The Hanging Girl

Written by Eileen Cook

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

978-0-544-82982-4

308 pp.

Ages 13+

October 2017

Skye Thorn is a tarot card reader, helping her peers with their questions about love, school and more.  But, though she cultivates an image of having psychic powers, Skye is just an astute observer of human nature and a sneak at private files and conversations.  Her mother might purport to have the gift but Skye knows she herself does not.

Still Skye is a teen who has always wanted a certain life and had a willingness to make it happen. 

Destiny is like a boulder.  Bulky and hard to move.  It's easier to leave it alone than to try to change it.  But that never kept anyone from trying.  Trust me: I'm a professional. (pg. 1)

She hates her name, Candi, the one she was given by her 15-year-old mother, and has managed to get her friends and school to use her middle name, Skye.  She had woven a story about her father, whom she has never known, being a military hero.  That story ended badly, though, and had her labelled a liar and headed for counselling.  Now, she’s telling her best friend Drew that she’s saving her money so that they’ll be able to get an apartment in New York City when Drew heads to art school next year.  But she hasn’t. 

When she is approached to use her psychic flair in a scheme to kidnap popular and wealthy Paige Bonnet, Skye convinces herself that it would be alright.  Paige would not be hurt and Skye would get some of the ransom money.  Her role would be negligible: all she had to do was convince the police that she was having visions of Paige’s disappearance and to help direct their investigation.  Ah, the best laid plans…

Like the tarot card called the Hanged Man, which suggests someone at the crossroads, Skye is balancing who she really is with what she wants people to see and what they actually do see in her.  From her mother to Drew and classmates and then the police and others, Skye's self is hanging, perhaps precariously as she makes choices.  She truly is The Hanging Girl. But the mystery that is Skye extends beyond her, embedding readers in a young adult thriller with a myriad of twists and reversals and red herrings.  Never, never can the reader tell what will happen next or whom to believe.  The tagline "Trust no one. Deceive everyone" is especially apt.  The plot is intricate and multilayered and, even when Skye figures things out in a climactic graduation ceremony setting, I was never convinced I knew the truth. That just tells you how convincing Eileen Cook's writing is.  It is tight but complex, and she never lets the plot lag or the storyline get caught on ineffectual plot twists.

Eileen Cook, whose books Unraveling Isobel (Simon Pulse, 2012), The Almost Truth (Simon Pulse, 2012), Remember (Simon Pulse, 2015), and With Malice (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016) have been reviewed on CanLit for LittleCanadians, always has some mystery amidst the teen drama but she is particularly adroit at relationship dramas.  Her characterizations and dialogue between characters and inside Skye's head are especially compelling in The Hanging Girl.  Except for several chapters conveyed as Paige's written account of her ordeal, most of Eileen Cook’s text is in the first-person narrative of the young tarot card reader trying to assess her situation prior to Paige's disappearance and then while the teen's family and police investigate.  She's gotten herself involved in something desperate and is in far too deep to get out cleanly.  Still, though she lies and manipulates, it's surprising how sympathetic Skye is as a character.  She always believed that she was destined for a nothing life, so the readers will cheer for the girl who tries to see herself beyond a life at Burger Barn.  As such, the ending will floor you.

See beyond the mess that is Skye and the situation in which she finds herself and discover a thrilling plot of truths and lies and shadows in The Hanging Girl. It's a little dark but more angsty than criminal and definitely an accurate take on the desperate measures people will take to achieve the lives they feel are warranted.

The Wolf and Me: The Seven Sequels

by Richard Scrimger

Orca Book Publishers

9781459805316

256 pp.

Ages 10-16

For release October 1, 2014

Poor Bunny.  He's such a great guy but, often through no fault of his own, he gets himself immersed in the most unusual, even dangerous, situations.  In Ink Me (Scrimger, 2012), the prequel to The Wolf and Me, Bunny (Bernard, as only his grandfather called him) ended up with a tattoo indicating he was part of the 15 Street gang and that he had killed someone, all untrue.  Sadly he did get mixed up in some dangerous situations and is currently at Creekside, a young offender facility just outside of Toronto.  While Bunny is finding his time at Creekside useful, especially with the lessons he has with Mr. Wing to help him with his literacy (especially his spelling), he's not a troublemaker, and he's happy to have the holidays until New Year's with his family. Too bad he gets kidnapped while out skating with his brother Spencer at Toronto's City Hall.  See what I mean?  This kid has no luck.

