Tegan and Sara: Junior High

Written by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin

Illustrated by Tillie Walden

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

978-0-374-31301-2

304 pp.

Ages 10-14

May 2023

The names Tegan and Sara are well known to many as the Canadian Indie-pop duo but also producers of the TV series High School, based on their own secondary school experiences. Their Wikipedia page is loaded with accomplishments, collaborations, awards, and activism. But, for Tegan Quin and Sara Quin to become who they are today, they had to navigate the ups-and-downs of the middle grade years and puberty, all while trying to maintain their most important relationship, that of identical twins. This is the story of those Junior High highs and lows.

From Tegan and Sara: Junior High, written by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin, illus. by Tillie Walden

It's the beginning of their Grade 7 year and everything is new for the twins. First, their mom Sonia and stepdad Bruce have moved houses to be closer to the girls' dad, Steve. That means leaving their old friend Faiza and making new friends. But the girls will now be in separate classes so there is an added element of anxiety that their lives are more separate than they're used to. And Tegan and Sara are very close. Still, though they may be identical in their appearance, they do differ in their personalities. (Illustrator Tillie Walden tries to keep the two different in the artwork, when she can, by drawing Sara in red and Tegan in blue, though most of the illustrations are in violet.) So, when they meet Noa, Chloe, Vincent, and Avery, it's Tegan who becomes fast friends with Noa, much to the annoyance of obnoxious Avery who claims Noa as her own best friend and to the disappointment of Sara who is less concerned with becoming popular and more with remaining friends with Faiza.

From Tegan and Sara: Junior High, written by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin, illus. by Tillie Walden

But then Sara meets Kaito from her science class and his friend Roshini and things take another turn. While the twins navigate puberty–and all the surprising changes that come with it–and friends and family, two significant developments arise. First, the girls discover a guitar and start delving into song writing and performing. Second, they both develop crushes, Tegan on Kaito and Sara, much to her surprise, on Roshini. While doing things differently is normal, the twins rely on each other for support, and when things start to go awry, whether it's one getting her period and not telling the other or one exposing secrets that should not have been shared, Tegan and Sara find themselves in conflict. Can they be there for each other to get through the bad times and celebrate the good or will people and other things come between them?

From Tegan and Sara: Junior High, written by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin, illus. by Tillie Walden

Junior high and middle school is always tough. There are so many changes happening for young people, both inside and outside of their bodies, and figuring them out is even tougher when they don't always know whom to trust for support. Tegan Quin and Sara Quin certainly represent what middle graders might be going through as they confront new circumstances at home, at school, with friends and with their own bodies. But what Tegan and Sara understand best is how it feels to be and live with an identical twin. It's that relationship that is key to them becoming the successful musical duo they have and getting through those middle grade years undefeated. Yet their story highlights the fact that Tegan and Sara are their own people with their unique likes, dislikes, insecurities, worries, skills, and more, and, in the context of middle grade angst, they show grit.

Tegan and Sara: Junior High will be a welcome graphic novel for middle grade readers who may or may not know the twins as the singer-songwriters they are, but they will know the uncertainty of figuring out themselves with the coming of age. Tegan Quin and Sara Quin may be telling their story, but it's a story that goes beyond the autobiography and becomes more about encouragement and illustration for getting through.

The Winnowing blog tour: Q & A with author Vikki VanSickle

Let's celebrate the release of Vikki VanSickle's newest novel!

The Winnowing

Written by Vikki VanSickle

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-4886-3

312 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2017

Reviewed yesterday here

As part of the blog tour for The Winnowing, Vikki VanSickle kindly answered some questions about her new book.  Her answers are revealing and provide background to the book's premise and her writing of it, and I am delighted to share this interview with readers of CanLit for LittleCanadians.

HK:  Using the word “winnowing”–an agricultural term for cleaning the chaff from the grain–is a brilliant term for the process to which adolescents are subjected in The Winnowing.  How did you ever come up with this term?

VVS:  I actually came up with the title long before the plot or characters, which is something that has never happened to me before. I stumbled across the word in another book and even though it's an agricultural term, it felt eerie to me. I walked around for days thinking 'the winnowing, the winnowing' and eventually ideas started to come together. The first image I had was of the kids gathering at the abandoned pool in the middle of the night for a secret meeting. I didn't even know why they were there, I just liked the image. Things started to snowball from there.



