Paseka: A Little Elephant, Brave : Book launches (BC)

Join 

author Ruth James 

and 

illustrator Kent Laforme 
(Studiostone Creative)

for multiple events to launch

their picture book

 Paseka: A Little Elephant, Brave

Written by Ruth James

Illustrated by Kent Laforme

Page Two Books

978-1-989025-42-0

32 pp.

Ages 5+

May 2019
Reviewed here

Thursday, May 2, 2019
 7 p.m.
Kidsbooks
2557 West Broadway
Vancouver, BC

Monday, May 6, 2019
10:30 a.m. 
Salt Spring Island Public Library
129 McPhillips Avenue
Salt Spring Island, BC
(n.b. illustrator Kent Laforme will not be at this event)

Saturday, May 11, 2019
2 p.m.
Courtenay Public Library
300 6th St.
Courtenay, BC

Saturday, May 18, 2019
1 p.m.
Indigo at Mayfair 
Mayfair Shopping Centre
Victoria, BC

There will be

a reading of the story and craft activities, 
including finger puppet and diorama creation,

and a special photo station with 
a life-sized Paseka illustration

Books will be available for sale and signing.


I reviewed this lovely picture book yesterday here 
and 
emphatically recommend you attend one of the BC launches, 
if you can.
🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘

Smokescreen

Written by Nancy Hartry

Tundra Books

978-1-77049-405-3

202 pp.

Ages 12+

August 2013

I know that most coming-of-age stories involve protagonists in their early to mid-teens, but Kerry Williams is seventeen and definitely in need of growing into herself by Smokescreen's book end.  You see, at the story's onset, Kerry is thrown into a totally unfamiliar situation: a summer job for the Department of Forestry and Parks in the northern Ontario bush as a cottage development technician i.e., looking for potential sites to develop for cottages.  Kerry is convinced that her mother happily finagled this job for her after she'd disappointed her by losing a major Irish Dance competition due to a fall and subsequent injury ("My body betrayed me.  Correction, my mother overtrained me." pg. 8). Regardless how naive the Toronto teen might feel in her new circumstances, especially after she meets Yvette Bernier, her nineteen-year-old partner for the summer, she is determined to not fail.  Luckily, even though Yvette comes off the bus looking like a trendy urbanite, she knows everything about working in the bush, dealing with campfuls of men, negotiating with bosses who try to push summer students into unsafe conditions, and how to handle herself to ensure a profitable and worry-free summer, and she willingly shares this knowledge with Kerry.

But a raging forest fire has them moving base camps several times and conscripted to work in food prep and camp work for the fire crews.  In addition to their misogynistic boss, Buzz Harcourt, there's Didier, the handsome and friendly crew boss of a fire unit; Matt the pilot who must take them north regardless of Yvette's refusal to go; Rolf, the older, no-nonsense professional camp cook who is eventually brought in; Slash, the scary and scarred man brought in to help with heavy kitchen work; Aubrey, the intense Métis fire crew boss on whom Kerry crushes and Yvette does not trust; and Mr. Sirois, the violent and sexist boss man from New Brunswick.  

Over time, Yvette has learned to trust very few people, particularly ones that seem to have hidden agendas, and she warns Kerry repeatedly about watching her back.  But, with the discovery of Yvette's pink lighter at the source of the forest fire, the young women realize that there is someone who is setting Yvette up, and they must tread carefully to keep their jobs and protect themselves.  Problem is that Kerry and Yvette have very different perceptions about whom to trust, and the emotional baggage they each bring to their friendship has them repeatedly at odds.  It's only when the two get mixed up in a potentially deadly situation that Kerry can see Yvette's vulnerability and accept her own strengths as the basis for their survival.

