Rebel Heart (Dust Lands: 2)

Written by Moira Young

Doubleday Canada

978-0-385-67186-6

424 pp.

Ages 14+

2012

When I reviewed Moira Young's debut novel, Blood Red Road, last December (Blood Red Road review), I had no idea the accolades and attention it would garner.  It won the U.K.'s 2011 Costa Children's Book Award, the 2012 Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, Honour Book for the 2012 White Pine Fiction Award, the Simply the Book Coventry Inspiration Book Award and the Rib Valley Book Award, as well as being shortlisted for the 2012 Independent Booksellers' Week Book Award, the 2012 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award and the 2013 MYRCA.  Seems a dystopian world ruled by a despot and his security force where pockets of civilization attempt to survive amidst anarchy is a popular theme nowadays.

After parting ways with Saba at the end of Blood Red Road, Jack has headed to the Lost Cause, the hooch and whores joint run by Molly Pratt.  Jack finds the Lost Cause a shell of itself, courtesy of the vicious Tontons and their new leader who have been actively involved in land grabs and resettlement.  Meanwhile Saba, travelling with her twin brother Lugh, little sister Emmi and the deaf Tommo, seems to be haunted by the dead, particularly Epona, who would've fallen into the Tontons' hands if not for Saba, and all the girls Saba fought and killed in the cage at Hopetown.  Though he openly criticizes Saba and Jack, not wanting to be grateful to them for saving his life, Lugh vacillates between fear of Saba and contempt for her every action, emotion, decision.  And then when Maev, a former ally, tells them that Jack has joined the Tonton, Lugh is convinced that he's been right about Jack all along.  But Saba still believes otherwise, assured that Jack had encrypted a message in his words to Maev for Saba to meet up with him at the Lost Cause. 

After setting off on her own to find Jack, Saba realizes how stifling it has been with Lugh.

He smothers me.  Chokes me.  Pens me in.  Tethers me to him with his worry an sorrow an anger an fear. (pg. 166)

Unfortunately, Lugh, Maev, Emmi and Tommo follow, creating more hardship and opportunities for misunderstanding and criticism.  Entering into New Eden, Tonton territory, in which the new leader, the Pathfinder, has his lair Resurrection, the group meets up with Slim, Travellatin Physician an Surgeon in his Cosmic Compendalorium, a cart pulled by his camel, Moses. Though their intention had been to hijack Slim for his animal and cart, Saba and the others soon realize that Slim has more to offer them, including guidance in navigating discretely through New Eden and ultimately the protection and assistance of those in the Resistance to the new order.  

Just as Auriel, the shaman from the small community on the Snake River, had divined, Lugh dreams of settling land and raising a family whereas Saba wants to be free to soar, destined to have the "courage to act in the service of somethin greater" (pg. 110). With both Saba and Lugh dealing with their own versions of post-traumatic stress disorder, embedded in anger and self-recrimination, their bond is unravelling.  And Moira Young seems loathe to let Saba or Lugh see things straight.  Everything they do is painted with the pain of their experiences and inability to express themselves or ask for help.  Although I became frustrated with Lugh's self-righteousness and Saba's constant second-guessing, I know it was because I was looking for a glimmer of happiness in a wasteland of humanity.  I so wanted Saba to reunite with her brother and accept his appreciation for all she'd endured to save him.  I wanted Saba to reunite with Jack and re-establish their relationship on a foundation of respect and love, not desperation and chance.

Fortunately, Moira Young did not disappoint, even if she didn't take the path of least resistance.  Rebel Heart has storylines converging and diverging, leaving the reader anticipating the best or the worst at different times but never able to guess appropriately.  Over three hundred pages in and I was convinced it was all over.  Within fifty pages of the end, I thought I couldn't bear to go on.  Only thirty pages left and I despaired for the ending I was sure was coming.  My heart lurched with every obstacle and unkindness and poor choice and bad luck, still looking for that resolution that would ease my recurring anguish.  If I thought the grammar and spelling in Blood Red Road was a hardship, I was mistaken.  The torment of Rebel Heart is far more disconcerting.  Even the relief of a long-awaited moment, tender and promising, is fleeting with the realization that a threat is simmering.  How perfectly apropos.

2012 TD Canadian Children's Literature Awards: Winners Announced!

Last night, the Canadian Children's Book Centre and TD Bank Group presented the 2012 TD CANADIAN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE AWARDS at the Ritz-Carlton in Toronto. A spectacular reception preceded the awards ceremony at which six awards were presented. (Le Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse was presented earlier in Montreal.)
 

Hosted by CBC's Garvia Bailey, the program began with addresses by Tim Hockey, President and CEO of TD Canada Trust and Todd Kylie, President, Board of Directors of the Canadian Children's Book Centre.

The selection for this year's TD Grade One Book Giveaway, a free book for all Canadian Grade 1 students, was announced to be I've Lost My Cat by author and illustrator Philippe Beha who delighted the audience with his anecdotes about his book.

Congratulations to the following winners of these auspicious children's book awards. 