HK:  The process of winnowing comes about to help alleviate the detrimental effects of puberty, like going ACES (Adolescent Chronosomniatic Episodes) and imps (Adolescent Physical Impairments).  The coming of age that is puberty is never an easy transition for young people and this has been a common theme in your earlier novels.  Why make puberty a focus of the government’s control? 

VVS:  I'm obsessed with puberty! I have very vivid memories of that period (pun intended) and how out of control I felt. Everything was so intense. I wanted SO much to be an adult, but I also felt a deep sense of loss, as if childhood was something physical I had left behind and could never get back. It didn't help that the transition was rockier than I expected. I found a lot of solace in books, which is one of the reasons I write for this age group. It's really for my 11-year-old self. Years later as a camp counselor I worked with kids in the midst of puberty and found I was STILL fascinated by it. There's still a lot of shame, confusion, and a lack of conversation around puberty. I like to think I'm adding to the conversation in small ways.

I'm highly aware of the ways in which governments control our bodies already, mostly through health care and legislation. I'm thinking specifically of women's bodies, but this extends to children's bodies and our health and autonomy over our bodies as a human race. I don't think it's that farfetched to imagine a situation in which a government intervenes as drastically as it does in The Winnowing.



HK:  There is much discussion about natural vs. normal when someone who is Natural i.e., conceived without aid of SuperGen hormone, is made to feel abnormal.  The idea of different being worrisome is especially poignant in today’s world.  What message did you hope readers would take from this in light of our current climate?

VVS:  I want readers to think carefully about labels and what they imply. Natural vs unnatural, villain vs hero, conqueror vs refugee, all of these labels depend on the perspective of the person doing the labeling. At the beginning of the book Marivic is a black or white kind of thinker, but as the book progresses she learns to live in the grey space between these opposites. This is also part of adolescence. We teach the concept of opposites very young (think of all those board books: cold/hot, wet/dry, up/down), but as we grow up we learn about ranges, spectrums, and all the possibilities that exist between those opposites. Most importantly, we learn that these differences are okay. Adolescence is an age where people should be expanding their horizons, not limiting them.



HK:  When I saw Dr. Roddenberry’s name, it brought to mind the creator of the original Star Trek TV series, Gene Roddenberry.  Then I noticed several other characters shared surnames with key writers of speculative fiction like J. J. Abrams, William Barton and Lois Lowry.   Is it just a coincidence or did you honour more than several characters with famous writers’ names? 

VVS:  This is definitely intentional! I am a science fiction fan and I wanted to pay homage to creators who made an impact on me. Some of them (like Roddenberry and Lowry) are more obvious than others. I also like the idea of leaving Easter eggs for readers to discover throughout the book. Because there is so much secrecy and conspiracy in the book I thought it would be fun to drop hints and references here and there for the reader in a way that doesn't affect the narrative.



HK:  On your blog at www.vikkivansickle.wordpress.com you write about being a fan of The X Files TV show, even winning a story pitch contest.  The  Winnowing has so many of the elements that made the series popular: conspiracy theories, aliens, the little guy fighting nefarious plots, secret government practices.  Is there any overlap between that story pitch and The Winnowing?

VVS:  That's a great question! The pitch was a response to a scenario the moderator gave us, which was "How does Mulder find out the truth about his sister?" (I'm paraphrasing a bit here). If you're not familiar with The X-Files, Mulder's sister Samantha was abducted (potentially by aliens) when they were kids. This mystery drives him to become an FBI agent and study the supernatural and unexplained. In my pitch, Mulder is called into an FBI tribunal and discovers his sister Samantha is not only in charge of covert FBI operations, but is a double agent for the aliens. So not exactly related, but this is essentially Abrams' biggest fear come to life. I never made that connection before! The mind works in mysterious ways.



HK:  There are probably quite a few YA readers who will be craving a romance between characters.  Is there a reason you chose not to include one?  

VVS:  First love and crushes are definitely a huge part of adolescence, but I think this need is very well serviced in YA and even middle grade fiction. It can be trickier for kids who are not into romance to find books that don't go down that route. I wanted The Winnowing to be another kind of love story, about the love between friends. Marivic isn't motivated by heroism or altruism- in fact she has very little interest in 'saving the world.' She wants to avenge/save her best friend, Saren. At no point during the writing process did it feel natural to give Marivic (or Abbot or Kamal) a crush–they were all far too busy!



