These Are Not the Words

Written by Amanda West Lewis

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-792-6

216 pp.

Ages 9-12

April 2022 

 

It's all about rebound and control...(pg. 80)

Even if only a fraction of what author Amanda West Lewis shares in this semi-biographical novel is true, then life with a jazz drummer and an artist was eclectic and surreal. But it was also disordered and insecure and the kindling for her words.

Told in a series of vignettes and poetry, twelve-year-old Missy tells of living with her parents and two cats in 1960s New York City. While there is much life all around her, with an apartment regularly filled with jamming musicians and Pops taking her out to jazz clubs to hear and meet musical celebrities, there is also an unrest that pervades their family. Pops may work as an editor for Pepsi-Cola's magazine but his passion is jazz music. But with that passion comes an erratic personality that is equally oppressive and exciting. One moment he is leaving her bedside poems with a stone or a shell and the next he is railing at her for making too much noise. Thankfully, Missy takes comfort in her cats, in her bond with best friend Corky and in her own creative writing.

But after a Florida business trip he never wanted to go on, Pops goes from unpredictable to despondent and unbalanced. With that, Missy and her mom must find a way to respond that allows them to remain safe and move forward.

It's hard to catch your breath as you read Missy's story. It's a roller coaster of emotions. From joyous highs and special connections between characters to anguished lows from conflict, rage, and tenuous mental health, These Are Not the Words takes on us on that rough ride. Hold on tight because Missy's story is not an easy one and probably not unlike the lives of many children who are challenged with flawed parents who can't or won't be there consistently for their children. The fact that Missy's story is at least in part author Amanda West Lewis's story makes it all the more poignant, especially as Missy is a star. She is irrepressible and brave and insightful. She is true to herself while trying to be hopeful in a situation that is less than encouraging. So, as a character study, These Are Not the Words are all the right words.

I'm not sure that These Are Not the Words ends happily but it is still one of resolution and perhaps even expectation for a future that goes beyond the pain and leads with forgiveness for a flawed father and acceptance of the different.

Mono no aware means a gentle sadness, a wistfulness about the fleeting nature of life.  Impermanence is the reality of life. (pg. 84)

The King of Jam Sandwiches

Written by Eric Walters

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-2556-7

312 pp.

Ages 8-12

September 2020

This was a difficult story for me to write because it's so personal. Many of the things I've written about are from my life. The question I'm already being asked is, How much of this is true? The answer is simple–too much and not enough. 

(From Author's Note) 

So begins The King of Jam Sandwiches, the story of thirteen-year-old Robbie whose familial circumstances have compelled him to take on adult responsibilities and worries far beyond his years, reminding all readers that even the most unbelievable of situations can be a child's reality.

Since his mother and grandparents have passed, Robbie only has his father, a man whose erratic behaviours shout of bipolar disorder, swinging between fears for his imminent death, hoarding food supplies and disappearing for days. Though he has an Uncle Jack and Aunt Cora, Robbie is always told that he'll be going into foster care if anything happens to his dad. So Robbie is the one steady element in his family. He cares for his dog, Candy; he does the laundry, if there's detergent; he peels potatoes when he gets home from school; and he works part-time at a butcher shop, though his father doesn't want him taking food, as charity, from the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Priamo. But Robbie does more than just endure and persevere. He makes plans and he has ambition.  Working hard to earn good grades and save his money, Robbie has a plan to get out from under his father and escape, ultimately going to university.

If you're broken and you know it, you have to get up every day and work harder and longer than everybody else if you want to get anywhere. (pg. 298)

Then Robbie meets Harmony, a new student. An enigma of brashness and hopelessness, Harmony is living with her newest foster family and counting on being reunited with her mother who has been in and out of rehab.  While Robbie feels that he has to prove himself, Harmony accepts his daily jam sandwiches as tasty, not humiliating; helps him buy some new, though heavily discounted, clothes that fit; and finds a way for him to do something fun like basketball. Robbie may not want to admit to anyone that they are poor and that his father is a negligent parent, feeling like this is the life he deserves, but Harmony, in her convoluted style, makes sure that he knows otherwise. 

I am loathe to call The King of Jam Sandwiches a coming-of-age story because, sadly, Robbie and Harmony have been adults for years.  They've carried burdens that children should not. They are the parents in their lives, looking after the adults who have failed to be parents. They live disquieted lives, never knowing when danger might arise or when the flimsy stability they've create for themselves might dissipate. And Eric Walters establishes that precariousness of reality from the onset and throughout The King of Jam Sandwiches. There is no respite from the poverty or the instability. There is only survival, physical and emotional, and the reader's hope that Robbie and Harmony get through it. (The author's "Post Note" reassures that they do.)

The King of Jam Sandwiches is a tough read because no one wants to think about children suffering. But The King of Jam Sandwiches is reality for many children, and while telling us about his own childhood wrapped in Robbie's story, Eric Walters has given voice to children who, like Robbie, don't think they deserve better or that they count. They do. They are the royalty of their own realities and, if they can get the support they need and want, they may even come to recognize that,

"You already are somebody." (pg. 115) 

Sara and the Search For Normal: Guest review

This review was written by teacher Elizabeth Cook.

Written by Wesley King

Simon & Schuster/ Paula Wiseman Books

978-1-534421134

272 pp.

Ages 8-12

June 2020

Is it bad to admit that I pick books based on their covers and titles?  Well, sometimes I do. I loved Wesley King’s Laura Monster Crusher, but didn’t even notice that he was the author when I saw the title Sara and the Search For Normal.  The title just drew me in. After all, what is normal?  I know that, while on a European trip with my parents, we were deemed "that crazy family" when we continued to sit on a patio enjoying our schnitzel in a downpour. Even though I had deemed our lives to be pretty normal, others, including friends, recognized our eccentricities. When I spotted Sara and the Search for Normal, I couldn’t wait to see how Sara’s search for "normal" would go.

