn of the positives of social distancing and strategies for keeping spirits up and bodies healthy. They are exposed to misinformation and those who disregard protocols and protesters who want to reopen businesses.

When the rest of the school year is cancelled except online, the kids decide to stage a spring dance on their street that abides by the rules of social distancing (chalk drawn boxes on road, with kids bringing their own phones, ear buds, water and snacks), and made possible with a little help from parent chaperones, police, and a neighbourhood that gets on board with making it special. With a highly appropriate playlist including the titular "Don't Stand So Close to Me," Isaac DJ’s the night away, saving one final dance with Quinn.

I loved this story. It covers everything middle graders might be experiencing right now, especially the confusion with different perspectives about the COVID-19 pandemic, from parents, peers, news, social media, etc. and their anxiety for their new routines. Their concerns are very real though they are so different from those of the adults in their lives. Still the kids find a way to do the right thing time and time again and I applaud these fictional characters for their responsibility and humanity. I wondered how the story would end, knowing that we don’t really know how this pandemic will ultimately play out. But Eric Walters's ending was more sweet than bitter and I even cried when Quinn’s dad tells her:

...Don’t underestimate what you did. It was much more than a dance. Tonight, wasn’t normal, but somehow you made it work, and for a few hours, you gave hundreds of people some happiness.  You gave them joy.  You helped them to forget for a little while. And, not just your classmates, but hundreds and hundreds of people on our street.  You gave them hope. You gave me hope.  (pg. 114)

Don't Stand So Close to Me is a positive story about a very negative event. It will take middle grade readers into the pandemic of their experiences, offering them reassurance and hope while educating them about helping everyone survive this pandemic. (The discussion about what flattening the curve means is especially brilliant.) I suggest parents and teachers help bring this novel to the young readers in their lives to offer them the hope and wisdom we all need to get through this.

 😊•😊•😊•😊•😊•😊•😊

Look for my interview with author Eric Walters next here on CanLit for LittleCanadians and learn more about Don't Stand So Close to Me and getting this relevant book written and to press with remarkable efficiency.

😊•😊•😊•😊•😊•😊•😊

Information for teachers and schools:
Orca Book Publishers is offering classroom and school licenses to accompany the ebooks. A teacher who wants to use this book in their Google Classroom platform or enable their whole class to access it from home can buy one copy of the book with a classroom license for $29.99. A school license (so multiple classes in one school would have access to the book) is available for $59.99.  See details at the publisher's website at https://www.orcabook.com

Blood on the Beach

Written by Sarah N. Harvey and Robin Stevenson

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-1293-2

259 pp.

Ages 13+

2017

When eight “at-risk” teens accompany three adult counsellors to a remote island off the BC coast to participate in the week-long INTRO (=In Nature to Renew Ourselves) program, they probably never imagined graver risks than those they had already endured.  But,  when one of the teens goes missing, and everyone starts pointing fingers and suspicions grow between island-mates, Blood on the Beach becomes a YA Survivor x Lord of the Flies story.

Today is a good day to bury bad habits, attitudes and relationships so you can give birth to a new you. (pg. 45)

It seems that those in authority–parents and the court system–believe that the four girls and four boys sent to INTRO need to “change” their ways.  There’s Alice, the daughter of a cop, who was tagged for underage drinking; a depressed Tara who seems fearful of life; the flirtatious Mandy whose risky behaviour has lead her to theft; the misleading Imogen whose vice is drugs; B & E proficient Jason; Caleb who assaulted his mother’s abusive partner; weed-dealer Chad; and Nick whose parents want him to not be gay.  Under the care of former cop Warren and his psychologist wife Claire, as well as newbie counsellor Rahim, the kids are brought together to discuss their feelings, do chores like cooking and cleaning, and clearing of brush for a trail. But when Tara disappears the second day on the island and the radio is damaged, most of the kids want answers and actively pursue them.  Everyone is on edge, but especially Alice who unearths clues to Caleb’s possible involvement and Caleb who realizes Alice and Imogen are treating him with distrust.  The situation is all the more tenuous because of Warren and Claire’s reluctance to contact authorities and get assistance.

Through the alternate voices of Alice and Caleb, the story of Tara’s disappearance and the program’s participants coming together to solve the mystery is revealed.  But Blood on the Beach moves from mystery to thriller when a death occurs and suspicions are ramped up.  Everyone is looking over their shoulders for the culprit, not knowing enough about anyone to feel safe.    