HK:  Though you tie up all loose ends in The Winnowing, making it a perfect stand-alone novel, there are many stories within that could still be told.  Abbot’s, Kamal’s or Ren’s stories could all reveal so much more about their world.  Even a story from the perspective of the Kesla is viable.  Are there any plans for follow-up stories? If not, will you continue to write science fiction or speculative fiction?

VVS:  After doing all the world-building for The Winnowing I understand why fantasy and science fiction writers create series.  I have so much material that no one will ever see! It feels like an awful lot of work for one book. That being said, I don't have any plans for a direct sequel. At one point I conceived of a three book ARC for The Winnowing, but in the end I was more interested in telling a small, singular story (Marivic's tale) in the midst of a big, highly conceptual story (what if puberty was dangerous and controlled by the government?) I would like to explore science fiction again. I have been noodling a time travel story around in my head for ages, maybe I'll try that next!

⇲⇲⇲⇲⇲⇲

Thank you to Vikki VanSickle

for sharing her writing with us,

 in The Winnowing and in this Q & A,

 and for allowing us a glimpse into her world.

⇲⇲⇲⇲⇲⇲

You can learn more about Vikki VanSickle 

and her books and writing

at

her blog at https://vikkivansickle.wordpress.com

If you're in southern Ontario this weekend, you can purchase 

a copy of The Winnowing at the Eden Mills Writers' Festival this Sunday 

and even get Vikki VanSickle to autograph it.  Bonus!

The Winnowing

Written by Vikki VanSickle

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-4886-3

312 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2017

“If powerful people believed in a theory, it became real.  It didn’t matter if it was crazy.” (pg. 292)

In Marivic Stone’s world, there are many beliefs that are accepted as real.  There’s the Infertility Crisis that was only resolved by SuperGen, a hormonal shot developed by the Barton Five scientists. There are the stigmatizing changes at puberty that include the Adolescent Physical Impairments a.k.a. imps which produce bizarre traits of superhuman eyesight or hearing or speed or strength, and the ACEs, Adolescent Chronosomniatic Episodes, which are vivid night terrors.  No wonder young people who begin to experience the imps and ACEs are eager to be winnowed at their local center for adolescent health to stop the progression of these horrors.

When the ACEs and imps arrive for Marivic, she is fully prepared to be checked into the Barton Center for Adolescent Health, the facility to which best friend Saren Silver had only gone the day before.  Though she doesn’t know what to expect, as those winnowed have memory impairment, and though she knows complications can lead to death, as they did for Saren’s older brother Lex, Marivic sees the winnowing as a rite of passage in which she is eager to engage.  But things seem less clear when a group of new intakes, including Marivic and Saren and classmates Kamal, Quin, and Tavi, are invited to a covert “Dis-orientation.”  There a young teen, Abbot, tells them that everything they’ve been told about the winnowing and Barton is untrue and that the organization called Winfree, the People for a Winnowing Free World, wants to help them escape before they come to harm. Most of the teens scoff at the idea of the authorities conspiring to hide the truth about the winnowing, ACEs, imps and more but, after learning the next day that Saren died during her winnowing, Marivic goes rogue–“Mrs. Silver could be sad for both of us.  I was going to be angry.” (pg. 121)–and joins Kamal in escaping the facility.

But getting out is just the beginning.  In addition to Abbot, who harbours a secret about his own origins, Marivic and Kamal are introduced to Dr. Lowry, one of the original Barton Five, who reveals the source of the SuperGen and her research on the ACEs; Ren, a young man with whom Marivic is able to communicate telepathically; and Daisy, the proprietor of the Starlight Diner and adopted mum of Abbot.  There are a lot of theories to sort through regarding the truth and lies about the winnowing and SuperGen but some answers will only come when Marivic breaks back into Barton.  She may be on a rescue mission, but she has no idea that she is the key to blowing open the whole conspiracy.

