Caterpillars Can't Swim

Written by Liane Shaw
Second Story Press
978-1-77260-053-7
256 pp.
Ages 13-18
September 2017

Though sixteen-year-old Ryan Malloy is often treated differently in his small town due to his use of a wheelchair, everything is right with the world when he is swimming.  Because he’s up early even on days when he hasn’t got swim team practice, Ryan witnesses someone disappearing beneath the surface of their local river.  Throwing himself off the bridge, ultimately injuring his shoulder, Ryan saves a school mate, Jack Pedersen, from drowning.  But did Ryan really help Jack out?  When small-town gossip and rumours about Jack’s sexuality and the bullying he endures because of it brings Ryan to Jack’s defense and side repeatedly, the two develop a tenuous friendship.

Not that I'm saying everyone here is like that.  They aren't.  It's just that it seems like this town is frozen in time and a lot of attitudes around here are stuck in the ice.  My mother says she spends a lot of her time at school working on thawing out the attitudes of the kids so that someday things will be different.
   I don't think it's working yet. (pg. 10)

Although Ryan’s best friend Cody is somewhat awkward about Jack and about Ryan’s new relationship with him, the three boys’ embark on a summer trip to a local ComicCon.  During those two days, much is revealed about the teens’ fears, attitudes and confusion about each other but also exposed are the hurts, judgments and burdens they all carry, regardless of the limitations or strengths others perceive them to have.  Whether their relationships, new and old, are enough to make a positive difference in their lives is only evident after a stunning climax of rejection, desperation, and intervention.

Liane Shaw, a former educator including special education resource teacher, has never shied away from tough topics like foster care (Fostergirls, Second Story, 2011), physical or emotional limitations (The Color of Silence, Second Story, 2013) and ASD (Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Second Story, 2016). As in her earlier young adult books, she tackles the prejudices people assert on those who are different, whether perceived or real, and turns them into understanding and acceptance for those differences.  Whether caterpillars can or can’t swim is irrelevant.  What’s important is knowing that metamorphosis is foreseeable and all butterflies and moths are to be appreciated.

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(A version of this review was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)

Kubiw, H. (2017, September). [Review of the book Caterpillars Can't Swim, by Liane Shaw]. Quill & Quire, 83 (7): 39.

Trial by Fire: A Riley Donovan Mystery

by Norah McClintock

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-0936-9

231 pp.

Ages 12+

April 2016

Everybody’s hiding something, big or little.  Everybody tells lies, even if they’re little white ones.  Everybody is a potential suspect until they’re eliminated from the list.  Every smile might be hiding black thoughts and even black actions. (pg. 154)

Teen Riley Donovan has already had a complicated life.  Her mother died when Riley was a baby and her father, who travels extensively as a medical docor with an international charity, left her in the care of her sixties rocker grandfather Jimmy Donovan with whom she toured for years.  Upon his death, Riley has moved in with her mother’s sister Ginny, a police detective, with whom she has just relocated to a small town.

Their moving boxes haven’t even been broken down before Riley discovers the barn of their neighbour, Mr. Goran, on fire and the man trapped within.  In critical condition, Mr. Goran is unable to say what happened, though small-town gossip suggests he set the fire himself for the insurance money.  Riley cannot believe that the kind gentleman from Kurdistan who welcomed them so warmly and spoke so lovingly of his farm would be capable of such fraud or destruction.  Though warned by her Aunt Ginny against poking her nose into police business, Riley discovers a small-town community steeped in bitterness and discrimination against Mr. Goran and knows that their neighbour was the victim, not the instigator.  And Riley sets out to prove it.

Though Norah McClintock's better-known mystery series for young people include her Robyn Hunter Mysteries, Chloe and Levesque Mysteries and Mike and Riel series, Riley Donovan is hardly a newcomer to Norah McClintock's repertoire of crime fiction.  This series which includes at least six titles previously published in Australia is now being published in Canada by Orca Book Publishers and Trial by Fire is essentially our introduction to this young sleuth and fortunately there is a follow-up title, From Above, due out in October. (Earlier English titles published by International Masters Publishers include Breaking In, Picking Up the Scent, Framed, The Secret of Golden Acres, Schooled and Web of Lies.)

While not as gritty as some of Norah McClintock’s other mysteries, Trial by Fire is as packed with the plot twists and turns of any of her award-winning crime fiction.  Moreover, setting it in a small-town, rife with familial connections and intolerant attitudes, adds further tension to this first-rate mystery.  As for Riley, she’s a character whose life adventures I hope we’ll continue to share.  Her past has shaped her into a conscientious and compassionate young woman who sees beyond the surface and endeavours to make things right.  What better grounds to establish a teen solver of mysteries?

250 Hours

Written by Colleen Nelson

Coteau Books

978-1-55-5—641-9

152 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2015

“I don’t want to set them. But it’s like if I don’t do it, something worse will happen.  Watching something burn means I’ve saved a different bad thing from happening.”  He knew it sounded crazy, but maybe she’d understand because there was hurt inside of her too. (pg. 68)

And Jess Sinclair is right.  The hurt that compels him to set fires, hence his 250 hours community service, is also in 18-year-old Sara Jean whose grandmother’s garage is being cleaned out by Jess.  But, while both deal with abandonment issues–Jess by his father eight years earlier and Sara Jean at two months of age by her mother–and have significant relationships with their grandmothers, Jess’s hurt is wrapped up in living with the double-edged discrimination of being Métis as Sara Jean deals with being shackled to small-town life as primary caregiver to her 450-lb. grandmother, Gam.

While the two teens attempt to accept their responsibilities to their families and communities, they yearn to become independent of the hurts that define their lives, and they find themselves drawn to each other, particularly after Sara Jean discovers memorabilia of her Grandpa’s teaching at the local residential school.   But everyone seems to be keeping secrets and the discrimination Sara Jean detects from her boyfriend and his family, her own Gam and Aunt Mim towards Jess and Aboriginal People compels her to learn more, especially after she finds a small pair of moccasins that, unbeknownst to her, Jess is convinced his kokum had made.

Colleen Nelson tells another powerful story (see my review of The Fall, Great Plains Teen Fiction, 2013) in 250 Hours, but focuses on small-town mindedness, the injustice of the residential schools, and family expectations in such a way that the reader will sympathize for Jess and Sara Jean who feel trapped by the stifling suffocation of their histories.  How do you break free to make a new life for yourself when there is so much holding you back?

There’s always a reason to stay.  I guess there has to be better reasons to go. (pg. 69)

Don’t be surprised if you feel enraged by the injustices perpetrated against these young people and against Aboriginal people.  That’s good because we all should be.  I suspect that 250 Hours is a truer reflection of life for many who experience blatant discrimination, whether wholesale as evoked by the residential school situations or  randomly by ignorant individuals, and for youth limited by the influence of family and peers.  Not surprising that everyone seems to know what's best for others. Thankfully, Colleen Nelson makes sure that Sara Jean's and Jess's stories are told, albeit in a fictionalized tale, to give them voice, freedom and limitless possibilities to be themselves.  It’s a powerful story of redemption where none seemed possible.