Nancy Hartry, author of the 2010 Canadian Library Association's Book of the Year for Children Award–Watching Jimmy (Tundra, 2009)–knows how to take a straightforward storyline, e.g., teens taking summer jobs in the bush, and enriching it with psychological intricacies and complex social situations that can take straightforward to dangerous.  And that's probably why her stories hit home for her readers.  There are no paranormal experiences or supernatural elements that take the story into the fantasy and improbable, if not impossible, realm.  The characters in her books could be our children, our neighbours, friends, family.  So, as we read and recognize that these circumstances could happen to anyone and that different elements could be derived directly from the news, we read a little more cautiously, hopeful that no one we know should ever have these experiences, and thoroughly, perhaps learning the means by which survival may be achieved.  Nancy Hartry shares a dramatic story that could be passed down from one summer student to another, or from parent to child, or from anyone to anyone who wants to tell a good story and teach a little something in the process.  Nancy Hartry does both in Smokescreen. 

Hannah and the Salish Sea

by Carol Anne Shaw

Ronsdale Press

978-1-55380-233-4

200 pp.

Ages 10+

2013

On a map showing the town of Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island, you couldn't imagine a more serene, contemplative setting, tucked into a bay across from Saltspring Island and surrounded by parkland.  But this Cowichan Bay, of Carol Anne Shaw's Hannah and the Salish Sea, has some dark goings-on.  All is not well in Cowichan Bay.

The sequel to Carol Anne Shaw's Hannah and the Spindle Whorl (Ronsdale, 2010), Hannah and the Salish Sea revisits Hannah Rae Anderson, fourteen now, who still has trouble convincing her best friend and maybe boyfriend Max Miller that she'd somehow connected with a young girl, Yisella, 150 years earlier,  after finding an old spindle whorl.  But two years later, she and Max have no trouble finding other concerns in present-day Cowichan Bay.  While on a hike, they find dumped garbage bags of horticultural materials, including burned out extension cords.  At night, Hannah who lives on a houseboat spots some mysterious activity around the old rusty tuna boat, Orca I.  And Jack, the raven that has adopted Hannah, is bringing her odd gifts of a cigar butt, an eagle talon, a sliver of abalone, and such.  Then, when a bald eagle dies after hitting the power lines and its body disappears, Hannah and Max are sure they've seen more evidence of the rumoured poachers.

Meanwhile, rebellious teen Izzy Tate who is part Cowichan is shipped off from Saltspring Island to stay with her mom's friend, Ramona in Cowichan Bay, and work at her Salish Sea Studio where she knits sweaters and such in the Cowichan tradition.  Though resentful of this move, Izzy loves drawing, bird-watching and kayaking and quickly adopts an eagle's nest with two eaglets (who she names Oscar and Tango) and their father, Two-Step, ensuring their safety and keeping them fed with fish.

The two girls' stories are told in parallel veins, even for a time after they meet. And when Izzy and Hannah do meet, they see something shocking in each other:  Izzy sees the legendary red-haired white girl with a raven on her shoulder who came from the future, and Hannah sees the likeness of Yisella.  But their lives continue to follow independent paths, with Hannah trying to solve the mysteries of Jack's gifts, the Orca I, and the red 4x4 that seems to be associated with illicit activities, while Izzy tries to resolve issues with her mother, her heritage, and just do the right thing.

I'm so pleased to see that I can add Carol Anne Shaw's name to the list of youngCanLit authors who have successfully targeted the middle-grade book readers. With Hannah and the Salish Sea, Carol Anne Shaw provides young teen protagonists with contexts for their own parent and family issues, first attractions, peer pressures, jealousies, trust, and reactivity while learning to be themselves, not what others want them to be.  Just as in life, some things work, some don't; sometimes they're wrong, sometimes they convince others of their rightness. But, these are journeys they must endure, time-travel not excluded, to solve the mysteries within and without.  Within the framework of a gloriously natural setting, a First Nations history, and contemporary environmental issues, Hannah and the Salish Sea is sure to draw new readership from those who don't want to relive too much angst in their books.


n.b. A third book, Hannah and the Wild Woods is planned, taking the teens to Haida Gwaii and dealing with the detritus from the horrific tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.