Reaching adolescence is never easy but not as problematic as in Vikki VanSickle’s first novel of speculative fiction for teens.  Just as the term winnowing suggests–cleaning of the chaff from the grain–the adolescents are sanitized from the effects of puberty.  But it’s the wholesale acceptance of the need for this process that is so alarming.  It’s easy to understand how a crisis, like infertility, can establish fear but it’s this fear that allows government and experts to make recommendations that are accepted as necessary.  There’s a type of internal terrorism to promote compliance.  Only when anomalies such as death at winnowing and the existence of those conceived without benefit of SuperGen–Abbot is one of these Naturals–contradict the accepted belief system that the faith and submission are shattered.  But it takes courage and conviction to see beyond the established way of doing things and Vikki VanSickle makes sure that readers see Marivic as someone who is enlightened enough to question these incongruities as important.

In fact, it’s Marivic who is astute enough recognize that it’s the fears of those who are different that are the source of the problems, leading to paranoia and violence.  Whether it’s seeing the Naturals like Abbot as a threat–“…if superhuman is the new normal, then where does that leave me?” (pg. 238)–or seeing danger from those only seeking refuge, fear distorts thinking and creates the very problems they hope to avoid.

Vikki VanSickle has lots to say about fear, distrust, manipulation, and blind submission but also about defiance, courage and winnowing the irrational to reveal the truth.  What The Winnowing teaches us is that there is a need for caution in construing meaning within the realm of fear, as well as for openness and respect for all.

Look for my Q & A with author Vikki VanSickle tomorrow as part of the blog tour celebrating the release of The Winnowing.  Vikki VanSickle reveals much about her path to writing speculative fiction and her enthusiasm for sci-fi and The X Files.

Dingus

Written by Andrew Larsen
Kids Can Press
978-1-77138-661-6
208 pp.
Ages 9-12
May 2017

Dork. Doofus. Dingus.  Variations on a theme.  But Andrew Larsen’s narrator, eleven-year-old Henry will have no problems accepting that final moniker after the conclusion of his fifth grade and the beginning of a summer holiday that seems to hold no promise.

Though Henry likes his Gr. 5 teacher Mr. Buntrock–with his stories, laughter yoga and word-of–the-day–the school year has been one of multiple changes, not the least of which is his growing estrangement from his best friend Max.  Though the two boys have always relished their differences–Max is smarter, taller and wealthier–Max has become so immersed in his winning chess team that he has little time for Henry.  Worse still, Max seems to take pleasure is teasing Henry about wearing Max’s cast-off clothes and more, making Henry the butt of his chess team’s jokes.

At home, things are similarly in flux.  Mom who’d had baby Sam a year ago is returning to work which will require more travel, starting with a trip to Las Vegas the last day of school.  Dad, who’d lost his job just before Sam’s birth, has stayed at home to care for Sam and, by default, Henry. And, of course, there is less money for everything and anything, including a pair of much-admired Chad Baker sneakers.

I was mad at Max. I was mad at his new friends. I was mad at my dad for getting me Chad Fakers instead of Chad Bakers. I was mad at myself for being so mad.
   My life officially sucked.
   I was mad at that, too. (pg. 45)

Adding insult to injury, Max gets to go away to his much-loved chess camp while Henry  sees a summer of nothingness ahead of him.  What Henry doesn’t realize is that Dad’s idea of a staycation will bring him a new set of experiences like outdoors movie night, Elvis sandwiches, and bottle rockets, suggesting that change really is as good as a holiday.

It must be rough being a kid for whom everything feels like it’s going sideways.  What’s worse is when it’s things you can’t control like money, baby brothers, and friends as well as  things you can but don’t because you’re a dingus.  But Andrew Larsen realizes that change, like that of the puberty lessons Henry has to endure at the end of Grade 5, is inevitable and rolling with it rather than fighting it is probably a lot easier.

I know there’s a million middle-graders out there right not who are wondering about their summers, the changes their bodies and minds are going through, and the direction that friendships are heading.  It’s a lot on their plates, especially since things don’t always work out at planned.  But, take solace in that, even if you’re a Dingus–and we are all such goofs some time in our lives–that it’s rarely fatal and often educational, just like mistakes and school.

Feathered

by Deborah Kerbel

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-341-7

144 pp.

