Fly

Written by Alison Hughes

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-0583-2

200 pp.

Ages 10-14

October 2022

 

...my body is not all that I am. (pg. 40)

Fly is what 14-year-old Felix Landon Yarrow (a.k.a. Fly per his initials) dreams of doing. In his dreams, he is no longer trapped in a wheelchair by cerebral palsy. He is free to spread his arms and soar.

            My disability,

                         my difficulties,

                                               my pain–

often on public display–

are

in fact

all my own.

                                       Private. (pg. 59)

But, Felix is in a wheelchair. And though he feels very much like his pain is often on public display, whether he is working with his aide Levi or being driven in the "special" school bus, he knows that he is invisible to many, especially his peers. Still, that invisibility becomes his superpower, with Felix becoming a "Fly on the Wall" and ready to emulate his literary guide, Cervantes's Don Quixote, and follow truth and justice. His quest: to save his classmate and damsel in distress, Daria, from the arrogant and dangerous Carter.

As Felix watches and learns, he becomes Knightwatch and emails warnings to Daria about Carter and to Carter that his heinous and potentially criminal behaviour has been observed. But, like Don Quixote, along with battles with enemies come inner battles of understanding of self. 

Fly, a novel in free verse, may have a contemporary setting but its story is as classic as that of Don Quixote. It's about finding inner strength and fighting against injustices. But author Alison Hughes makes sure the reader realizes that much of this is also about perception. Told in Felix's voice, the reader will sympathize with his constrained physical nature and applaud his courage to pursue chivalrous goals of protecting first Daria and then others from oppressors. Going after Carter gives Felix purpose, though he doesn't realize until the end that his manner of attack may leave others vulnerable. His goal is outward, to help others, but the learning he takes from his endeavour is all about him and what he needs to do to be fair. The growth that Felix experiences, moving from annoyance at how others judge and treat him to appreciation for efforts others make, is a monumental one. And Alison Hughes takes the readers along on that epic journey through her elegant free verse. The writing flows and has shape that comes with self-discovery, engagement with others and context of circumstances. Felix's story takes a form not unlike his own body, both vulnerable and combative, and we're there for the moment of battle, within and externally, when Felix realizes that some of the limitations to the freedom to fly may be those he's imposed on himself.

Hare B & B

Written by Bill Richardson

Illustrated by Bill Pechet

Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides Inc.

978-1-927917381

72 pp.

Ages 4-8

April 2021

If the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood was a coyote and the rabbits in Watership Down were hares, then Hare B & B would be a cross between these two stories. Sort of. Hare B & B is actually its very own story of a clever hare family that runs a bed-and-breakfast and works to thwart a wily coyote. A little dark, a whole lot of clever and completely charming.

From Hare B & B by Bill Richardson, illus. by Bill Pechet

Harriet, called Harry by all, is delighted to help out when her mother has identical septuplets who are named Barry, Perry, Mary, Larry, Jerry, Carrie and Terry. One day after taking the young ones out for a long walk in their pram, Harry returns home to find it encircled with police tape and the sad news from Officer Goose (They/Them) that their parents had opened their door to a coyote disguised as an encyclopedia salesman.

From Hare B & B by Bill Richardson, illus. by Bill Pechet

Determined to keep their family together, Harry devises a plan to rent out their parents' room. Assigning tasks to each of her siblings, Harry gets them dusting and vacuuming, washing and preparing for their guests, including sending out ads via twitter i.e., their bird friends.

From Hare B & B by Bill Richardson, illus. by Bill Pechet

The reviews about the breakfast, bed and entertainment (Terry plays the harp) are glowing. But then an odd guest, claiming to be a hare, arrives, ostensibly before the wedding of her sister. Harry is a clever hare and she knows this is not one, maybe not even a rabbit. After a little spying, Harry discovers the animal's true nature and she puts a new plan in action with her siblings.

From Hare B & B by Bill Richardson, illus. by Bill Pechet

 

With some cleaver manoeuvres involving tickles, molasses and harp strings, the coyote is begging to be taken to jail.

