All Good Children

by Catherine Austen

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-55469-824-0

300 pp.

Ages 14+

2011

Here's a way to start out 2012: read about a future that is so terrifyingly probable that you wonder how we're ever going to stop it from happening.  Catherine Austen's All Good Children may be science fiction but it certainly alludes to the direction we may be heading.  How many readers have heard a teacher, librarian, parent or any adult who works with young people declare repeatedly about young troublemakers taking all of their time and efforts?  If you have, then All Good Children could be our future, sadly.

Max Connors and his best friend, Dallas Richmond, would both consider themselves fifteen-year-old troublemakers and smile at that label.  In their gated community of New Middleton, owned by Chemrose International, they pull a lot of pranks, don't hold back their opinions of others, live for their RIGs (Realtime Integrated Gateways) and religiously follow Freakshow, an "entertaining" reality show in which deformed adults (as a result of chemical contamination) compete against each other.  The boys and their families are actually very fortunate: first, by living in a region devoid of environmental disasters such the drowning of New York City or desiccation of Phoenix; second, by living in homes in New Middleton, rather than the tents or shanties of the forests outside the gates; and, third, by attending academic schools because of their genetic status (Dallas is an ultimate, and Max a best-of-three) and not being the throwaway kids of the trade schools. 

In fact, Max's little sister, Ally, a six-year-old, has been very fortunate having missed the first week of school when the family (Mom, Max and herself) attended a funeral in Atlanta.  Upon their return, Ally notes that all the Grade 1 and 2 students are acting kind of slow and fuzzy, emoting very little, repeatedly using phrases about being lucky to be in school and that all their teachers deserve respect.  Consequently Ally is cited as not fitting in at her academic school and transferred to a trade school.  With a bit of investigating at the middle school, Max, his brilliant but quirky neighbour, Xavier, and Dallas learn of a new motivational leadership program called NEST (New Education Support Treatment) being delivered to all students, youngest first, via vaccination.  Max's mother, a nurse at a geriatric facility where patients are subjected to a similar treatment,  is determined not to allow her children to be vaccinated and initiates plans to evade the mandatory program.

While the plot keeps the reader on edge, anticipating exposure of Max and Dallas' deception and the family's plan for evasion, the moral dilemma of identifying children as "good" or not and consequent programs to improve their status was far more compelling to me.  Skillfully, Catherine Austen ensures that Max is seen as a smart aleck kid who has moments of brilliance and compassion, helping the readers clarify their own perspectives on this new world and its way of doing things.  Does Max need to be turned into a "good" child or is he already such a child, just an individual?  Who is able to judge a child's "goodness": a parent/guardian, a principal, a teacher, the child?  Think about the number of mothers of criminals who will claim that their children have good hearts or would never have done anything like that.  Really?  Should I trust their assessment or look to the evidence?  Having seen enough students similar to Max in my classes, I would never classify him as a "good child" but I would surely support his right to be an individual.

Moreover, while mass vaccination of a population is not unusual (e.g., against polio and small pox), their use to ensure compliance and the lack of opportunity to decline treatment is more akin to forced psychiatric drugging than "motivational leadership".  A rose by any other name?  Be the child or the parent/guardian and the perspectives may be very different, whether it is called nesting or psychiatric treatment.  Dallas' father certainly has a different perspective than his son and Max's mom.

As in her first book, Walking Backward (Orca, 2009), which was shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association's 2010 Book of the Year for Children Award, in which a family comes to terms with the mother's death, Catherine Austen poignantly reveals the psychological workings of a family under duress with parent and children all searching for clarity and understanding and always hope.  Charmingly, hope is offered in a country called Canada.

New #kidsCanlit for 2012

Fearful that you might miss out on the release of the last Hunchback Assignments or the final The Boy Sherlock Holmes Case?  Do you know when Marsha Skrypuch's Making Bombs for Hitler will be available?  Check my calendar below for some of the more prominent #kidsCanlit I'm tracking that are scheduled for release in 2012. Titles in blue indicate those reviewed previously. (n.b. Titles listed here include only those currently listed for release.  Updates will be announced regularly.)

Little Jane Silver

by Adira Rotstein
Dundurn
978-1554888788
268 pp.
Ages 9-14
2011

The yarns that Long John Silver the Second and Adira Rotstein weave are the rich tales told before roaring fires on winter's nights, when the seas are too cold for pirating and the coffers too empty for shopping.  They're stories of heroes and villains, kindness and treachery, gentle rocking and violent swordfighting.  Luckily for readers, Rotstein's stories are meant solely to entertain and will not result in the inadequate education that Little Jane Silver may endure courtesy of her father's tongue.