Ages 9-13

April 2016

Hope can take many forms and be elicited in a myriad of ways.  For Finch Bennett, an eleven-year-old girl in the summer of 1980–a time of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope, the hostage crisis in Iran, and the Rubik’s Cube-she needs to find some hope, somewhere, anywhere.  Her father died of cancer less than a year ago, her grieving mother is despondent and oblivious to Finch and her older brother Harrison who is also seemingly indifferent to the young girl, allowing his friend Matt to relentlessly torment her.  For Finch, hope might be found in the tiny scar on her neck from which a single white feather had been removed at age 3.  With that scar, Finch reassures herself that a better life, perhaps one of feathers and flight, might emerge.

“That night, I dream about my feathers.  They’ve grown in all white and fluffy and smooth.  And I’m happpy because it means I’m finally able to fly away. I spread my feathered arms and fly up, up, up to where I think I’ll find heaven…where I know I’ll find Daddy.” (pg. 49)

With the arrival of their new neighbours, Finch sees another opportunity for hope, especially with making a new friend of eleven-year-old Pinky Nanda.  This would  be particularly important once dreaded school starts.  School is where Finch is called slow and lazy. It’s where she has major difficulties with writing. And it’s where she sees her former best friend, Karen, has blossomed into a young woman and hangs out with similarly pubescent girls.  But Pinky and her younger sister Padma are staunchly protected by their parents, who argue about how Punjabi Hindus are treated in Canada and do not permit the girls to interact with others.

“It’s at that moment when I see myself right there in her face.  I see a girl who’s trapped in a mess of grown-up problems.  A girl who’s struggling just to figure it all out.” (pg. 94)

Strangely Finch’s only friend becomes an anonymous writer with whom she communicates on a bathroom stall door. That is, until Finch finds the courage to untether herself and communicate her feelings, good and bad, with those impacting her life.

Deborah Kerbel may have written Feathered as a middle-grade novel but Feathered is much more sophisticated than much pedestrian MG storytelling. The writing is brilliant, demonstrating  much depth of spirit and story, taking Finch and the reader beyond the obvious and into the realm of optimism and possibilities, where even a little girl can see that she has it in her to soar above the commonplace and anticipate greatness of action and virtue.  Just like Terry Fox, Finch learns to recognize that the will to try is within her and she may or may not succeed, but there’s always the promise that comes with dreaming.

Flannery

by Lisa Moore

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-076-5

268 pp.

Ages 13+

May 2016

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Oh, Flannery Malone. Flannery, Flannery, Flannery.  You are one of a kind. From your conceptual-artist, parenting-blogger mother, to the father you’ve never met, cherubic-x-devilish half-brother Felix and poor but rich life in St. John’s, Newfoundland, I’m, as they say, delighted to meet you but wouldn’t want to be you.  Actually, for that matter, I wouldn’t want to be a sixteen-year-old girl again and maybe that’s what I don’t envy about you, but you are unstoppable–in a good way– and a delight and your readers should be grateful to Lisa Moore for introducing you to us.

Boys are becoming an issue for Flannery.  Well, one boy in particular: Tyrone O’Rourke.  Though they’d been the closest of friends as kids before he’d moved away when his mom married his step-dad Marty, Tyrone has morphed into a graffiti artist known as SprayPig, sought by the cops, and rarely attends high school.  Regardless, Flannery sees the whole package that is Tyrone, past and present, and she is seriously in love. When she is partnered with Tyrone for their Entrepreneurship class project, he suggests they make potions, just like they pretended to make as kids, marketing them as magic.  But, except for this suggestion, Tyrone is awol for all work on the project, and Flannery ends up conceiving, creating and packaging the four different love potions herself.

But while she is navigating her working and crushing relationship with Tyrone, Flannery’s best friend Amber seems to be steering herself away from Flannery and her competitive swimming and into an all-consuming first relationship with Gary Bowen, a classmate and lead singer of a band whose music video will be the source of their own Entrepreneurship project.  Though Amber is becoming brutally opinionated about Tyrone, Flannery tries to diplomatically warn her friend of Gary’s dark side.  But between first loves and parents as well as the trials of high school society, Flannery and Amber and Tyrone would seem to be going against the current and where they end up may not be up to them.

“So love is work and it’s always changing and it’s making and noticing and needing and giving and definite.  It’s definite.” (pg. 113)

Lisa Moore gets into the head and heart of a sixteen-year-old so effortlessly that it’s surprising that this is her first book of young adult fiction.  Of course, from her award-winning adult fiction–Caught (House of Anansi, 2013), February (House of Anansi, 2009) and Alligator (House of Anansi,  2005)–we know Lisa Moore flawlessly tackles issues of youth and relationships and recklessness head on, never wavering from the task of telling the story no matter how fragile the characters or precarious their situations. And her insight into the tenuous nature of…everything, is evident in Flannery’s outlook and beliefs.