 

From fun wordplay and silliness all around, Bill Richardson will give young readers more than a few chuckles and their parents and teachers smiles. Not unlike the original fairy tale of a wolf disguising itself to deceive a red-caped little girl, Hare B & B has a lesson about trust and caution but Bill Richardson does it with such charm that it's just fun to learn. Still he makes sure not to scare children, unlike so many fairy tales. The parents' death is never explicit, and Harry makes sure to remind her seven siblings that...

...there is nothing a smart hare with a good plan cannot accomplish. We must move forward. We must love each other as much as we can. We cannot be fearful every time someone comes to the door. 

That lightness of touch is carried through by designer Bill Pechet's ink and watercolour illustrations. The art is delicate in colour and line, with splashes of blue, green, turquoise and pink. Everything is soft, except for the sharpness of the deceptive coyote, and the reader is charmed by Harry and her septuplet siblings, rooting for them to succeed in their bed-and-breakfast endeavour and find justice for their parents. They do.

 

At 72 pages, Hare B & B is an extended picture book that gives the reader lots of opportunities to learn about the difference between hares and rabbits, appreciate the puns and look for hidden details in the illustrations, as well as discover that it's okay to be both open and cautious. With love, anything is possible.

Burned, Exposed, Unleashed: Retribution series

But each of us had taken on the responsibility of protecting or avenging those few who had become dear to us.  Willing to risk our lives to see justice done.  We were all so different and yet so much the same. (Exposed, pg. 86)

Three teens: Josie, Raven and Jace.  Three injustices needing to be righted.  One series.  Retribution.

Exposed
by Judith Graves
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-4598-0726-6
137 pp.
Ages 12+
October 2015

Although the three books in the series can be read in any order–I read Unleashed first, then Burned and Exposed–and my image shows the books in alphabetical order,  I’d like to start with Judith Graves’ contribution to the series, Exposed.  Exposed is Raven’s story.  Raven, who has left the home of her meth-addicted parents, has found a new family working with other young people as an urban climber getting into high-end, secure car parkades to steal cars for Diesel.  And climbing is a release for her.

From here all my worries seemed smaller, so small they could be tucked away in my pocket and forgotten, like empty candy wrappers that would someday just slip away unnoticed.  (pg. 32)

Raven anticipates leaving this life when she turns 16 in a few weeks, diligently going to school and secretly saving her money and purchasing a houseboat for herself, and, to that end, Diesel has her training a younger climber Supersize.  But when Diesel sets up Supersize before he’s ready to lead a team and tragedy ensues, Raven is determined to get even with Diesel.

Burned
by Natasha Deen
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-4598-0726-6
161 pp.
Ages 12+
October 2015

While scouting out cars to steal, she meets Josie, the main character in Natasha Deen’s Burned. Jo has been on the streets for two years and has learned the way to survive is to trust no one, show no fear and that “hope is just another way to spell dead” (pg. 26).  But, though Josie has found a way to make herself useful,  scouting security leaks for a family grocer, helping stock shelves at a community kitchen, and painting art forgeries, she’s still looking for retribution against the woman responsible for the deaths of her mother and younger siblings.  Josie is out to

Burn her with the same heat she used to set my life on fire, and the orange red flames that scorched the breath from my family will cauterize her soul. (pg. 3)

Josie is out to prove this woman cop shot her family and another young woman, but she needs the help of  ATM Guy whom she spots using his tech skills to steal money at the family grocer.  When she approaches him to try to get evidence from the cop’s laptop, she learns that his name is Bentley and his brother is Jace, whom she refers to as Boxer Boy because of his physique, and so the third protagonist is introduced.

Unleashed
by Sigmund Brouwer
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-4598-0726-6
160 pp.
Ages 12+
October 2015

Jace, Sigmund Brouwer’s protagonist in Unleashed, leads a double life: one as a boxer slumming it at Billy’s gym, and one as the preppie, chess-playing son of disgustingly wealthy and emotionally-abusive Dr. Winchester Wyatt.