Of course, Little Jane Silver is in rapture of her father's story-telling, just as she adores her parents, Captains Long John Silver the Second and Bonnie Mary Bright, as they do their only child.  Little Jane (how she despises that inescapable moniker) hungrily absorbs the details of their pirate lives in hopeful preparation for her anticipated entry into the family business.  During the cold, rainy season, Little Jane lives at her family's inn, the Spyglass, at Smuggler's Bay.  But during the warms months, she joins them and their crew on the Pieces of Eight, pirating, smuggling and hiding loot on the cursed Nameless Isle (actually only her parents are able to hide the loot without harm).

At age twelve, however, Little Jane realizes that she isn't regarded as a pirate to be respected or feared and she begins her training by making observations in her journal, How to be a Good Pirate, as advised by the ship's cook, Ishiro.  Unfortunately, Jane's observation skills earn her the directed wrath of the boatswain, Ned Ronk, whose intimidation and mutinous attitude will ultimately separate Little Jane from her parents and put their lives and happy family in danger.

Adira Rotstein balances the language and jargon of pirates with the subtle humour that affords the text the lightness to scoot the story into a high-seas adventure.  When Little Jane's fencing tutor is described as "upper crust" (pg. 69), the young girl suggests that it would be more fun to be the fruit filling.  Even a misunderstanding about her father by nasty Charity and Felicity ("cannibal" for "cannonball"), when Little Jane tells them that "a cursed cannonball chewed off his foot" (pg. 246), results in Little Jane declaring, "how could I be the daughter of a cannonball? Ain't anyone ever told you babies don't come from cannons? Artillery's got nothing to do with it"(pg 246).  Yet the depth of feelings demonstrated by Little Jane and her parents for each other is very clear, ultimately leading Long John Silver the Second to declare that they would survive so that he might tell Little Jane his true story and Little Jane promising to find her parents.  Sadly, the reader will need to wait until the next book in this series,  Little Jane Silver and the Nameless Isle, comes out in September, 2012 to learn the fates of Little Jane, Long John Silver the Second and Bonnie Mary Bright, as masterminded by the friend-turned-foe, Fetz.

Blood Red Road

by Moira Young

Doubleday Canada

978-0-385-67183-5

459 pp.

Ages 14+

2011

Moira Young's debut novel, Blood Red Road, begins as a dust storm: sudden, painful, devastating and gritty.  In their post-Wreckers world at Silverlake, eighteen-year-old Saba and her family endure the lack of rain and resources, looking to the stars for guidance and the landfill for materials. After a violent dust storm, accompanied by lightning, which turns everything red, life just shifts from bad to worse.  Men on horseback murder her Pa and abduct her twin, Lugh.  Leaving her shanty existence for the first time, Saba pursues her brother's trail, accompanied by her pet crow Nero and her nine-year-old sister, Emmi.  Learning more about her parents' early lives and their stay in Hopetown, Saba heads for the brutal town where the violent Tonton, who took Lugh, control the people and slaves with the use of a drug, chaal.  Unfortunately, it's Saba's anger and tenacity that make her attractive to Rooster Pinch and Miz Pinch, who press her into the brutality of cage-fighting (as the "Angel of Death") by threatening Emmi.  Sadly, only if they escape Hopetown do Saba and Emmi have any chance of finding Lugh. 

Their isolation at Silverlake has not prepared Saba for the multitude of characters that she encounters in her quest for Lugh, making it difficult for her to assess accurately their true natures, sometimes not until it is too late.  Her most difficult relationships seem to be with Emmi and with Jack, a young male cage-fighter.  Saba continues to vacillate between trust and resentment, often overlooking the insights of others or almost squandering opportunities for assistance.  As strong as she is physically and emotionally, Saba's misunderstanding and naiveté weaken her, threatening to jeopardize her self-imposed mission.

The grittiness of the story is matched by the text, told from Saba's perspective and in her words, just as she speaks them.  She trusts the red hot in her stummick that tells of her raging anger and she knows about talkin an fightin but not about books or history or the technology of the Wreckers such as their bolt shooters or long lookers. The text can be disconcerting to read, with its lack of quotation marks for dialogue and its perfunctory spelling, but it emphasizes the reinvention of a society to its most fundamental - survival.  Literacy and progress have been eschewed as the values of a Wreckers' society whose failure is evident in their abandoned settlements littering the landscape.