Seventh-grader Sara hates the labels of the four disorders which have been tacked on her: bipolar disorder, general anxiety disorder, mild schizophrenia, and depression. But she really only wants one title and that's normal. Her school days are spent in an isolated classroom with her one-on-one teacher Mrs. Hugger, and she only speaks to a handful of people including her parents, teacher, and therapist. It's not surprising that she studies other students for normalcy on the rare occasions she is allowed to go to the cafeteria with Mrs. Hugger. Then Sara keeps a secret list of what "normal" kids do so that it might help her on her own journey to normal.

Though she is hesitant, Sara begins to attend group therapy for kids her age with similar issues. There she meets the very different Erin, who speaks a mile a minute, and loves ice cream and Ryan Gosling movies. Erin has trichotillomania (hair pulling disorder) and dubs Sara her new bestie within seconds of meeting her. These two mismatched friends navigate therapy, adolescence, and friendship together all while trying to manage their own family problems.

I really enjoyed living the novel through Sara’s perspective. It can be hard for neurotypical people to fully understand the struggles of those with various mental disorders. While most readers might not be able to fully empathize with all that Sara goes through on a daily basis with her many diagnoses, everyone will be able to feel her emotions. There's her first crush, the ups and downs in friendships, trying to fit in at school, and dealing with family members, and Wesley King does a fabulous job of balancing Sara’s search for "normal" with the joys and anguish that come with being a teenager.

Upon finishing the novel, I read the "Author Notes" at the back of the book and realized this book is a companion novel to Wesley King’s popular book OCDaniel (2016).  If you have read that multi-award-winning book, you will have already been introduced to Sara.  Because her character was so well-received by the readers who wanted to know more about her, Wesley King has given us Sara and the Search for Normal.  Regardless, this book can easily be read as a stand-alone novel and enjoyed without knowing the story of OCDaniel, though if you're like me and have not read OCDaniel, it's sure to be on your To Be Read list too.  As such, I look forward to reading the beginnings of Sara’s story in OCDaniel.


~ Reviewer Elizabeth Cook is a teacher in the Halton District School Board. She is an avid reader and fan of Canadian literature. 

A Girl Like That

Written by Tanaz Bhathena

Farrar Straus Giroux

978-0-374-30544-4

369 pp.

Ages 13-18

February 2018

Zarin Wadia, sixteen, is A Girl Like That. She's seen as provocative, rebellious, and clever but her story is one of tragedy from birth to her death.

Zarin's death, along with that of a young man, Porus Dumasia, in a car accident is not a surprise ending. It begins the book with Zarin's guardians, Masi (mother's sister) and Masa (maternal uncle), and Porus's mother wailing over the dead teens. How they got there which is essentially Zarin's back story is the story of A Girl Like That. Told in multiple voices of Zarin, Porus, a gossipy classmate Mishal, and a boy Farhan with whom Zarin becomes involved, Tanaz Bhathena's first young adult novel is a study in nature vs. nurture for a teen whose origins were considered shameful and whose upbringing was rife with physical and emotional abuse. 

Memories...can be like splinters, digging into you when you least expect them to, holding tight and sharp the way wood did when it slid under a fingernail. (pg. 27)

Zarin is never made to feel like she belongs. Not with her Masi and Masa who take her in after her unmarried mother's death or at Qala Academy, the school she attends after they move from India to Saudi Arabia. She is shamed at home by her abusive and mentally ill Masi–and infrequently defended by Masa–for her illegitimacy, her gangster father and issues related to her being a girl. At school, a place where rumours are currency, especially for Mishal the anonymous BlueNiqab blogger and gossip monger, Zarin's classmates look down their noses at her for her heritage and standoffish ways. Still, Zarin endures. She hides the abuses and thumbs her nose at those who shame her. She smokes and she goes riding in cars with boys, an offense according to Sharia law.

And then her childhood Parsi friend, Porus, moves to Jeddah with his mother after the death of his beloved father. Zarin and Porus resume their friendship though it is an unconventional one, with Porus completely smitten and Zarin dating other boys and not sure she is capable of loving anyone. When Zarin is the victim of an assault by Farhan, her world at home and school dissolves into a muddy mess of anger, gossip, shaming, and revenge, with Zarin's desperately searching for courage and safety, within and without.

A Girl Like That is garnering much attention because of Tanaz Bhathena's story about gender inequality and religion-based social restrictions in Saudi Arabia. By focusing on a world that is intimate to many but foreign to so many others, Tanaz Bhathena is both honouring those who live Zarin's life and educating those unfamiliar with the restrictions and distinctions of living with abuse, segregation, cultural discrimination, gender inequality and religious policing.  But beyond the cultural milieu, A Girl Like That is still a statement about the need for self-expression, to fight self and others, to become who you are. Zarin's story is still a tragedy for the abuses inflicted upon her by family, both young men and women, and her cultures but she finds a way to fly, even without wings.

Because a bird only learns to fly when its wings are broken. (pg. 318)

Past Tense

Written by Star Spider

HarperCollins

978-1-443452113

304 pp.

Ages 13+

April 2018 

When you're fifteen years old (Julie) and you think you're in love with your best friend (Lorelei) and dreaming of that first kiss while your mother (Olive) is acting weird, telling you her heart is gone, and your best friend's ex (Henry) whom you never liked is hanging around and Dad (Max) is always working and your baby brother is only six months old, everything is a worry.  Your world is beyond tense, it's almost unendurable.