"I had understood about evil. I had seen how it was ordinary and stupid and there was nothing magical or fairytale-like about it.
      It was just a grown-up taking his problems out on a kid. Because he could. Because nobody stopped him.” (pg. 103)

While Lisa Moore doesn’t make everything right by Flannery’s conclusion, she does create closure for most story lines and even a bit of hope–in a kiss– which, just as in life, is sometimes all you can expect.

"Not believing in something requires a lot of effort.  It is easier to believe.  Once I have accepted that something is true, I have a hard time losing faith in it." (pg. 104)

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

I'm thrilled to announce that author Lisa Moore has graciously agreed to read at the Young Adult venue of this year's Eden Mills Writers' Festival on September 18, 2016.  Other YA authors attending include R. J. Anderson, Lena Coakley, Douglas Davey, E. K. Johnston, Sylvia McNicoll, Liane Shaw and Amanda West Lewis, Check back to CanLit for LittleCanadians for a full list of guest authors in the YA and children's venues and for more details.

This One Summer

by Mariko Tamaki

Illustrated by Jillian Tamaki

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-152-6

320 pp.

Ages 14+

May 2014

The anticipation of summer holidays can be overwhelming, especially if you're looking forward to another great summer at a Muskoka cottage where your family has gone for years.  Beaches, water, sunshine, friends, freedom, videos, board games, and no school.  Another wonderful summer at the cottage.  Except that things never stay the same: not people, not places, not experiences.

Superficially everything seems to be the same. The Wallace family is heading to the cottage at Awago Beach where everything seems familiar.  Young teen Rose meets up with her younger friend, Windy, and her mother Evelyn there. They ride their bikes.  They go to the beach and swim. They visit Brewster's, the only convenience store at Awago, for candy, videos and junk food.  They watch videos at night, and play board games.  It's a time for sleeping in and no worries.  Even Rose's parent have their routines: Dad enjoying a beer, making jokes and doing the BBQ thing, while Mom organizes, visits with Evelyn and reads and writes. But there's an undercurrent of unease.

Though only a year and a half different in their ages, best friends Rose and Windy are no longer always in sync in their thinking.  Rose seems to have gone through puberty and is seeing beyond the silliness of their summer antics.  She's crushing on Duncan, the teen working at Brewster's, and eavesdropping on the local teens and her own parents, trying to understand all she hears and sees.  Windy, on the other hand, is always joking around (she calls Duncan "the Dud"), being loud and hyper and trying out new words that seem to get a reaction (like slut and sexy ta-tas).  She notices Rose's distraction and tries to go along with her, realizing Rose knows a lot more that her and can share about things Windy knows nothing.

Two particular dramas seem to be affecting Rose: the friction between her parents, and the relationship between Duncan and his girlfriend Jenny.  Surprisingly, they both involve babies.  Although Rose doesn't really share what she's thinking about either situation, Windy seems to interpret her reactions, often infuriating Rose.  Puberty can be a confusing time, with a perceived loss of youthful innocence and unrestraint and being expected to deal with more mature issues.  And Rose has a foot in both worlds: the one of her fun, curious younger self and the one of conflict, relationships and judgment.

Everyone must remember a summer of awkwardness, in the pre- or early- teen years.  Most of us would choose not to relive it.  But Mariko Tamaki's text suggests that it's a rite of passage for many young people, whether it be a cottage experience–something more common in parts of Canada than others–or a summer in the city.  Friendships are reconfigured to accommodate new feelings and thinking, and with new knowledge, even incomplete, come more questions and insecurities about that knowledge.  The voices that Mariko Tamaki gives Rose and Windy reflect their balancing between childhood and adolescences, just as the language of the Awago teens, heavily peppered with profanity, reflect their perceived invincibility and rebelliousness.  Enhancing Mariko Tamaki's text is the artwork of her cousin, Jillian Tamaki, whose first work together was their highly-acclaimed graphic novel, Skim (Groundwood, 2008).  Her characters reflect their natures so well. Windy is the dark-haired, freckled girl with an extra pound or two of baby fat, though thankfully not affecting her exuberance for life (yet).  On the other hand, Rose is the light-haired, slender girl who doesn't smile as easily and carries her body more stiffly, as if still getting used to it. Moreover, choosing to use the dark blue-purple of indigo for the cover of This One Summer and midnight blue for the illustrations within is an ingenious selection by Jillian Tamaki, reflecting the appearance of brightness on the surface but a darkness within. 