While his hostage-takers demand to know about his grandfather, David McLean (though Bunny initially believes they're asking about "Mr. Clean"), the woman named Vi attempts to gain his confidence, offering to help him get a note to the police.  But Bunny learns of her deceit and manages to escape, setting off on an amazing skating adventure on the icy landscape, in search of Creekside, home, or just help.

Bunny may call himself "dumb" and "stupid" but he's very smart about putting all the little pieces of the puzzle together to make a comprehensive big picture.  He just doesn't have a lot of luck.  Sure that he's found Creekside, Bunny breaks into a juvenile detention centre for females!  As unfortunate as that may seem, that mistake puts him in a position to help others, even if it does complicate things.

"Here I am in my little life trying to deal with my troubles.  Some people are worrying about me and some are heping me and some are making it hard for me and all the time theres this–this–this gigantic ALL all around me.  It make me feel small but also grate full." (pg. 122)

Like the detention centre, there are many obstacles that impede Bunny's journey.  But he always finds a way to turn them into something positive, including an encounter with a wolf that allows him to connect with his grandfather.  And if anyone deserves a break in life, it's Bunny.

I'm delighted that Richard Scrimger was able to parlay Bunny's Ink Me fiasco into a second adventure that shows the teen's growth after incarceration at Creekside while providing both him and the reader the evidence that he's one of the good guys.  Bunny makes the best of that which life tosses at him, whether they're rocks or candies. Who else could manage to enjoy a hockey game with his captors and take advantage of his only footwear–a pair of hockey skates–to escape?  Bunny.  And I'm so glad Richard Scrimger gave him life.  He makes life better for all who meet him, fictional characters and readers alike.

"Life isnt about making sense.  Its a gift and you do your best with it." (pg. 190)

Run Marco Run

by Norma Charles

Ronsdale Press

978-1-55380-131-3

183 pp.

Ages12-17

2011

Marco has not done anything wrong, if you're thinking that's why he's running.  He's running because his father, James Graham, a journalist in Colombia, tells him to run while himself being kidnapped from a marketplace in Buenaventura.  Even though only thirteen, Marco knows the ins and outs of Buenaventura's criminal elements: its kidnappings of foreigners and journalists and their families, and corrupt police, drug cartels, and rebel groups.  His father, whose light skin distinguishes him as a gringo, is not silent about illegal or corrupt practices, making him an easy target.  Although Marco is Colombian-born and speaks Spanish more easily than English, he is vulnerable, without a mother now and the only child of a target.  So when his father cries out, "Run, Marco, run," he does just that.

Run Marco Run follows Marco in his quest first for safety and then for help in saving his father from potential death.  Although his mother's cousin, Aunt Rosa, and her children, Juan and Rosita, are family living in Buenaventura, asking for their help will only put them in danger.  So, when he finds refuge under a lifeboat on a ship heading for Vancouver, his father's former home, Marco latches onto the idea of getting help there, specifically from an influential international lawyer, Rolando Mendoza, who Marco's father had helped immigrate to Canada.

While Marco's decision to travel to Vancouver as a stowaway and the ensuing journey seem too implausible, Marco's introduction to Canada reads as legitimate as he suffers physical trauma, hunger and thirst, meets Canadians both helpful and scary, and experiences obstacles to his goal of finding Mr. Mendoza.  His suspicions of almost everything new (people, food, water) are clearly evident, though he acknowledges to himself his need to accept risks in order to have any hope of achieving his goal.

The legitimacy of Marco's need to help is father takes him on a very purposeful adventure, which middle grade readers will appreciate.  There are no awkward jumps from past to present and back again to confuse younger readers, or subplots that stray from Marco's desire to reunite with his father.  While Marco's voice may come across as awkward sometimes (for example, I don't know anyone who uses the word "hurray" anymore), and this may just be a reflection of his less-comfortable use of English, his need to find Mr. Mendoza as his father's only hope is convincing.

Norma Charles, author of The Girl in the Back Seat (Ronsdale Press, 2008) and Bank Job (Orca, 2009) with James Heneghan, has tackled some tough issues in her books: polygamy, peer pressure, foster children.  In addressing the vulnerability of foreigners and journalists, as well as the Buenaventura's criminal notoriety (Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada advises against all travel to the city of Buenaventura due to the "presence of illegal armed groups." Colombia Travel Report, Still Valid April 27, 2012), Run Marco Run provides young readers with a bona fide action-adventure while seeing their own country from another young person's perspective.