This is Julie's present. Her friendship with Lorelei has always been solid, though probably more so because Julie usually accommodates her popular and assertive friend, more so now that she is crushing on her.  But Lorelei is keeping secrets and making choices that Julie is questioning, at least to herself, so Julie doesn't confide in her best friend when her mother starts acting really, really weird.  Julie has discovered her mom, a former firefighter, is barely eating, thinks she no longer has a heart, and driving out to the cemetery at night with the baby. Stranger yet, when Julie insists on going with her on these excursions, her mom wants her to play out a game called Rest in Peace where Julie eulogizes her mother.  Does she tell her father? No. He's too busy and just contends that her mom is tired.

And into the mix comes Henry, Lorelei's ex. At first, Julie is convinced Henry just wants to reconnect with Lorelei, but it soon becomes obvious to all that Henry likes Julie. Julie doesn't know what to think. Maybe she just likes girls. Maybe she likes both boys and girls. Still, Henry who has his own worries is the one person she can talk to about everything. But can she reveal everything to her new ally when Mom is trying out caskets and Lorelei may be hiding a secret about their teacher Mr. Gomez?

Though a writer of some acclaim, Past Tense is Star Spider's first novel, and it's a doozy. Having a young teen questioning her sexuality is not unusual, though the path Star Spider takes her on to help understanding it–watching others, listening to her heart, and pondering what her head is telling her–is fresh. But when mixed in with her mother's mental illness, later diagnosed as Cotard's delusion, and a family on the edge, along with friend who is both secretive and affectionate, Julie's story is far more angsty. Fortunately, by looking back through the past–each chapter begins with a memory of Julie and her mother–the reader will realize the past shapes our relationships and our future but does not determine it.  Julie's friendship with Lorelei does not have to remain as it was when they were younger, just as her relationship with Henry can be something different than it was when he dated Lorelei.  And her strong and capable mother is no less because of her illness or status as a stay-at-home parent.  Living in the past is futile. Moving forward is a necessity.

Counting Wolves

Written by Michael F. Stewart

978-0-993757945

217 pp.

Ages 12+

August 2017

"For the last three years I've been hunted by the wolf–wait."  I hold a hand up.  "I  know it sounds crazy–but I've been holding it back with my count.  It works like a magic spell, and it keeps others safe too, everyone.  I've felt the wolf.  I've seen it." (pg. 140)

We all have wolves at our doors.  Some just howl louder or claw more violently.  They may be the wolves of past events come to haunt us, or bad thoughts that want to become actions, or the ones that portend disaster.  But how do you survive the wolves when they're always, always waiting to get you?

Fifteen-year-old Milly Malone is convinced that she has found the magic spell to banish the wolf to the Dark Wood and survive: she counts.  She counts to 100 each time she passes through doorways or eats a single bite or speaks.  Perpetuating the predator theme, Milly will only cross a door's threshold by hopping.  Needless to say, she's often late for class, eats very little in the time allotted, and people get frustrated waiting for her to express herself verbally.  Her boyfriend Billy is her rock, defending her to those who might ridicule her, but even he can't help her when she hears the smacking of jaws, sees the welts of claw marks on her back and collapses, "Lost in the blackest of fairy tales." (pg. 6)

After a visit to Emerg with her step-mother Adriana who believes Milly's issue is an eating disorder–Milly's mother passed away three years earlier and her father is away on business–Milly is admitted to the Pediatric Psychiatry ward where she meets an assortment of characters.  There's Peter, a large boy who is convinced he's a fairy (a leg cast is indicative of a recent flying attempt off the building); the manic Vanet who "is like some stoned fairy godmother who's as liable to kill you as help you"; pg. 81); Red, a girl who dresses in red and is plagued by nightmares; Eleanor a.k.a. Pig, the aggressive homeless girl who likes to burn stuff; Wesley whom she calls Rottengoth whose parents hate him; and Sleeping Beauty, a girl who is on IV constantly and rarely awakens. And then there's Wolfgang, the scary dude with the dead eyes in an acute care room.  Through meals, group therapy, recreational activities and interviews with Doctor Balder all the young people reveal their own wolves, sparring in words and actions and ultimately forming a community of support to keep the wolves away.

Counting Wolves is an intense read about young people dealing with mental illness and how those around them, medical professionals and family, deal with them.  The stories in which these young people embed themselves are tragic, not unlike the fairy tales that Milly reads or was told as a child.  Like many of the original Grimm fairy tales, whose stories are not always obvious at first read, they are frightening.  There may be lessons within but they are devastating to body and soul, with fear often the prevalent emotion. Michael F. Stewart, whose earlier Assured Destruction series (Assured Destruction, Script Kiddie, and Assured Destruction with Zombies) revealed clever plotting and great characterizations, is able to get into Milly's head and give her a voice that is legitimate though perplexing.  Granted, he's the one who has created that head with its confusing thoughts and beliefs but Michel F. Stewart melds her mental illness with grim fairy tales so flawlessly that it's a wonder all issues can't be viewed better in terms of fables. Even as she works through her anxiety, independently–including with the use of a 1960s workbook–and with her established and new support systems, she is challenging the wolf. There is a surprise revelation when Milly recognizes that her wolf is not whom she believes it to be but that's a secret the readers will need to discover for themselves.

Counting Wolves illuminates the treachery of mental illness, including the distorted thinking that can override all and twist stories even more.  Keeping the wolves at bay under these circumstances can be even more challenging.  Still Michael F. Stewart provides some indication, maybe even hope, that help and protection is available, even where least expected.

NemeSIS

Written by Susan Marshall
Blue Moon Publishers
978-1-988279-32-3
204 pp.
Ages 13+
April 2017

I know that sisters can be as close as best friends (I have a wonderful younger sister who is just this for me).  Sisters can be there to support you through familial strife and guide you through the uncertainties of growing up.  As the middle of three sisters, I know what can be but I also know what is.  Susan Marshall’s debut YA novel, as the name suggests, is about that tenuous relationship between sisters, a mixed bag of bullying and bond.

