Hugh Brewster presents ... Titanic stories

~ ~ ~

Titanic & History enthusiasts of all ages:

Join 

author of award-winning Canadian historical fiction and non-fiction for young people and adults

  Hugh Brewster

who presents his research, writing and stories

to commemorate

 the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic 

March 24, 2012
Titanic High Tea, with book talk and signing
Creemore Train Station, Creemore, Ontario
4:30 p.m.

March 29, 2012
Titanic dinner and book launch  
for RMS Titanic: Gilded Lives on a Fatal Voyage
Grano Ristorante, Toronto
6:30 p.m.

March 30, 2012

Titanic talk and book signing 

Royal Ontario Museum,  Toronto

7:15 p.m. 

April 4, 2012 
A Titanic Scandal
An illustrated talk about Lady Duff Gordon, a Guelph girl who became a fashion designer and survived the sinking of the Titanic
Guelph Civic Museum,  Guelph, Ontario
7:00 p.m.


For details about additional events in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Massachusetts, and the U.K., see Hugh Brewster's schedule of presentations here.

~ ~ ~

Deadly Voyage: RMS Titanic, Jamie Laidlaw, Crossing the Atlantic, 1912

Written by Hugh Brewster

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-0465-4

195 pp.

Ages 9-13

2011

Often the voices of the young are rarely heard when major current events occur.  Children and young teens are "protected" by adults who negate their comments, minimize their value or, worse, ignore them completely.  However, as Hugh Brewster demonstrates in Deadly Voyage, the observations and assessments of young Jamie Laidlaw provide a different perspective on the Titanic and its sinking, and perhaps a more accurate one.

Jamie Laidlaw, 14, has been living in England with his parents for the past two years, by virtue of his father's job with the Imperial Bank.  Now, they are returning home to Montreal, with his mom's maid, Rosalie, and their Airedale terrier, Max.  Boarding the RMS Titanic on April 10, 1912 at Southampton, his parents make the acquaintance of numerous wealthy patrons, including Major Peuchen, Mr. Molson (of brewery and banking fame), and Mr. and Mrs. Fortune and their older children from Winnipeg.  Jamie, on the other hand, makes the acquaintance of several passengers who will disembark at Ireland, including eleven-year-old Jack Odell.  As boys will be, Jamie and Jack explore throughout the ship, providing a first-hand account of the design and opulence of the Titanic, from third-class to first-class accommodations, to the different dining rooms, the pool, the Turkish baths, the squash courts and the fully-outfitted gymnasium, and even to the Marconi room from which wireless messages are amazingly sent.  After Jack's departure, Jamie makes a new friend over the animal kennels where Max is being housed.  Johnnie Ryerson is an American boy (with a pet rat he's stowed away on board) who is returning to the States with his family for the funeral of his oldest brother.  Johnnie's curiosity gets the two boys in trouble with their families, as they entertain themselves with some of the Titanic's distractions and pursuing the runaway rat.

When the ship hits the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, Jamie's youthful perspective, even after having to put on his life jacket, watching young men kick a chunk of ice around like a soccer ball, is to think, "But imagine this happening to a brand new ship!  What bad luck!" (pg. 78)  However, his optimism flags after watching the few lifeboats get loaded with passengers and observing the courage and cowardice evident amongst the passengers and crew.  While his mother wants him to board a lifeboat, Jamie insists on staying behind to look after his father.  (Johnnie, however, is forced by his father to join his mother and sisters on a lifeboat, a decision that will haunt Johnnie forever.)  Left on the ship with his father, Jamie seems to come-of-age, standing shoulder to shoulder with men to prevent others from clambering into the lifeboats, helping to release another lifeboat, and ultimately, as "every man for himself", plunging himself into a huge wave to get clear of the sinking ship.

Hugh Brewster, whose award-winning non-fiction and fiction emphasize key historical events in Canada's past, demonstrates how to take a well-recorded subject (i.e., the sinking of the Titanic) and see it from a different and fresh perspective.  By giving young Jamie a voice, as he grows from a boy to a young man, and later as a grandfather looking back at the events, Deadly Voyage epitomizes the experiences of the Titanic passengers and others affected by the tragedy.  Coupled with the historical notes, glossary, and photographs, Deadly Voyage provides a comprehensive fictional non-fiction exposé of the Titanic's sinking, which only a seasoned writer such as Hugh Brewster could have produced.