Life, to me, was a combination of chess and boxing.  You had to think everything through a couple of moves ahead and also be prepared to pound hard and often. (pg. 107)

Jace  is determined to get something on his father, especially because of the  horrific way he treats Jace’s tech-brilliant younger brother, Bentley, who was born with Laron syndrome which manifests as dwarfism.  Though he enlists a private detective and then Raven and Josie’s help to learn of some scandal in Winchester’s medical background, Jace has major trust issues and has to find a way to determine whom he can expect to be forthcoming and cooperative without taking advantage of his wealth.

The stories in Retribution are complex and intricate and the plot and characters interlaced in sophisticated weaves.  Writing the books must have been a complicated process for Judith Graves, Natasha Deen and Sigmund Brouwer.  But, the three authors stepped up, pen or laptops in hand, and were able to create a coordinated story with multiple plotlines while keeping their own writing voices unique and distinct.  That’s quite an accomplishment, especially for high-interest YA told in about 150 pages each. And, in the end, I believe that, though Raven, Jo and Jace are involved in less-than-legal schemes to get retribution, readers will admire their determination to seek justice.

I stopped thinking about my sorrows and focused on something else. Infinite possibilities. (Unleashed, pg. 160)

I’m hopeful that Jo, Raven, Jace and Bentley will continue to be that irrepressible team that is “living in the shadows, dispensing their own kind of justice” (Unleashed, pg. 156) and I look forward to their next quests for retribution.

†  †  †  †  †  †  †  †  

Remember: Orca Book Publishers has a contest on until November 30, 2015 (see my post about it here).  It's all about those infinite possibilities.

Transferral

Written by Kate Blair

Dancing Cat Books

978-1-770864542

194 pp.

Ages 13+

October 2015

Most of us are maddened when a good person becomes ill with a life-threatening disease. It just doesn’t seem fair.  And, even though we know that illness is not a reflection of goodness or badness, it’s hard not to lament an illness with “What did I do to deserve this?”, seeing it as a possible punishment for poor life choices.  But, in Transferral, illness is a punishment, one doled out to convicted criminals, the illness reflective of the severity of the crime.

That’s how Tranferral opens, with sixteen-year-old Talia Hale, daughter of the U.K.’s prime ministerial candidate Malcolm Hale, going to St. Bart’s hospital for a Transfer i.e., to get rid of the cold she was getting, knowing that on the other side of the hospital a criminal would be going through the painful process of being infected with that same cold.  But when leaving the hospital,  Talia witnesses a large black man wielding a meat cleaver at a young girl and Talia clubs him with a chair to protect the girl.  Though Talia’s actions are hailed as heroic and her father’s campaign manager, Piers, spins it to her father’s advantage, as leader of the National Law Party whose mandate is being tough on criminals and supporting the National Transfer Service, Talia begins to realize that the girl’s fear hadn’t been for the man hurting her but for Talia hurting the man.  Recognizing that the loss of her own sister, the same age as the young girl, and their mother to a criminal who broke into their house probably affected her take on the situation, Talia goes in search of girl she rescued.

Forging her dad’s signature, Talia goes to Holloway Quarantine, essentially a prison, to speak to Jack Benson, the man with the cleaver.  His confusion leads Talia to recognize he wasn’t fully cognizant of his actions, and she promises to find a way to look after his daughter, the little girl, Tig.  With that, Talia makes her first foray into the Barbican, the criminal-rich but poverty-stricken estate, where she meets Tig and Galen, a young man who is caring for Benson's daughter.  Sure that she’s doing the right thing, Talia gets Tig taken by social services to a children’s home.  Too late, Talia realizes that she’s been making everything worse, even getting herself convicted for the forgery, though Piers thinks he can spin that too.