From reviews of Sarah N. Harvey and Robin Stevenson’s most recent books (Spirit Level and The World Without Us, respectively), we know that the two BC writers can pack a lot of plot punch and strong characterizations into their YA novels.  Together, they are powerful.  They have created a wild assortment of characters and exposed them to  a more tenuous situation than those from which they came.  I suspect the community that thought INTRO was a good idea might want to rethink the benefits of a program that doesn’t adhere to the bioethical maxim of “do no harm.”  Scarier still is the belief that the adults would know what they’re doing when it’s actually the kids who show the maturity and conscience to fully resolve the mystery and mitigate the threat.

Like the little paper boats the teens construct with messages of their pasts to release to the sea, these teens leave behind their pasts and demonstrate courage and resourcefulness to secure their present and even look forward to positive futures. 

An Inheritance of Ashes

by Leah Bobet
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers
978-0544281110
388 pp.
Ages 12+
October 2015
Reviewed from advance reading copy

An Inheritance of Ashes is a dark tale.  A dark, dark tale. And, though it has supernatural elements, An Inheritance of Ashes is a familiar tale of fears and love and heroes and isolation and pride, and family.  And it has a force within.  A force that good may come from evil.

The emptiness grew, and split, and ate the whole world in its wake.  It was never going to be all right again. (pg. 126)

Hallie, 16, and her sister, Marthe, 26, both inherited Roadstead Farm from their abusive father, and now run it–raising barley, goats, poultry, etc.–with Marthe’s husband, Thom Clarlund, or they did until Thom went to war against the Wicked God and his general and prophet Asphodel Jones and army of irregulars, and their creatures, nay monsters, everyone calls Twisted Things.  Though the two young women are cautiously hopeful of Thom’s return, now that a man named John Balsam who “by magic, skill or cunning killed the Wicked God” (pg. 23), Hallie and Marthe take on a vet named Heron for whom “No one’s waiting for me to turn life normal again” (pg. 13) to help with the harvest and running the farm.  

But things are far from normal at the farm. Twisted Things begin to appear, one here, another there, killing the air, burning whatever they touch, contaminating the remnants of their lives.  And Hallie worries that the Great Army, desperately searching for John Balsam, will quarantine the farm, if not take it away from them.  Though Hallie is reluctant to ask for help, Heron and their neighbours, the Blakeley’s, come to their assistance.  Moreover, even though Hallie recognizes that, because of the abuse of their father, “We were ruined for loving people.  We were ruined for being loved” (pg. 244), Tyler Blakely who has his own war ghosts begins to court her and, with his sister Nat and Heron, help her recognize that she doesn’t have to take on the evil alone, or hide or run from that which seems too much. “We made each other less alone.” (pg. 272)

There are things not of our world in An Inheritance of Ashes, and there are things that were never of their world either, including a Wicked God that is more storm than substance and bird- and lizard-like creatures that burn and kill that which they touch, and a violent purple and green world that is evident only through a hole in the air.  But fighting evil and finding strength with others and holding onto that which is everything–a home, family, friends–are our world, and Leah Bobet easily supplants readers from their comforts into the darkness of Hallie’s world.  Rife with atmosphere and Hallie’s longing for rightness, An Inheritance of Ashes demonstrates that what we get from family is not always what is expected.  If might be an inheritance of a family farm, or of fear, or isolation, but it can be the fortitude to continue on, when all expect failure to reverberate.  And, with powerfully evocative text, Leah Bobet allows Hallie and others in An Inheritance of Ashes to sift through the cinders and residue after a horror and find something worth keeping.

The Lives We Lost

Written by Megan Crewe
Disney Press
978-1423146179 

288 pp.

Ages 12+

February 2013

The first book in Megan Crewe's Fallen World Trilogy, The Way We Fall, ends with Kaelyn sighting her best friend, Leo, returning alone on the ferry to the island.   The Way We Fall is essentially a series of journal entries that Kaelyn has been writing to Leo who is attending dance school in New York City as a way to share her experiences about their island's ruin by a contagious virus that takes its victims from scratching, coughing and sneezing, to hysteria and delusions and ultimately death.  Though her microbiologist father had attempted to find a vaccine, he was killed senselessly by panic-stricken islanders.