***

Look for additional news about Titanic presentations and book lists in the next week, all in preparation for commemorating, on April 15, 2012, the 100th anniversary of its sinking.

Middle of Nowhere

by Caroline Adderson

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-132-8

214 pp.

Ages 8-12

2012

Nowhere is a place like no other.  It seems endless, remote and isolated (even more than the beautiful British Columbia of Middle of Nowhere).  If you have hold of someone’s hand when in nowhere, it doesn’t seem so bad.  But what if the hand is absent, and someone else is practically pulling off your hand looking for support?  Do you let nowhere swallow you or do you look for a new hand? Can you choose poorly or is every option viable?

Curtis Schlanka is only 12 but he seems like a boy who has already lived through a lot.  He was five-and-a-half years old when his mother took off after her boyfriend, Gerry, leaving Curtis’ kindergarten teacher to contact Social Services.  At the Pennypackers’ foster home, he had to endure nasty bullying from their nine-year-old son, Brandon, until Curtis’ mother returned and proved she was a fit mother to her new baby, Artie, and was able to take Curtis home too.  She was working hard at getting her high-school equivalency while working the night shift at Pay-N-Save, and doing her best to provide for her two sons. 

So when she doesn’t come home, Curtis is pretty sure, ten out of ten, that she’ll be back.  Coincidentally, the elderly woman in the house next door, Mrs. Burt, injures her hip and recruits Curtis to run some errands for her.  Mrs. Burt and Curtis soon recognize the mutual benefit of helping each other.  After the police are called in (since their apartment’s rent didn’t get paid), the boys stay hidden at Mrs. Burt’s, aiming to evade Social Services.  Happily, they avoid the authorities while helping Mrs. Burt too, who enjoys mothering the boys, especially five-and-a-half year old Artie, whose screaming and crying fits subside with her TLC. 

With school almost finished, Mrs. Burt suggests going up to her cabin for a holiday, all the while assuring Curtis that he can keep trying to contact his mom should she return.   So, in her 1957 Chevy Bel Air, they travel to the remote cabin where the boys are nourished by the sun, Mrs. Burt’s great cooking and lots of activity, including swimming, fishing and gardening.  While Artie grows emotionally closer to Mrs. Burt, Curtis begins to suspect that she has her own agenda, confirmed when summer turns to fall and they do not return for school.

As manipulative as Mrs. Burt may sound, she is nothing more than an elderly woman who lives on her own and isn’t very mobile but refuses help or even advice from her “Big Shot” daughter in Toronto.  The boys’ missing mother provides Mrs. Burt with an opportunity to be valuable and in control again.  Mrs. Burt never harms the boys, only cares for them as she would her own grandchildren, but Curtis realizes that they are relinquishing control to her, giving up the opportunity to connect with their mom (which is all they wanted when avoiding Social Services). 

The nowhere of the boys’ lives could be the remoteness of the cabin, as Curtis realizes when there is nowhere to go for help; it could be the untethered nature of their relationship, which provides them only with superficial supports of food, shelter and parenting; or it could be a temporal nowhere, neither at the beginning or middle or end, never knowing how many sleeps until Mom returns.   Ultimately Curtis realizes that Mrs. Burt is in a nowhere of her own: between a life filled with working in a lumber camp, caring for her family, and being an independent woman to one of reliance, immobility, seclusion and death.  Caroline Adderson’s storytelling emotionally engages the reader in Curtis’, Artie’s and Mrs. Burt’s fears of their nowheres, while offering hope about the nowhere in which the boys’ mother exists.  Curtis’ voice is distinct, both trusting and hesitant, well-balanced with the tone of the narrative, as he learns that nowhere is just a product of a flawed perception.  Nowhere is always somewhere – the chances are ten out of ten.

Manitoba Book Awards: 2012 Nominees

I often forget how expansive Canada is until I have to announce all the regional and provincial book award programmes.  Then, I find myself blogging post after post of worthy Canadian books, authors, illustrators and publishers which really do reflect the unique nature of each area.  As such,  it's only fitting that there are the Manitoba Book Awards which are administered by the Manitoba Writers’ Guild and the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, with assistance from their numerous partners (Aqua Books, Friesens, the Manitoba Arts Council, Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Tourism, McNally Robinson Booksellers, Prairie Fire, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, the Winnipeg Foundation, the Winnipeg Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts).