We’ll leak the story to the media, along with your apology, and we might be able to get you off with a stomach bug or strep throat. (pg. 105)

Slowly, Talia begins to see that wealth and privilege affect everything, and that because of her perspective, as a rich and advantaged young woman, albeit a victim of a man who murdered her mother and sister, she has not taken the time to learn Tig and Galen’s stories.  Once she does, though, she has to find the means, criminal or not, to make things right.

There’s a lot of edge-of-your-seat storytelling with Talia’s search for Tig and her ventures into the subculture of the Barbican, amidst dealing with her role in her father’s election campaign.  Kate Blair gets the right balance of trepidation and righteousness, with Talia starting to break free from what she has always known and what she is just now learning about the world.  Talia makes a lot of mistakes but her heart is in the right place and she is determined to be part of the solution.

Tranferral is a strongly plotted story that builds on the surreal premise of linking justice with illness and comes through it all with a healthy ending that is neither sappy nor all wrapped up but a convincing remedy for a disturbing basis for dealing with criminality. 

Becoming Holmes: The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His Final Case

by Shane Peacock

Tundra Books

978-1-770-492325

245 pp.

Ages 10-14

October 2012

It was just a year ago when I reviewed the fifth book in Shane Peacock's The Boy Sherlock Holmes series, The Dragon Turn (Tundra, 2011) and bemoaned the announcement that the sixth book would conclude the series.  And here it is, The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His Final Case, with the incongruous title of Becoming Holmes, suggesting more of a beginning than an end.  But, Shane Peacock effectively concludes his series by setting up the key pieces of Sherlock Holmes' life as laid out by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In 1870, Sherlock, now sixteen years of age, is overwhelmed by melancholy: Charles Dickens has just died; Sherlock's father has passed from a stroke; Sigerson Bell, Sherlock's mentor, is very ill and worsening; Irene Doyle, his love interest, is in the United States; Beatrice Leakie, a dear friend, is seeing someone else; and Prime Minister Disraeli, a half-Jew like Sherlock, has been defeated.  The only solace for Sherlock is his reconnection with his older brother, Mycroft, an employee at the Treasury.  When visiting his brother at the Treasury, Sherlock discovers that Grimsby, one of Malefactor's lieutenants, has somehow secured a key position there, under the alias of Ronald Loveland.

Although threatened by his nemesis, Malefactor, to desist from pursuing enquiries which might involve him, Sherlock discovers that Malefactor, who is also known as Moriarty, contrived a blackmail scheme to position himself for greater power.  When Malefactor's henchman, Grimsby, becomes greedy, leading to an accidental death and then murder, Sherlock is determined to fight evil by any means possible.

So, Shane Peacock's Sherlock Holmes proclaims that he is

"at the service of anyone who is wronged, whether they be rich or poor, Jew or Gentile, Englishman or otherwise" (pg. 101)

while also declaring that he would work towards

"the complete destruction of Malefactor, his lieutenants, and all his future schemes, his entire career." (pg. 102)

He even recognizes that in the future he would need

"an upstairs flat of my own, with a companion and a housekeeper." (pg. 113)

The Boy Sherlock Holmes is becoming the famous Sherlock Holmes, just as Shane Peacock's title announces.  And the intricate plot of Becoming Holmes is just as involved as the crimes that the mature Holmes solves.  There are villains, victims, innocents, allies, loves and mentors.  There are obvious motives, false leads, guilty secrets and cryptic feelings. There is compassion, confusion, affection and justice.  While I had some difficulties in discriminating between various unidentified characters in the first chapter before their stories begin to converge and revolve around Sherlock, the storyline did not suffer for this, as clarification and illumination were forthcoming, as they always are in good mysteries. 

Becoming Holmes may reveal much about how the boy becomes the famous detective but at its core it is a rich mystery that needs solving so that evil may be punished and the righteous protected.  Fortunately Sherlock Holmes capably solves the mystery,  equipping him well to re-emerge in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Red (1877).

The book trailer for Becoming Holmes, produced by Aaron Peacock and uploaded to YouTube on October 12, 2012 can be viewed here on my Book Trailers page or directly on The Boy Sherlock Holmes webpage.