With her parents going through a marital separation, fifteen-year-old Nadine could certainly use the support of her older sister, Rachel.  But seventeen-year-old Rachel is too egocentric to see anything, including her parents’ separation, in any terms other than those related to her. Between her parents' separation, and Mom establishing a new life as a realtor, and Rachel vacillating (can you say moody?) between kind and cruel, Nadine needs someone in her corner.

“Like Voldemort, Rachel was a monster of the dark arts.” (pg. 41)

While trying to avoid Rachel’s wrath, like the dumping of ice water on Nadine while she sleeps and plugging her nose with a clothespin (painful!), Nadine begins to adopt a plan of steps, similar to the AA twelve-step program, to help “dig herself out of the hole she was in.” (pg.  18) Undertaking to become part of the school and make a friend, she meets Anne Lavery,  new to Elgin High School, and younger sister of wildly popular senior Matt Lavery and his twin Cameron.  With that one step, Nadine’s life expands to include a lunch buddy, a love interest,

“Cameron was the sun, and I was this speck of intergalactic dust being pulled toward him, close enough to bask in the warmth of his rays but not so close as to get burned” (pg. 35)

and a place on the field hockey team where she meets a new friend Mei.  But while Nadine’s relationship with Anne brings many positives into her life, it also draws Rachel’s attention.  Not surprising that the manipulative Rachel uses her sister’s friendship with Anne to get close to Matt but Rachel can’t decide whether to cultivate her relationship with Nadine to her own end or threaten the girl about keeping mum about her bullying of Nadine.  And what Nadine learns is that bullying is bullying, whether it is by a sister, a team mate or an opponent, and avoidance is not an effective option.

As a reader, I often wonder whether all writers have first hand knowledge of that which they write.  I’m pretty sure Susan Marshall knows something about sibling bullying, though she tempers the viciousness that can be had at the hands of an older sister.  Still, the psychological torment of bullying and trauma inflicted by Rachel, and other bullies in the story, are very real and impactful, and Susan Marshall makes it clear that dealing with bullies does not have one solution.  The confusion of dealing with a bully who could turn kind or cruel in a split second may be rationalized by mental health issues but the care with which they select when, where and how to inflict that cruelty suggests a psychopathy beyond moodiness.  I think Nadine is far more generous with her sister than other bullies and more than Rachel deserves but it’s amazing what you can forgive family.  Susan Marshall conveys all that mixed up turmoil of shame, anger, resolve,  and expectancy convincingly and still provides a guarantee that things can and do get better.  It may not be fast enough or easily enough for many victims of  bullying, sibling or otherwise, but when you have a NemeSIS, it’s a long-standing relationship that can come to an end with a shocking bang like it does for Mei and her bully, or a soft closing of a door, perhaps as it will be with Nadine and Rachel.  Go with the door.  It hurts less.

Breaking Faith: Book launch (Burlington, ON)

Join

E. Graziani

author of

War in My Town

(Second Story Press, 2015)

for the launch of her new young adult novel

Breaking Faith

by E. Graziani

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-024-7

248 pp.

Ages 13-17

March 2017

Review here

on

Sunday, April 2, 2017

2 p.m.

A Different Drummer Books

513 Locust St.

Burlington, ON

In addition to a book reading and signing, 

youth mental health expert Dr. Vimala Chinnasamy will give a talk.

From Second Story Press' website about the book:

Faith Emily Hansen just wants to be loved and to live without the weight of addiction. But the lure of drugs is strong. The relief that she gets from being wrapped up in the cozy little cotton ball of heroin is impossible to ignore.

Faith’s story starts in her earliest days, before drugs, before her family falls apart. Before her mother leaves. Before her sister betrays her, taking away Faith’s last connection to home. She eventually becomes consumed by the need to “chase the dragon” – the heroin addiction that seems to keep the Darkness at bay, but leads her to live on the street. The determination to find love and comfort that lures Faith to drugs is ultimately the same stubborn force that can drive her to recover.

Retrieved from https://secondstorypress.ca/teen/breaking-faith on March 13, 2017.

Breaking Faith

Written by E. Graziani

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-024-7

328 pp.

Ages 13+

March 2017

Reviewed from advance reading copy

For most people, turning points help define them in terms of before and after.  They are sparks of tragedy or ecstasy that depress or elevate, twisting the trajectories of lives onto paths unpredicted.  For Faith Emily Hansen, her turning points began with those of her mother, Lacey, but when her own begin to accumulate, they lead her down paths that are both random and dangerous, and sadly all her own.

Life for Faith’s family has never been easy.  Her mother had been devastated when her husband Simon had died, leaving her with a two-year-old daughter Constance.  She tried to get on with her life, moving back in with her criticizing and argumentative mother Dot, and even getting involved with two different men and having Faith a year later and Destiny two years after that.  Still Lacey’s life is tenuous at best, and out of control at worst.  Although her love for her children is evident–including coming to Faith's rescue when the four-year-old becomes an innocent victim in a horrific act of violence–she leaves them when Faith is just seven, moving to Toronto and making promises she'll never keep.

When Constance moves in with her other grandmother, the affluent Josephine, Faith is left to mother her younger sister and navigate her own Darkness, ever difficult as she is overwhelmed with sadness and anger, hurt and loneliness.  And she is just a child.  As they all deal with Lacey’s spiral into drug use, Faith yearns for normal but is unable to make choices that support that.  Even some counselling and making friends with Norma and Ishaan in middle school can't keep Faith from eventually breaking and heading to a life on the streets of Toronto and into using heroin, eventually hitting rock bottom.