The 2012 nominees for the Manitoba Book Awards were announced yesterday, with the presentation of awards scheduled for the gala on Saturday April 28th at the Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain and hosted by Drek Daa.  If I was fortunate enough to live near Winnipeg, I'd be delighted to attend this event which is free and open to the public.

The Manitoba Book Awards consist of the following thirteen categories:

• Aqua Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de poésie

• Best Illustrated Book of the Year / Meilleur livre illustré de l’année

• Manuela Dias Book Design of the Year / Prix Manuela-Dias de conception graphique en édition

• Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book

• Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award / Prix littéraire Carol-Shields de la ville de Winnipeg

• Michael Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction

• Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction

• Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction / Prix Alexander-Kennedy-Isbister pour les études et essais

• John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer

• Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher / Prix Mary-Scorer pour le meilleur livre par un éditeur du Manitoba

• McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award

• Younger Category
• Older Category

• McNally Robinson Book of the Year

As I always do like to focus on the awards for younger readers, I've included the short-listed nominees for the McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award.

In the Younger Category:

Annie’s Bright Idea: A Christmastime Adventure 
by Audrhea Lande
Illustrated by Jenny Prest
Self-published

Nanabosho and the Butterflies 
by Joe and Matrine McLellan
Illustrated by Jackie Traverse
Pemmican Publications

S is for Science: A Discovery of Alphabet 
by Larry Verstraete
Sleeping Bear Press

In the Older Category:

Case Files: 40 Murders and Mysteries Solved by Science 
by Larry Verstraete
Scholastic

Kingdom of Trolls 
by Rae Bridgman
Sybertooth

Tori by Design 
by Colleen Nelson
Great Plains Teen Fiction






 
Find more details on this year's nominees at the Manitoba Writers' Guild or about the awards in general at the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers .

The Agency: The Traitor in the Tunnel

by Y. S. Lee

Candlewick Press

978-0-7636-5316-3

373 pp.

Ages 12+

2012

Mary Quinn, née Mary Lang, rescued from hanging (she was a 12 year-old-thief) by Anne Treleaven and Felicity Frame, is now a full member of  The Agency, a covert operation that uses women agents to investigate suspicious activities in Victorian London.  In her first cases (A Spy in the House, Candlewick, 2010; The Body at the Tower, Candlewick, 2010), Mary learned to disguise herself effectively, first as a lady's paid companion and then as a young boy, and now she is  employed as an upper housemaid at Buckingham Palace in order to investigate several recent thefts.  Also similar to her earlier cases, she connects with the intriguing Mr. James Easton, of Easton Engineering, a man who incites both anger and affection in her.

Much in the style of Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mysteries, the reader becomes acquainted with Victorian society from Queen Victoria and her family through the honourable upper class to the domestic servants and the working poor and below all are those whose heritage (e.g., Asian) and vices (e.g., opium, thievery) afford them nothing.  As an undercover agent, Mary has learned to adjust herself according to her company but she can never hide from herself the fact that her father was a Chinese sailor, making her "half-caste".  That said, when the Prince of Wales, Bertie to his mother, Queen Victoria, becomes enmeshed in a murder in which an Asiatic sailor named Lang Jin Hai is arrested, Mary must reconcile her emotions regarding her long-lost father.

In the true fashion of a well-plotted mystery, all encounters, actions and words provide layers to the mystery.  The thefts and murder, already intertwining Buckingham Palace and Mary's father, become further entangled with the suspicious ventures of the Queen's lady-in-waiting, Honoria Dalrymple; the courting of a fellow domestic by the unscrupulous reporter Mr. Octavius Jones; lack of communication from The Agency; and intimate and invaluable meetings with Mr. James Easton.

Just as great mysteries are tightly woven to prevent comprehension from penetrating too easily, they are said to unravel, thread by thread, sometimes more quickly, sometimes with resistance.  As such, The Traitor in the Tunnel is a great mystery, dense with characters and subplots and the palpable Victorian London atmosphere, in which the single loose thread needed to unravel it is elusive.  But Mary Quinn, with James Easton's assistance, is dauntless in her search for answers.  Ultimately it is only the enigma that is Mary herself that must be resolved.

Author Y. S. Lee's text is rich in picturesque detail leading the reader through the rooms of Buckingham Palace to the dankness of the underground tunnel and sewer system of London circa 1860, creating an entity of the setting itself.  Coupled with authentic dialogue, varying depending on the characters, and Mary's introspective voice, The Traitor in the Tunnel's multi-fold mysteries and romantic flavour will engage the reader completely and leave them anticipating great new beginnings for Mary.