#CanLit Choices: "Holes" alternatives

Holes

by Louis Sachar

Yearling

978-0440414803

272 pp.

Ages 9-12

RL 5.2

1999

Holes, the multiple award-winning book by American author, Louis Sachar, is the story of Stanley Yelnats who is sent to a juvenile correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds him digging holes.  Of course, he is not surprised by this turn of events as his family has been cursed ever since his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" failed to keep a promise.

Written at RL 5.2 (this means a child should be able to read this at the second month of Grade 5), Holes is often used to demonstrate the following themes:

• fate
• friendship
• justice
• determination

Of course, Louis Sachar's sense of humour and surprise twists are also very engrossing.

                                                                                            

The following youngCanLit books focus on fate and justice and would serve well as updated and alternative novels to Louis Sachar's Holes. And, for those fans of Holes who might like a Canadian alternative, these novels have the twists, turns and laughs that have made Holes such a popular book.

Banjo of Destiny

by Cary Fagan 

Illustrated by Selçuk Demirel 

Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press

127 pp.

Ages 9-12

2011

Courtesy of his parents' dental floss fortune, Jeremiah Birnbaum has the very best of everything that money can buy, including the lessons and education to turn him into a fine young man.  But Jeremiah falls in love with the music of the banjo, and that does not fit in with his parents' plan.

Book Club Questions for Banjo of Destiny

Jolted: Newton Starker's Rules for Survival

by Arthur Slade

HarperCollins

224 pp.

Ages 11-14

2008

Newton Starker has just lost his mother to a lightning strike, the same tragedy that has cursed all his relatives on his mother's side. Armed with his six rules for survival, his trusty truffle-seeking pig, a desire to out-manoeuvre his nemesis Violet Quan, and the will to live, fourteen-year-old Newton, a student at the Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival in Moose Jaw, wonders whether he'll be the one to outlive the curse.

Podcast: Audio and Video of Arthur Slade's reading of Jolted 

The Midnight Curse

by L.M. Falcone

Kids Can Press

208 pp.

Ages 10-13

2010

When their great-great-uncle Jonathan dies, eleven-year-old fraternal twins, Charlie and Lacey Darcy, and their mom are summoned to England, hopeful for an inheritance.  But, it is a curse that transfers from Uncle Jonathan to Charlie, already a nervous worrier, which condemns him to a life sleeping in water from midnight to daybreak, or suffer death.

Book trailer can be viewed at my CanLit for LittleCanadians Book Trailers site here.

Neil Flambé and the Crusader's Curse

by Kevin Sylvester

Simon & Schuster Books for Young People

291 pp.

Ages 8-14

2012

Neil Flambé, teen chef and Vancouver restauranteer extraordinaire, does not that know that the great Flambé chefs have been cursed since the 1200's.  He does know, however, that his dishes now taste like sawdust, the re-opening of the restaurant is doomed (especially after closed by the health inspector) and he's challenged by computer wiz and rival, Stanley Picón, with computer Deep Blue Cheese (DBC), to a cooking duel.  It's a very unsavory situation for Neil.

Activity sheets and a How To Draw Neil Flambé video are available at the Simon & Schuster website

Dunces Anonymous

by Kate Jaimet

Orca Book Publishers
157 pp.
Ages 9-12
2009

Josh is sure to win Class President, but it's his mother that wants it for me, not Josh. To find some help with his dilemma, Josh forms a club, Dunces Anonymous, for students whose parents push them to excel at activities they are not interested in. Two students join him:  Wang, whose father is chess tournament crazy, loves fencing, and Magnolia, who likes to act, does not want to be in the school play, Romeo and Juliet.

In each of the above books, the protagonist must deal with a destiny/fate/curse that is none of his doing, and must look towards his friends and show real determination to ensure that the resolution is more to his liking.  What else does a book alternative to Holes need?  Absolutely nothing!

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