Justifiably, Blood Red Road has been compared to Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy with its theme of survival in a dystopian world led by a despot and his cohorts who rule over the suffering masses.  Luckily, another commonality lies in the book's inclusion in a trilogy.  To my great relief, Blood Red Road is just Book 1 in the Dust Lands trilogy so readers (particularly those reading it in the White Pine reading program) can look forward to a sequel in 2012.  My own heavy heart at the end of my reading of Blood Red Road has been assuaged, knowing that soon enough I will learn more about Jack's pre-Saba life, the mystery of DeMalo and the nature of Saba, Lugh and Emmi's new life at the Big Water.

Falling for Henry

Written by Beverley Brenna

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-442-7

281 pp.

Ages 12+

2011

Discontented Kate Allen hardly seems a substantial enough character (except for her full figure) to carry her from the 21st century back to 1507 to connect with young Prince Henry, Duke of York, future king.  But, a bizarre incident in a tunnel slips Kate back in time to become Katherine of Aragon, widow of Henry's elder brother and soon-to-be first wife of Henry VIII himself.

Amazing circumstances for a young girl, unhappily living with her older sister in London, following the accidental death of their father in New York.  With a mother who disappeared when she was quite young and a grandmother in Brighton, Kate moves to England where her sister, Willow, is attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.  During a school field trip to Greenwich, claustrophobic Kate enters a tunnel and strangely witnesses a hunting party led by a red-haired young man who kills a buck; a young girl on a gray mare hiding from the others; and a wolf cub and a snarling adult. Although she's convinced she is imaging things, Kate warns the teacher of the presence of wolves, setting herself up for more humiliation from her peers who claim there have been no wolves in Britain for centuries.

Back in the real world, Kate is surprised by the attentions of an older schoolmate, Hal, who takes her out, kisses her, and makes her feel special.  But, while taking out the garbage, Kate sees Hal kissing another girl, petite and blond.  This chain of events, including Kate wearing a stunning blue dress (an unused costume from Willow's current play, Henry VIII) that Willow planned to alter for her, seems too contrived for this reader, especially as Kate, desperate to get out of sight, boards a bus and ends up back in Greenwich at the tunnel where she first slipped back in time.

Regardless, Kate enters the world of Katherine of Aragon, daughter of the King of Spain, love interest of Prince Henry, charge of  Doña Elvira, and confidante of William Fitzroy, the Prince's companion, who is tending to an injured wolf cub, though wolves have been outlawed.  While she has some inherent knowledge of Katherine's life, Kate lacks many memories, stumbling her way through her days of being courted by Henry, while keeping her contemporary insights at bay.  However, the erratic nature of Kate's memories as Katherine (e.g., she cannot remember gifting the astrolabe but knows she practised equestrian arts as a child) as well as Henry's acceptance of her use of words such as technology (pg. 226) continued to throw off my temporal train of thought, often leaving me unsure of what Kate knows and how she would react.

Luckily, Beverley Brenna undertook an exhaustive research regarding Henry VIII, wolves in Britain, an illness called the "sweating sickness" and all manner of Tudor customs, providing young readers with an authentic perspective on British history, made all the more intriguing by focusing on Henry VIII's life as a charming young prince rather than his disreputable nature as a husband.  Although the parallels between Kate's and Katherine's lives seem somewhat fabricated (e.g., suitors Hal-Henry, mothers Isobel-Isabella, dogs Patch-Patch, friend William-Will), the lesson Kate learns, that "No matter how long it takes...the best any of us can wish for...is to fill our place" (pg. 265), cannot so easily be manipulated and is one she will need to work out for herself.

Making Bombs for Hitler

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-0730-3

186 pp.

Ages 8-12

2012

The title of Marsha Skrypuch's newest book may blindside you, even knock you senseless about reading it, but it would be a shame for anyone not to read this compassionate historical fiction about a little known tragedy of World War II.  As always, Skrypuch demonstrates that she is to be trusted and respected for her ability to transform even horrific history into gentle but honest and enlightening stories.