Virginia Wolf

Written by Kyo Maclear
Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
Kids Can Press
978-1-55453-649-8
32 pp.
Ages 5-10
2012

As all readers do, I tried to predict the story of Virginia Wolf, without reading the jacket flaps or blurbs. I was sure it was a retelling of a story in which a wolf named Virginia went after a little girl in a yellow dress, treeing her. I should have known that Kyo Maclear, author of Spork (Kids Can Press, 2010) and adult book, The Letter Opener (HarperCollins Canada, 2007) could not pen such a superficial story.  She didn't.

Virginia, awakens feeling "wolfish": dark, unhappy, reclusive, determined to shut out the noises of the world. Her sister, Vanessa, is surprised by the extent of Virginia's doldrums, and unsuccessfully tries to cheer her up. Only when she makes the effort to ask Virginia what she needs is Vanessa successful in using her artistry to engage Virginia and brighten her mood.

In Virginia Wolf, Kyo Maclear's Virginia suffers from "wolfishness", expressively represented by Isabelle Arsenault's frenetic, shadowy illustrations. But Isabelle Arsenault's joyous Bloomsbury of flowers, greenery and iced cakes exemplifies the soothing beauty of Vanessa's artwork which brings relief to her sister's dark mood.

Kyo Maclear's text accentuates the overwhelming nature of Virginia's mood while depicting the nebulous attempts by Vanessa to help her sister. Appropriately, the reversal is gradual, with a swing to help change direction, a ladder to lead upward, and a gray snail that unanticipatedly reaches a mountain top.

"Down becomes up. Dim becomes bright. Gloom becomes glad."

Virginia Wolf is loosely based on the relationship between writer Virginia Wolf (1882-1941) and her sister, painter Vanessa Bell (1879-1961), who both helped establish the Bloomsbury Group, a guild of creative thinkers. The real Virginia Wolf suffered from mental illness, which manifested itself in depression, nervous breakdowns and ultimately her suicide. The sisters' names and the references to their brother Thorby and Bloomsbury suggest that Virginia Wolf is Kyo Maclear's uncomplicated take on depression and how it is experienced intrinsically and extrinsically. The alliance of Maclear's tale with Arsenault's illustrations has produced an accurate, touching, and enlightening portrayal of caring.

***

This unique book trailer for Virginia Wolf, narrated by a young voice, helps promote the need to understand how to help anyone who may feel "wolfish".

Uploaded by kyomaclear1 on Feb 13, 2012 to YouTube.

Author Alice Kuipers: Guest Post

With the recent release of 40 Things I Want To Tell You (HarperCollins Canada, 2012), reviewed here on 02/23/2012, author Alice Kuipers has kindly agreed to share some of her writing tips with her readers.

 Welcome

*   Alice Kuipers   *

I’m really glad to be visiting you during my blog tour – thanks for the terrific, mind-blowing review. I loved reading it (it actually made me cry)!

I thought today I’d post a little bit on a writing tip that inspires me. Just as Bird, the main character in 40 Things I Want To Tell You, loves to give tips and advice, I figured I’d do the same thing!

I have read several writers who’ve said they don’t believe in writer's block. I used to wonder what they meant by that, how could they not believe in it, surely being stuck was part of the writing process. Now I think this tip is one of the most useful writing tips ever. Writer's block is something that real writers don’t have time for. For writers, sitting at their desk and writing is their job and they get on with it. If a story doesn’t seem like it’s working, or a character isn’t doing whatever they’re supposed to do, then a writer can just get up and walk away. They can write something else for a while, or read a book. But they can’t let themselves believe in writer’s block because it’s a waste of precious writing time.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t get confused by what I’m trying to do on the page, and it doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. It’s really hard. Every day, writing is awkward and stressful and confusing and difficult. But if it wasn’t difficult, then I wouldn’t love doing it.

Someone much cleverer than me said, "You earn the good days.” I wish I could remember who, because they are right. By writing through the tough times and through the days when it makes no sense, a writer earns those blessed days when the words flow and the story seems, even for an hour, utterly perfect.

Come and visit me at www.alicekuipers.com for writing tips, advice or just to say hello!

***

If you missed Alice Kuipers TwitterChat about writing on 

March 7, 2012, be sure to check out the Savvy Reader to read her answers to readers' questions.