Oliver Bounces Back!

Written by Alison Hughes

Illustrated by Charlene Chua

North Winds Press (Scholastic Canada)

978-1-4431-8988-0

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

September 2021

 

Oliver is not having a good day. From struggling with his tangled hair and his favourite shirt being in the wash, his baby sister Annie throwing mushy banana in his face and the burning of his toast, the day doesn't start out well. In fact, it gets worse.

From Oliver Bounces Back! by Alison Hughes, illus. by Charlene Chua

With each new mishap, from breaking a shoelace and Carter taking Oliver's blue spot on the reading-time carpet, Oliver's mood slips from annoyed to irritable and then angry. With each new struggle, Oliver's circumstances are recounted through testimonials from his parents, his classmates, the bus driver and his teacher, attesting to the impact these unexpected troubles have on the little boy.

From Oliver Bounces Back! by Alison Hughes, illus. by Charlene Chua

But, he still is able to hope that the day will get better, and he finds small successes help him through, as does an amazing bouncing apricot that helps him see that he could bounce back too, metaphorically and physically. 

So I tried to make the day get better. I drew a picture. I helped out. I thought of my family and friends, and how nice they were being. I even laughed thinking about my sister chucking that banana at my head! Bullseye!

Resiliency has become a big buzz word in the last decade though teaching someone to become resilient is near impossible. However, what is possible is to share strategies that can improve resiliency and author Alison Hughes notes several of these in a page titled "Learning to Bounce" at the end of the story. Strategies like connecting with others, keeping things in perspective and actual bouncing are all demonstrated somewhere in Oliver Bounces Back! but so discretely that it never reads like a PSA or a directive to a child. Young readers will certainly sympathize and empathize with the boy and will see that he is able to pull himself out of that bad day and make it into something better but they won't feel like they are being schooled. However, they will remember a strategy that might work for them when they too are faced with a day when everything seems to go wrong.

From Oliver Bounces Back! by Alison Hughes, illus. by Charlene Chua

Because key figures in Oliver's day give their takes on what happens and Oliver's reactions to those circumstances–it feels like a reporter asking bystanders what they witnessed before talking to Oliver–Oliver Bounces Back! offers different perspectives on the child's day and shows young readers that they are part of something bigger beyond their own troubles. Oliver is part of several supportive communities, at home and at school, that will help him get through anything, if he asks and listens. Even Charlene Chua's artwork promotes the idea that, though Oliver's troubles may seem insurmountable to him, they are small enough to be manageable and put aside or seen through a different lens, thereby allowing coping and recovery. The brightness of her digital art, the affective faces of the children, and the progression of Oliver's reactions as he struggles and overcomes contribute to the message of childhood troubles survived.

 

Without instructing children how they should become resilient, let Alison Hughes, Charlene Chua and Oliver demonstrate that bad days happen but, with a few tools, it's possible to bounce back from any challenges that need to be faced.

From Oliver Bounces Back! by Alison Hughes, illus. by Charlene Chua

Missing Mike

Written by Shari Green

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-045-1

248 pp.

Ages 8-12

May 2018

With high summer temperatures and low precipitation predicted for the western provinces this year, there could be record wildfires again like the ones that imposed extensive evacuations on Fort McMurray in 2016. The circumstances of those forced evacuations and the tragedies and stories embedded within cannot be easily told or read but Shari Green has the voice, the words, and the heart to tell it in her newest middle grade novel Missing Mike.

It's summer in Pine Grove and, because of the weather, lightning strikes and human carelessness, the community is on alert to evacuate. Like everyone, ten-year-old Cara has been instructed to pack up a change of clothes "and a few treasures" (pg. 12), though what she treasures most is Mike, her one-eyed, rust-coloured dog whom they'd adopted two years earlier. But when the orders come out to evacuate, Mike is gone from the yard. Cara tries to go in search of him, sure he's headed to the nearby creek, but her father prevents her, telling Cara there is no time and they must leave.  