"And my soul was broken–I'd lost Faith.  Lost hope. Lost my belief in my own destiny." (pg. 264)

The story that E. Graziani tells with heart-breaking power and poignancy is devastating in its sadness and bleakness.  Though Faith's reactions are her own, the circumstances of her life were thrust upon her by a mother with her own addiction and mental health issues, by a random act of violence and by familial circumstances which burden her and for which she, as a child, was unprepared emotionally and physically.  Even happiness was a burden.

"And the feeling of constantly being on edge, walking on eggshells, and feeling guilty (though outlandish as that may seem) if I felt a positive emotion." (pg. 17)

But, though Faith sees little positive in her life, she is the poster child for the Bob Marley quote she repeats throughout: "You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice."
The reader may be hopeful that, since it is a nineteen-year-old Faith who is writing about the events and conditions that led her to a point where she needs to be rescued, Breaking Faith must have a happy ending i.e., she survives to write her story.  But I don't think there are any happy endings here.  As the Afterword by psychiatrist Dr. Vimala Chinnasamy states, Faith's story is not an uncommon one, one in which mental illness and addiction are perceived as emotional weaknesses and for which inadequate support, both within the family and outside, is provided, thus contributing to the tragedy.  And Breaking Faith is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.  The only saving grace is that Faith survives these chapters of her life and that E. Graziani provides a deep look into a life we need to witness so that we might walk with the Faiths of this world before we need to pull them up and rescue them or worse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check out the next post for details of the book launch for Breaking Faith this Sunday at A Different Drummer Books in Burlington, ON

Small Displays of Chaos: Book launch (Saskatoon)

Join 

Coteau Books

and 

debut YA author

Breanna Fischer

for the launch of

Small Displays of Chaos

by Breanna Fischer

Coteau Books

9781550506617

112 pp.

Ages 13+

May 2016

on 

Monday, May 2, 2016

at

7 p.m.

at

McNally Robinson Booksellers

3130 8th St. E.

Saskatoon, SK

A riveting, haunting novel about one teenager’s journey toward self-love and strength.

17-year-old Rayanne Timko is only a few months into her senior year of high school, and her biggest concern should be deciding on a university and career path. But while her classmates are filled with anticipation, nothing in her life seems to going smoothly, and Rayanne finds herself struggling to overcome anorexia. She has a new friend: Ed - the seductive and demanding presence in her head who insists she be as skinny as possible. With Ed around, Rayanne is blind to nearly everyone else in her life. But what happens when Ray begins to suspect she may be losing more than weight? Will she be able to save her family - and herself - before it’s too late?

Filled with complex relationships and realistic young adult tribulations, Small Displays of Chaos follows Rayanne as she struggles with the astonishingly common yet stigmatized disorder of anorexia nervosa. Throughout her story she fights to discover who she is despite her illness, and learns that by loving herself, she is better able to love those around her.

Retrieved from Coteau Books website at http://coteaubooks.com/index.php?id=1046 

on March 28, 2016.

Calvin

by Martine Leavitt

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-720-7

180 pp.

Ages 12+
November 2015

Just because Calvin, the book, is being touted as YA doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be read by everyone and anyone who needs to have an understanding of mental health issues. Calvin, the main character, and his friend Susie both may be seventeen years of age and dealing with boy-girl relationship issues, but the book is far more than just realistic fiction for teens.  It’s akin to a Canadian YA version of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, about a young man who goes on a pilgrimage to find meaning and meets an assortment of individuals and learns new truths that help him interpret his life.  This is a book for anyone mature enough to handle the truths within.

Calvin, the book, is a letter to Bill Watterson, the creator of the hugely popular comic Calvin and Hobbes.  Convinced he is connected to Bill Watterson because of his name, being born on the very day the last comic was published, and having a stuffed tiger named Hobbes and a friend named Susie, Calvin, the book’s protagonist, is sure that Bill Watterson is the man to help him out when he is diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Escaping with Susie’s help from the hospital, Calvin embarks on a treacherous winter pilgrimage across Lake Erie to Cleveland where he is somehow assured that Bill Watterson will provide him with a new and final comic that will display Calvin as a well-adjusted teen without an imaginary Hobbes.

Written both as dialogue between Calvin, Susie, Hobbes and an odd assortment of bit players and as text of Calvin’s thinking, Calvin takes the reader into the mind and experiences of a boy newly-diagnosed with schizophrenia who cannot deal with that reality.  Though she has not associated with him for the past year, Susie, a childhood friend, insists on accompanying Calvin.  So, after carefully outfitting themselves for an 87 km winter walk across a barren lake, Calvin and Susie set out from Point Pelee National Park.  Only Bill Watterson knows, apparently, because Calvin had written to the cartoonist, requesting he meet them on the other side of the lake.

The wind only whines and whistles and wails when it’s trying to get into the cracks of windows and doors.  It only thumps and bellows when it bumps up against trees and houses and cars.  But on a big flat empty lake, it’s just a force.  It’s a big soft hand that pushes and presses at you, silent, steady.  Soon you realize the wind isn’t flowing around you, over you, it’s flowing through you, penetrating the electromagnetic field that gives you the illusion of being a solid entity, whipping straight through you, spinning your atoms like tops and leaving them dizzy and frosty and deeply impressed. (pg. 65)

What seems to begin as a lark becomes a dark and dangerous survival test, with Calvin grappling with the imaginary Hobbes for possession of his mind and Susie revealing hidden truths to Calvin.  Just as Calvin has difficulty determining what is real–even Susie could be a figment of his imagination–so does the reader as the duo with Hobbes in tow encounter an ice fisherman, a poet, a parking lot, snow goons, and a monster, discussing brain activity, God, war and peace, school, and Bill Watterson’s motivations.  It all comes down to Susie helping  Calvin see that “I know about you but you don’t know about you” (pg. 132) and Calvin helping to keep Susie safe.