The Lives We Lost begins with Leo's return and news that the virus has also ravaged the mainland communities and Kaelyn's discovery of six vials of vaccine that her father had synthesized before his death.  Determined to get the samples to Ottawa, probably the largest centre with medical and biotech facilities to help determine the vaccine's formulation, Kaelyn and her boyfriend Gav have loaded up an SUV with gas, food and supplies to help get them there in the bitter winter conditions of December.  But rogue soldiers dropping bombs from a helicopter onto their island has all of their group loading up a boat with the supplies and heading to the mainland with their rescuer, a young soldier named Tobias.  Once on the mainland, the plan changes to Kaelyn and Gav using Tobias' army jeep and travelling to Ottawa with Meredith, Kaelyn's young cousin; Leo; Tessa, Leo's girlfriend; and Tobias. 

So begins a trek across a frozen, deserted land, rife with criminal survivors and the awkwardness of Kaelyn and Leo's reunion, especially after he kisses her.  While the tenuous nature of their relationship pervades Kaelyn's deliberations on their journey, the danger and uncertainty of finding help overwhelm their daily travels.  It isn't long before the group crosses paths with some people who learn about the vaccine (courtesy of Meredith's innocent comment), disabling their jeep and hunting them down, using two-way radios and armed with rifles.  Kaelyn and company manage to evade this group, ultimately entering Quebec, always on the lookout for rations, shelter from cold and blizzards and transportation. 

Their arrival at a former artists' colony brings them some comforts: showers, warmth, food and information.  Although Gav and Tobias are quarantined, being the only two of the group who have not been exposed to the virus or received the vaccine, the rest are welcomed to stay with the colonists who've organized themselves well to protect themselves from danger and looters.  But, a surprise visit by those who'd been hunting Kaelyn's group for the vaccine has them on the road again, this time leaving Tessa and Meredith at the artists' retreat, and reluctantly letting fourteen-year-old Justin join them.  Their destination: Toronto.

While The Way We Fall reads as a series of shocking developments, The Lives We Lost emphasizes the arduous journey of Kaelyn and her group, looking for help and hope, forced to grow into their new lives because their former lives are gone, just as are so many of their loved ones.  Megan Crewe uses the unsettled winter weather, the unsophisticated characters and the fear of the unknown to keep the tension high.  The young people are never sure whom to trust or to what extent and what recourse they should follow whenever they cannot proceed as originally planned.  But they demonstrate the resilience and determination needed to achieve the greater good (i.e., get the vaccine replicated so that others' might survive); unfortunately, they learn that sometimes tough, even reprehensible choices must be made, whether to continue to strive for that greater good or just to survive, as we learn Leo did.  And yet Megan Crewe's characters could be anyone who finds themselves in desperate circumstances, drawing from their past experiences to help them maneuver through new situations: viral, fatal or otherwise.  With The Worlds We Make (Fallen World #3) due out in February 2014, readers will learn how successful they've all been in their endeavours.

The Way We Fall

Written by Megan Crewe
Hyperion Disney Group
978-1-4231-4616-2
308 pp.
Ages 12+
2011

There are many ways to fall.  You can fall down, fall in love, fall apart, fall asleep, fall at someone's feet, fall back, fall away, fall behind, fall flat on your face, fall short, fall afoul. And in Megan Crewe's first book in her YA Fallen World Trilogy, The Way We Fall, someone at sometime has demonstrated each type of falling.  On an island that succumbs to the wrath of an infectious virus, "falling" becomes the norm.

Through the journal entries of sixteen-year-old Kaelyn, ostensibly to her former best friend Leo who is going to school off the island, the reader is taken on a harrowing trek from health to illness to fear and death, with valiant efforts throughout to manage, if not eradicate, a contagion.  When the infection first hits, it is hard to differentiate it from a cold, with the typical coughing and sneezing.  However, when relentless scratching is evident, followed by displays of extreme expression of affection, distrust and hysteria, coupled with delusions, hospitalization is required. As the microbiologist on the island, Kaelyn's father becomes a central figure in the investigation of the virus, and Kaelyn, her older brother Drew, and Mom, an islander who manages the local café at the local service station, are among the first to wear masks and keep themselves home to avoid contact with others.

With the spread of the illness and deaths recorded from it, some islanders find their way off the island, though some, like Kaelyn's Uncle Emmett and her seven-year-old cousin, Meredith, are encouraged to wait until the mainland has secured a site to process them.  But, when the island is quarantined, the residents become reliant on the mainland government for food and medical and other supplies, a position that many protest, with consequences.  The reactions of the islanders as well as the mainlanders, including soldiers sent to offer protection, to the quarantine could warrant a study in fear.