After a harrowing highway drive to shelter at a community centre in a neighbouring community, Cara, her older sister Sloane and their parents are billeted with Jasmeet and Bill Bains and their thirteen-year-old foster daughter, Jewel. But it's not home.

A truth zooms through me
squeezes my insides
settles
heavy as a brick:
this place
these strangers
this makeshift home that is anything
but home...
we're meant to stay here. (pg. 50)

Everything seems to be changing and that just adds to Cara's persistent worry about Mike.  She learns her best friend Heather and her family may not return to Pine Grove, as her dad might not have a job to which he should return. Sloane, who used to be Cara's protector, is spending lots of time with a young man evacuated with his baby daughter. Worse, the news coming out of Pine Grove is not good and worries about their home being destroyed are very real. It's all too much for Cara and, reassured by Jewel, she is determined to do all she can to find Mike.

"He got lost," she says again,
"which means he can get
found." (pg. 65)

I'm not going to tell you how Missing Mike ends but (spoiler alert!) I can reassure you that Mike does not die. That may have been my biggest concern but Missing Mike was still a heartbreaking story to read. Cara's love for Mike is so deep that her anguish at being separated from him is palpable. She envisions a multitude of scenarios that Mike might be enduring or anticipates where he might be, alternating that distress with reflections on the things she and he did together. But more than the story about a missing dog, Missing Mike is about home and the different configurations it might take. Cara who spends some time working on crosswords, realizes that the synonyms for home are not always structures. They can be feelings and people and more.

Shari Green, who has impressed all readers with her exceptional novels in verse (Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles, Pajama Press, 2016; Macy McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess, Pajama Press,  2017) does not disappoint with this latest middle grade novel in free verse. The genre is a tough one to write but Shari Green has perfected it. She gets the voices dead on with a limited vocabulary and still tells an honest story about a family's response to disaster and specifically a young girl's determination to be reunited with the dog she loves and finding home whatever and wherever it may be.

I bet if you asked one hundred people
you'd probably find
there are one hundred words for home.
Turns out 
home isn't always with family
but often it is.
It isn't always a place
but sometimes it is.
It isn't always within your grasp
but when you find it
you know to
hold on. (pg. 230)

Scam

by Lesley Choyce

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-1174-4

113 pp.

Ages 12+

RL 3.2

April 2016

At 15 short chapters and a mere 113 pages, and a story plotted by Lesley Choyce (see my reviews of Jeremy Stone and Into the Wasteland from Red Deer Press, 2013 and 2014 respectively), Scam is a valuable addition to Orca Book Publishers' Orca Soundings series of hi-lo books for teens with a story that explores the resiliency of youth.

Scam begins with sixteen-year-old narrator Josh Haslett dealing with the death of his mother.  Josh has always thought of himself as a “good cover-up artist”  (pg. 3) as he had taken care of the household after his dad left and mom had continued to party and do drugs and he had kept social workers oblivious to their situation.  But on the way to his mom’s funeral, as arranged by social work, Josh is scammed of his paltry wallet by a beautiful teen named Lindsey.  Frantic, he chases after her and gets his wallet back but she insists on going to the funeral with him.

As Josh is taken into a group home with other male teens, he continues to meet up with Lindsey who involves Josh in a number of scams, including the theft of wedding gifts, while insisting that she can teach him how to take his own efforts of working the system to the next level.  But Josh knows the difference between survival and cheating others, and he is as uncomfortable with her scamming as much as he is drawn to her.  After helping out at a camp for disadvantaged kids and providing Lindsey with the emotional support she needs after a death in her own family, Josh realizes that somethings that seem very tenous can be very real, even if fleeting.

Lesley Choyce capably gets into the heads of young people, whether they be dealing with dysfunctional families, drugs, mental health or just growing up.  In Scam, Lesley Choyce takes on the issues of grief and trust, and demonstrates that we all need a little help sometimes and that the help can come from the unlikeliest of sources, even those in which we don’t always have confidence.