Reading about someone dealing with a mental illness is a very different beast than being inside them as they wrestle with their mental health issue.  And beast seems an appropriate term because Martine Leavitt takes the reader into the beast that is Calvin’s schizophrenia, as creative and quirky and potentially ferocious as Hobbes, Bill Watterson’s comic tiger.  With an issue as colossal as that immense Lake Erie, Martine Leavitt is able to take us into that part of Calvin that is both confused and distinct and searching for identity.  Scared of the monster he perceives himself to be and anticipating the judgements that will be aimed at him,

Hobbes: Since when did we care what people think?
Me: There’s more of them. The definition of sanity is a democratic thing.  They get to decide. (pg. 21)

Calvin is running from his fears and towards his perceived salvation.  Salvation may or may not be waiting at the end of Calvin and Susie’s crossing but Martine Leavitt ensures a resolution.  It’s not all nice and neat but it is what it is: an ending and an beginning.

When Kacey Left

by Dawn Green

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-523-3

228 pp.

Ages 12+

April 2015

Books that deal with suicide at their core are never easy to read or review.  They are heartbreaking ends to life. Period.  But When Kacey Left focuses that heartbreak on the survivors and less on the individual who committed suicide and that makes all the difference in the story-telling.  And it’s story-telling that gets to the crux of the repurcussions of suicide: that those left behind are left to grieve, to understand and to go on.

When Kacey Left is written as a series of letters in a journal by 16-year-old Sara a.k.a. Sticks to her best friend Kacey a.k.a. Stones as prescribed by Sara’s counsellor to deal in the aftermath of Kacey’s suicide.  The letters span the gamut of emotional devastation from sadness, depression, anger, denial, and guilt with questions, lots and lots of questions.  As reluactant as she is to pour out her emotions, Sara is very articulate about sharing everything with her friend.

Sara talks about their other friend, Drea, and her rise to popularity after Kacey’s suicide; about the reactions of fellow students to Kacey’s death and to Sara herself; about the funeral itself; about how their parents and teachers and even the school via principal directives have dealt with it.  Sara has to endure that stalklings of  an autistic girl whom she calls Weird Girl who wants to understand the spiritual consequence of Kacey’s demise.  There’s Sara’s mom who seems reluctant to give Sara time to herself, instead filling her time with guitar lessons, helping out at a school dance, and attending counselling sessions.  Dad’s reaction, on the other hand, is to get Sara a chocolate lab puppy she calls Hershey.  Sadly, Sara fells like everyone now knows her only as “the girl whose best friend killed herself.” (pg. 110)

As she attempts to make sense of Kacey’s suicide, taking months before she’ll even acknowledge that Kacey killed herself,  Sara finds herself trying to learn more about teen suicide and grief–such as the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance–ultimately helping her to open up to a major meltdown and help others understand what Kacey did.  No one might ever fully understand why Kacey did what she did but they would learn to accept it and and the consequences for all of them of what she did.

I’d told them I’d think about it. Me!? Some teen-suicide-prevention spokesperson? I feel like this is something I need to talk to you about, like I need your thoughts.  I’d be talking about you and I’m not sure you’d be okay with that.  I know you wouldn’t be.  But then again…you’re not here.  When you killed yourself, you kind of lost the right to have an opinion.  I think I’ve already made up my mind.  I just thought you should know…and I do hope you understand. (pg. 200-201)

I know that some people, like Principal Kline, are inclined to consider suicide a taboo subject that should not be discussed.  Whether it is the fear that others might consider suicide an option or the spiritual presumption that suicide leads to damnation, the reasons to keep it hush-hush is just ludicrous.   Dawn Green has done a great service to bringing suicide out of the closet and to the forefront of discussions by addressing what can happen in its aftermath.  By allowing Sara to share her own questions about Kacey taking her own life and trying to find answers whether through research, journaling or social discourse, Dawn Green will allow any young person who reads this book to take a closer look at suicide as more than just death or a storyline or an ending to pain, and instead a sorrowful consequence for those left behind.

I encourage everyone to read the section titled, “Suicide Information and Resources” with which Dawn Green appends her story.  It provides useful links and information, including the assertion that “There is a way through it.”  Her reference to the song, “Hold On” by Good Charlotte (© 2002 Sony BMG Music Entertainment) is especially positive but anguished. Here is a link to the group's YouTube video of the song so you can check it out for yourself. 

Twisted

by Lisa Harrington

Dancing Cat Books
978-1-77086-413-9
240 pp.
Ages 13+
September 2014

On the day Lyssa Thomson, 18, buries her mother, she's on a bus, leaving her drunken, step-father Vince–who used to lock her in her room–in River John and heading to Halifax to move in with her boyfriend, Kyle, hopeful of starting at Dalhousie in the new year.  Finding Kyle with another girl, Lyssa wanders in the rain until she finds some shelter at a coffee shop where an employee, university student Liam Stewart, helps her contact Vince's son–Lyssa's step-brother–Aidan with whom she'd always been close before he left without telling her two years earlier.

Though still hurt about Aidan's departure, Lyssa accepts his offer to stay at his house, which is near campus and the coffee shop where she gets a part-time job.  Aidan is still not forthcoming about anything though she learns through his girlfriend, Marla, that he manages a bar and they'd met in a psych ward when Marla had attempted suicide. Not knowing that Marla and Lyssa had already met, Aidan continues to tell his step-sister half-truths about Vince accusing him of trying to kill him and having him sent to Halifax for a psych evaluation.  