With Russian Communist rule in Ukraine and Stalin determined to destroy the country to keep it from the Germans coupled with the Nazis heading for Moscow by invading Ukraine, Ukrainians were in an unfortunate position, territorially and psychologically, during World War II.  Sadly, this senseless situation leads to the murder of eight-year-old Lida Ferezuk's father by the Russians and her mother by the Nazis.  Separated from her younger sister, Larissa, Lida is taken with numerous Ukrainian children to Germany to be Ostarbeiter (eastern workers) for the Nazis.

Housed in barracked camps, provided with no clothes or shoes, and essentially starved on watery broth once a day, Lida and other children are slave workers for the Nazis, kept only as long as they are useful.  After showing her skills with needle and thread, Lida is assigned to the Nazi laundry. But, after being gifted a cast-off shirt by the laundress, Officer Schmidt decides Lida has been too privileged and assigns her with five others girls to construct bombs in a compound away from the camp. 

With repeated defeats at the front, many Nazis retreat and, without supervision, the girls begin to sabotage the bombs to ensure they are ineffective.  But, relentless bombing by the Allies destroys the camp, allowing many to escape. Unfortunately, a number of them, including Lida, are captured and taken to a German town where their enslavement is reimposed under a man manufacturing ammunition.  Locked in a basement, they endure inhumane conditions, worsened when they are abandoned by the departing Germans feeling the threat of the Allied forces.

The inevitable arrival of Allied soldiers and their discovery of Lida and others brings the reader small pleasure, as the deaths of many and the images of the starved with legs turning to sticks and teeth loosening cannot be erased or ameliorated.  Even with their rescue and care by compassionate soldiers and nurses, the Ukrainian children are in jeopardy from the Soviets who view them as Nazis, deserving of punishment.  If they do survive the machinations of the Soviets to retrieve and punish them, many will spend years in displaced persons camps, waiting, hoping to be reunited with family.

This heart-breaking story, as told from Lida's young eyes and heart, offers an opportunity for our young readers to get a different perspective of World War II beyond the battles expounded upon in history books or Remembrance Day activities at school or the tragedy of the Jewish people.  It provides an opportunity to see war from a Ukrainian child's perspective, hopefully sparking discussions with grandparents or research to understand more fully the plight of so many during war.  [n.b.  I may begin my own research with A History of Ukraine by Paul R. Magocsi (University of Toronto Press, 1996)]

Being of Ukrainian heritage, recalling vague discussions about Ukrainians dealing with the enemy they knew and the enemy they didn't, I recognize that choices were more akin to gambles, made with the single goal of survival.  As Lida acknowledges, even with the difficulty in believing that people could be so cruel, they saw hope even when there was none, just as Lida tries to see beauty anywhere, just as her mother deemed it was possible.

The Time Time Stopped

by Don Gillmor

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-0231-1

151 pp.

Ages 8-11

2011

Tristan Burberry has come to the conclusion that time is responsible for all his current miseries.  His family has moved and he's at a new school and not even at the beginning of the year when everyone is new.  He desperately wants to visit the zoo and his parents are always at work, having no time for him.  His twelve-year-old sister, Bella, lives for spending time at the mall.  And when he gets on the bus, there is only one seat available - the one beside Lump, the class bully, who threatens Tristan with "getting it" if he doesn't help him change the clocks so the teachers will let the students out early.  In a burst of frustration, Tristan pronounces his hatred of time and his wish for it to end immediately.  Coincidentally, the Time Keeper is walking by and, hearing Tristan, decides to quit his job, tired of all the complaints. 

If it weren't for the tongue-in-cheek humour, I might have wondered if Antoine de Saint-Exupéry had written a sequel to The Little Prince (1943) substituting the concept of time in his search for that which is essential.  Tristan and Bella, in search of the Time Keeper, visit a variety of locales, including the zoo, the mall and a small town, meeting a menagerie of characters, including the Time Bandits and the Thief of Time.  So, as Tristan and his sister look to bring the Time Keeper back from retirement, the Thief of Time with his Time Bandits is looking to possess his machine and go into business selling time.

Gillmor's ever-present wit reminds us of our powerful relationship with time: needing to make time for ourselves; watching time fly; having too much time on our hands; not having enough hours in the day; feeling time sneaking up on us; having no time for friends and family; knowing that time continues to march on; and always wishing for more time, particularly for those circumstances we enjoy.  But, through the puns and slapstick, it is evident that, although there may be a machine to make time,  making time requires experience, patience and judgement.  The book's poignant message in these times of overworked parents, over-scheduled children and a nebulous future makes it an exceptional nominee for this year's Silver Birch Express Award.