This One Summer is the summer coming-of-age story with which many teens will be familiar and with which many parents would hope their pre-teen girls won't have to experience, at least for a while. 

Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings

Written by Hélène Boudreau
Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
978-1-4022-4412-4
208 pp.
Ages 9+
2010

With the third book, Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels, in Hélène Boudreau's Real Mermaids series scheduled for release this month and after meeting the lovely Hélène Boudreau at the TD Canadian Children's Book Awards in November, I realized it was time to explore this series of books. Shamefully, I must confess to "mermaid" prejudices which, like all prejudices, were completely unfounded. As a teacher-librarian who has a multitude of little girls asking me for princess and mermaid books, I expected Hélène Boudreau's books to be weakly plotted stories with pretty covers in pink and purple, perfect for ages 3-5. Nah uh. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Instead what I discovered is a series of perfect middle-grade reads with complex plotting and lots of "Aha!" moments as connections and revelations twist and enhance storylines. The covers may have beautiful shimmering tones of turquoise, green and pink but these are hardly Disney's mermaid books. And Hélène Boudreau always ends her Real Mermaids books with a recipe courtesy of one of the characters. (The chocolately treat in Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings has become a regular after-dinner dessert in our household.)

Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings introduces almost-fourteen-year-old Jade Baxter, a plus-size teen who lives with her engineer father in Port Toulouse, a town on the Atlantic Ocean. Jade's mother, Michaela, drowned at her Gran's cottage on Talisman Lake less than a year ago. Even though she has the support of her dad and her fashionista best friend, Cori, Jade is finding that going through puberty without a mom is awkward, if not farcical. Imagine getting your period (horrors) while trying on a bathing suit (least favourite shopping for most women) but being unable to tell your best friend because you'd lied about getting it two years earlier (peer pressure, you know) and having to meet your dad at the drug store to pick out an assortment of feminine hygiene products while the boy you've always crushed on, Luke Martin, is trying to chat you up. Oh wait, did I mention that when you get home to take a warm bath with some soothing Epsom salts, you fall asleep and have your legs morph into a tail? They may always tell tweenies that "it's wonderful being a girl" but let's face it: puberty sucks, and even more so for Jade.

      Rubbing my eyes, blinking away the sting, trying to get out, shocked by what I saw breaking through the surface of the water.
     Then, I was yelling for Dad, he was crashing through the door.
     And I had a tail. A shimmering, scale-covered, slimy, wet tail.
     Freak-of-nature suddenly took on a whole new meaning. (pg. 40)

Luckily Dad is working very hard to be both parents to Jade and is there for her, even having to share the startling news with her that Mom had been a mermaid too. The big question - how could her mom have drowned if she was a mermaid? - sadly has no answer. Sadder still is the fact that Jade cannot share any of this with Cori (who is currently very busy hanging out with snooty Lainey Chamberlain in the hopes of getting Mrs. Chamberlain to mentor her in fashion design) or Gran or Luke who surprisingly seems to be chattier to her than before he and his family had gone on a lengthy boating trip.

While taking a break by the canal and lock that link the lake with the ocean, a scuffle in the water has Jade connecting with her mother who tells Jade, in the strange language of sharp ringing sounds, that she is being held by Freshies, mer-people who have been jailed in freshwater Talisman Lake by the Mermish Council. Desperate to free her mother from the clutches of the Freshie leaders, Finalin and his wife Medora, Jade and her father learn everything and anything they can about mer-people in the hopes of bringing Michaela home.

I won't give too much away here, as I'll be reviewing Real Mermaids Don't Hold Their Breath and this month's new release, Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels, in the next few days. Suffice it to say, the humour, the storylines, Jade's pure 14-year-old voice and a startling ending to Book 1 will have you reading the second book asap, just as I did. So do yourself a favour and order Books 1, 2 and 3 at the same time. It'll be worth it.