But, Lyssa is starting to see discrepancies in what Aidan says and does, and turns to Liam for some advice and perspective.  Liam, a pre-med student, does all he can to help Lyssa out, though his own relationship with his girlfriend, Lynnie, is becoming complicated.  Everything must seem complicated to Lyssa: her much-adored step-brother is thinking about returning home and wants her to go too; the boy she's crushing on seems into her but still has a girlfriend; Kyle is coming around asking for a second chance; and Vince is looking to track Lyssa down. But Lyssa has a good head on her shoulders and, with her helpfulness and work ethic, she establishes a good support system at work, something she's going to need if she is to endure (survive?) some harrowing situations.

Mental illness can be debilitating but imagine if you are teen who has never been privy to discussions about a family member's illness.  While being unaware of triggers or symptoms, you may also feel that others are being unfair to that family member when labeling him as insane or crazy or irrational. Lyssa shows incredible fortitude in the face of extraordinary circumstances like her mother's death and boyfriend's unfaithfulness.  But, with Aidan being the only one she still considers family, she is reluctant to castigate him for his reactions, until she accepts that his thinking is twisting his perceptions, the truth and their lives.  Lisa Harrington brings the issue of mental illness out of the closet and into the danger zone, where secretive discussions and ignorance are preventing effective treatment and establishment of a supportive family.  By not speaking about it, everything goes from bad to worse.  And Lisa Harrington's writing is oppressive with the tension of Lyssa's tenuous relationship with Aidan. If Twisted is anything beyond a young adult story of finding love and support under difficult circumstances, it's a cautionary tale of the dangers of refusing to talk about mental illness and shaming those dealing with it.

Into the Wasteland

by Lesley Choyce
Red Deer Press
978-0-88995-522-6
174 pp.
Ages 14-17
October, 2014

I'm done. Through. Finished. I'm on the edge of something and I don't know what it is. I just know that everything and everybody is holding me back. (pg. 7)

Dixon Carter is angry and he’s taking himself off his prescription meds.  And though the name of Dixon’s illness is never identified (I don't like those labels, but once they are sewn into your shirt, it's hard to get rid of them; pg. 48), Dixon is far too complex for a simple mental illness label.  He is insightful, expressive, and appreciative of his parents, his brilliant girlfriend Sylvia, his best friend Zeke and Fairweather Dave, a former surf champion and surfing magnate who gave it all up.  Dixon delves into poetry, including a tome of T.S.Eliot's that includes the poem The Waste Land.  He thinks about illusions, rules, paradoxes and Einstein.  

But, by stopping his meds, Dixon is preparing for a trip down that dark path into the wasteland, and he’s sharing it with readers via his manifesto a.k.a. a journal.  Using his thoughts and his interactions for guidance, Dixon tries to sort out who he is, what he wants and how to go about it.

I'm trying to sort out my ideas, my thoughts, my so-called illness, and my condition.  I am, alas, a product of my culture, of my time, of my ancestry, and I'd prefer to step outside of all that. (pg. 31)

Then the unforeseen happens.  Tragedy.  Everything, everything changes.  (Oh how I wish I could share the details but that would truly be a spoiler.) How Dixon deals is just as unforeseen.

Into the Wasteland is so real.  It’s about being labelled with a mental illness and enduring the multitude of treatments in the hopes of achieving a normal life.  It’s about wanting to be a regular teen, to hang out with friends and your girlfriend, and think about a future that doesn’t include regular transgressions into a dangerous darkness.  And then the impending dark path seems like a walk in the park.  An overlay of grief essentially immobilizes Dixon: no way forward or back.  

I can’t imagine how Lesley Choyce is able to convey the twisted negative thinking of a young person with depression or the glorious euphoria of his manic episodes without an intimate knowledge of the complexities of his thought processes.   Think about this as you read Into the Wasteland and attempt to make your way through Dixon’s tortuous reasonings, which he presents as his philosophy.  He is convinced his thinking is clear but, though it is thoughtful and insightful, it is distorted and confusing, as are his writings in the manifesto.  Lesley Choyce persuasively depicts Dixon Carter as a sympathetic character though his argumentative nature and irritability could have precluded that.  Instead, what Into the Wasteland shares is that a person with a mental illness is never just well or unwell but as complex as any being trying to survive in a less than hospitable environment, whether it be internal or external.  

Assured Destruction with Zombies

by Michael F. Stewart

978-0-981269993

225 pp.

Ages 13+

2014

If you haven't read Michael F. Stewart's Assured Destruction (2013), reviewed here, and Script Kiddie (2013), its sequel (reviewed here), then don't read this review.  Get Books 1 and 2 in the Assured Destruction series first.  You won't be disappointed and you'll enjoy Book 3 all the more.

When Script Kiddie ended, tech savvy Janus had saved her classmate and friend Hannah from attempting to kill an online predator, and sustained enough injuries–including a broken ankle and bruised ribs–to slow her down a bit. But only a bit because she's still got a lot to do.  If she doesn't want to lose her semester, she must attend school every day and on time.  With mom hospitalized and undergoing electric shock therapy, Janus feels like she must take on more of the business responsibilities.  The mortgage on the business, Assured Destruction, is still in jeopardy and Janus is working on ways to make more money, including billeting ten international students (though she's got nothing ready for them, only space in their industrial park business/home).  She also has a plan to make the company more profitable by seeking out some of the clients that had worked with her dad before he disappeared several years earlier, although her mom's boyfriend, Peter, thinks she shouldn't be doing this.  

Her visits to these clients, including AAA Ltd. and A ZaZa Pizza, leave her more confused.  They don't have the number of computers that would make them customers of Assured Destruction; in fact, she's even warned away by a pony-tailed man she sees at several locations.  Janus is quick to recognize that these clients may not provide the business they need but she's sure they may be helpful in finding her father. But her investigations hit too close to home, and her determination to learn the truth ends up putting her life and the business in jeopardy.