While Kaelyn volunteers to notify residents of the quarantine and help get ill residents to hospital, Leo's girlfriend Tessa is recruited to help grow plants that may offer hope for treatment (a passionate gardener, Tessa has her own greenhouse).   A young man, Gav, who'd organized a group of guys into a Fight Club, had them "looting" from the grocery store and storing goods in a warehouse, arranging deliveries to those who couldn't get out, were ill, or had no support systems.  Through a series of interactions, including Gav coming by to teach them some self-defense, he and Kaelyn grow closer, offering each other support and affection in a troubling situation.

While I have shared very little about the sequence of events that lead to the story's end, probably because the plot and subplots are complex (but elegant), the reader will not be given much reprise from action and chaos of a community faced with more than a contagion; the mentality of those quarantined presents as much turmoil as the fatal infection itself.  The psychological responses of the residents to living with a contagious illness and in a quarantined situation vary from heroic and charitable to egocentric and even mercenary.  With a complex menagerie of characters, coupled with Megan Crewe's plotting and organizational style i.e., Kaelyn's short, dated journal entries addressed to Leo, The Way We Fall successfully keep readers interested throughout, appropriately earning it a nomination for this year's Forest of Reading®'s White Pine Award.  While the book offers some hope in its conclusion, don't expect everything to be resolved by the time the ferry finally approaches the island again; after all that falling, it will take a lot to help everything right itself ("in love" exempted).

Luckily, The Lives We Lost, Book 2 in the Fallen World Trilogy, came out just last month, and the title of the third book, The World We Make, has been announced for release in the winter of 2014. Megan Crewe can be assured that this reviewer will be pursuing those titles promptly, determined to learn more about Leo, Drew, Aunt Lillian, the underlying hostility between Drew and Gav, and the only positive fall - Kaelyn and Gav in love.

M in the Abstract

by Douglas Davey
Red Deer Press
978-0-88995-487-8
216 pp.
Ages 14+
March, 2013

We all have voices in our heads directing our actions.  They may be the voices of our parents who reminded us what to do or not do; our consciences lacing our decision-making with guilt or clarity; our inner children begging to be heard; or even our own voices silently repeating a mantra for living a better life.  Most of us can tell the source of those voices and heed them accordingly.  But what if you couldn't discern the source of the voices?  Or they're so loud and insistent that they're impossible to ignore?  Or what if they seem to be accompanied by dark wispy shadows that torment and tantalize?  How do you make sense of your voices then?

This is Mary's reality (or maybe not).  For Mary, whose real name is Mariposa (though her mother always calls her Posey), the voices are persistent, often warning her against interactions with others and arguing with her choices or suppositions.

This is not a place for you (pg. 38)
Remember the last one seemed friendly (pg. 60)
Stop this before you get in over your head (pg. 63)

But with a move from the suburbs to town, Mary is exposed to new people at school and elsewhere.  Her mom may want Mary to change her look, to make new friends and to wipe away all memory of her dad (who'd inexplicably left ten years earlier), but these stresses continue to bring forth the voices and the dark shadows that drift around her.

Mary tries to appease her mother and even thinks about making herself happy, considering having a boyfriend after two different boys show an interest in her.  But her lack of experience interacting with others have her reconsidering every decision she makes, sometimes overreacting and confusing others.  As Mary tries to navigate successfully into new relationships, she begins to consider what the voices and shadows truly mean.

Douglas Davey presents Mary's situation in haunting colours of loneliness, confusion, dismal weather, and wispy shadows.  Even as Mary meets new people and experiences positive interactions, Douglas Davey does not allow the reader to forget the trepidation that accompanies each new encounter.  Sadly even as she enjoys moments of camaraderie and fleeting affection, they're sabotaged.  But the source of the sabotage is unclear.  When I began reading, I wondered whether M in the Abstract was speculative fiction and the voices fantastic elements of a new world. (In my defense, I try not to read too much about any book before I read it to ensure my review is truly my own.)  I realized soon enough that I was wrong. As the title suggests, Mary is an enigma, unsure of herself. When she signs the class register, she signs it as M, not Mariposa, not Mary.   The book M in the Abstract is as abstract as its protagonist in that it is a complex examination of a girl with legitimate worries and in transition.  How she interprets and deals with those concerns is profound, as is how the story resolves itself.  To its very end, the story is abstruse, just as it would undoubtedly be in reality.