While pursuing the mystery of her father's disappearance and his dealings with these special "customers", Janus again gets involved with the hackers online at Darkslinger to find a solution to something the media is calling the Zombie Worm, a malware program that is affecting the school server, her home computers, and businesses, traffic lights, etc.  But Janus doesn't realize that, as they say, when you play with fire, sometimes you get burned. And when she's trying to do everything-school, business, heal, friends, boyfriend, community service, investigate her father, liaise with the police-she gets burned really badly, metaphorically, though almost physically too.  

Michael F. Stewart has developed Janus into a character who can see beyond the moment and beyond the computer, although this is something that is difficult for her.  She is used to taking care of everything, not relying on anyone or anything. Her physical injuries at the end of Script Kiddie have required her to get help, whether she wants it or not. (Driving the van with hand controls is an especially funny scene.)  Too soon her mental health is in jeopardy as well. Janus needed to know, really know, that she didn't have to take on the world by herself.  Many of us don't like asking for help, assuming that it shows weakness.  Wrong.  The weakness is in not asking, especially when we know many hands make light work.  Between her friends and others watching out for her, Janus has a lot of support.  By continually going after things herself, she negates what they mean to her.  Not deliberately, but she still does. Not until she is able to accept help do things start to turn around for her and Assured Destruction. 

Assured Destruction with Zombies may have an edge-of-your-seat adventure with several mysteries to solve and a whodunit that will surprise you but it's Janus' character that took centre stage for me, finally becoming a person with whom I could empathize.  Her computer smarts are far beyond any that I will ever know, though I'm sure a few young readers will know exactly what she's doing always, but those are her skills and strengths.  Showing her weaknesses and working with them, rather than through them, has made Janus stronger and a more likeable character. And I'm reassured, after reading Assured Destruction with Zombies, that nothing can destroy her. Janus may become damaged but she's an invincible protagonist who could take on the world, cyberspace and all.

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B

Written by Teresa Toten

Doubleday Canada/Random House of Canada

978-0-385678346

255 pp.

Ages 14+

For release August 27, 2013

When 16-year-old Robyn Plummer joins Dr. Chuck Mutinda's young adult OCD group, fifteen-year-old Adam Ross finds his motivation to get better and even grow taller. He still has deal with his compulsion to clear those triggers that bother him, like thresholds and even numbers, but when the group members are encouraged to take on superhero alter egos, he links himself to her by choosing Batman to her Robin.  

In fact, Adam becomes Robyn's unofficial mentor in all things Catholic after following her to the cemetery where she visits her mom's grave.  Seems Robyn is interested in pursuing the ingrained rituals such as crossing oneself and kneeling, hoping it will help her deal with her mother's death and her own OCD.  But Adam and Robyn's relationship starts to include the other members of their OCD group when a field trip to his parish is undertaken.  Although Chuck is clear that religion is not a panacea for OCD, the other group members, including the intense Thor, accompany them and learn about the font, the lighting of candles and kneeling in prayer, even if they all fall to their knees when Father Rick introduces himself.

While he continues to do all he can to help Robyn, obviously falling in love with her, Adam is very reluctant to speak in group or even in his one-on-one sessions with Chuck of those issues which are overwhelming him.  His father had left to marry another woman, Brenda, with whom he now has another son, Wendell (affectionately known as Sweetie), a four-year-old whom Adam adores.  Likewise, Sweetie has a strong attachment to Adam who is regularly summoned to calm or reassure or put his little brother to sleep.  In fact, Adam wonders if he is making Sweetie crazy, although his mother claims that he is not.  A highly-competent nursing supervisor, Carmella Ross, has her own issues, particularly hoarding and, more recently, receiving nasty letters that call her vile names and instruct her to kill herself for Adam's sake. But his mom has declared that if he tells anyone that it will be a betrayal to her.

So he lies to Chuck and others about the letters and even the growing severity of his issues with thresholds. But, as Chuck tells him and he later tells Robyn, when she reveals her own secrets, "Everybody lies."(pg. 146)  However, as he and Robyn become closer, he confides in her about his mom and the letters, which lightens his burden, until he gets home again.

Bouncing back and forth between trying to get better and following Chuck's program and feeling that Robyn is getting better and he is not, Adam begins to feel like an impostor, hardly a superhero of Room 13B. But, revealing what he needs, exposing some lies, and accepting that leaving is a difficult but necessary step in growing up, Adam can finally see himself as the reluctant hero that his family, his friends and Robyn know him to be.

If you forget the OCD, temporarily, you see that Teresa Toten has created a good kid in Adam.  He tries to see the best in everyone and help where he can. He may vascillate between whether it is or isn't or whether he should or shouldn't, but don't we all when trying to make the best of decisions?  With his OCD, Adam would be justified in having great difficulty in determining the correct course of action.  But, he still goes when Sweetie needs him, even in the middle of the night or during the school day.  He respects his mother's wishes.  He even suggests that climbing the stairs to their meeting room in Room 13B would be excellent exercise when he realizes that one group member with claustrophobia was unable to enter the elevator.

While Adam tells himself and others that everybody lies, the lies are used to add layering to The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B.  Everyone has fears, issues, anxieties and sensitivities that sometimes need to be hidden.  But what transforms the lies into a story is the choices of from whom these lies are hidden–yourself or others–and for what purpose.  Teresa Toten uses her characters' lies to provide greater depth and unexpected twists to her storyline, as well as demonstrate that heroics are everyday occurrences, not the domain of superheroes.  Some days it's speaking aloud in a group, or taking a chance and going for it, or breaking your heart to do what's right that requires courage.  By that explanation, Adam Ross, 15, is truly The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B.

    ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~    

Teresa Toten will be a guest author at First Calgary Financial Book Rapport, part of Calgary's WordFest in October, and will be presenting at the Banff Centre on Saturday October 19.