 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award 

• $30,000 Award
• Sponsored by TD Bank Group
• Presented by Tim Hockey, President and CEO of TD Canada Trust

   Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse 

• $25,000 Award
• Sponsored by TD Bank Group

     Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award    

• $20,000 Award
• Sponsored by A. Charles Baillie
• Presented by Marilyn Baillie

 

Norma Fleck Award For Canadian Children's Non-Fiction

• $10,000 Award
• Sponsored by the Fleck Family Foundation
• Presented by Quinn Fleck and David Fleck

 

Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People

• $5,000 Award
• Sponsored by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Bilson Endowment Fund
• Presented by  Todd Kylie

John Spray Mystery Award

• $5,000 Award 
• Sponsored by John Spray, President, Mantis Investigation Agency
• Presented by John Spray

Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy

• $5,000 Award  
• Sponsored by HarperCollins Canada
• Presented by Adrienne Hughes

Everything from the hors-d'oeuvres, drink, dinner, company, presentations, champagne, desserts, company, chatting, awards, company, was phenomenal.  Some of the authors and/or illustrators in attendance included: Janet Wilson, Kenneth Oppel, Marina Cohen, Sylvia McNicoll, Gillian Chan, Rebecca Bender, Richard Scrimger, Kevin Sylvester, Natalie Hyde, Hélène Boudreau, Shane Peacock, Susan Hughes, Catherine Rondina, Mahtab Narsimhan, Hugh Brewster, Nancy Hartry, Lesley Livingston, Adrienne Kress, Cheryl Rainfield, Rona Arato, Nancy Runstedler, Deborah Ellis, Dave Whamond, P.J. Sarah Collins, Vikki VanSickle, Cary Fagan, Geneviève Côté, Philippe Beha, Trilby Kent, Deborah Kerbel, Rob Mills, Karen Reczuch, Susan Vande Griek, Frieda Wishinsky, Barbara Reid, Kate Cayley, Andrea Beck, Jo Ellen Bogart, Jean Little - and that small fraction includes only those with whom I spoke, recognized, or remembered.  With 400 persons in attendance, including publishers, publicists, editors, book sellers, literacy specialists and children's lit advocates, the TD Canadian Children's Literature Awards Celebration is an event rich in literati, appreciation, words, camaraderie, and encouragement.  

Thanks to the TD Bank Group and the Canadian Children's Book Centre for hosting such a wonderful Canadian event.

My Book of Life by Angel

by Martine Leavitt
Groundwood Books
978-1-55498-117-5
246 pp.
Ages 14+
2012

A great fan of novels in verse  (see my post on Exceptional Novels in Verse for Young Readers), I was astounded to realize that Martine Leavitt's newest book, My Book of Life by Angel, could be added to this book list.  And while the protagonist is a sixteen-year-old girl and the context is definitely young adult, I would recommend this book to adult readers as well.  The context of the missing women of Vancouver's downtown eastside and the plight of sex trade workers trapped in unspeakable circumstances brings My Book of Life by Angel from YA fiction to social commentary, all in flowing, powerful, Milton-esque verse.

Angel knows how she got on the streets of Vancouver: her mother's death and Angel's predilection for shoplifting shoes (sadly, only one of a pair).  She thinks about her dad and little brother Jeremy, even sending a letter home, hoping for a response.  But as long as her pimp, Call, threatens to hurt Jeremy if she ever leaves, Angel just keeps her head off what she's doing and does it.  Almost like an automaton, she lists her johns:  little old Fred who can't really afford her, John the university professor who talks of Milton, the Preacher, and an endless track of pathetic, nasty, oblivious, arrogant men. And now everyone is wondering if there is a Mr. P who is taking the missing girls.

Her friend Serena had always told Angel about angels being around and, after Serena goes missing, Angel begins to wonder about the possibility of angels watching over them. Angel vows to clean up her act, starting a new story for herself in her journal My Book of Life by Angel, ever hopeful that there really is an angel to help her.

My angel would be a fresh-dead one,
still longing for chocolate cake, 
still wishing she could come back
and find out who won American Idol.

That's the one I want--
just a junior one
who might not mind saving
a girl like me.
(pg.13)

But when Call brings home an eleven-year-old girl, Melli, Angel is determined to work double just to keep Melli from the life of a sex trade worker.  It's her devotion to Melli and Angel's repulsion of the manner in which another sex worker's assault is handled that ultimately mobilize Angel to make things right, at least as right as she can.

Martine Leavitt's My Book of Life by Angel is a hard story.  It has coarse edges that scrape at your heart and at your sense of decency.  But Martine Leavitt never allows the reader to judge Angel or the other sex trade workers, only those who deem to manipulate their victims.  Sadly, there are always those that seek to force their will on others, through power, abuse, drugs and fear, even through academic knowledge. The fact that Call and his cohorts are attempting to legalize the trade, perceiving themselves to be entrepreneurs rather than abusers, speaks to their arrogance.

Regardless of the hard edges of her story, Angel is an ethereal creature whose fluidity of thought and feeling and grace, courtesy of Martine Leavitt's lyrical and just as ethereal verse, transports the reader from the gritty sex trade of Vancouver's downtown eastside and into the hopeful realm where there is mercy, and goodness prevails over evil.

Waiting for reviews? Here's why

Here's where I'm at:

My Book of Angel by Martine Leavitt from Groundwood Books.
Amazing novel in verse.  Edgy, sad, based on true event.






 
Yesterday by C. K. Kelly Martin from Doubleday Canada.
Twisted manipulation of memories. Romance.

Rebel Heart by Moira Young from Doubleday Canada.  
Sequel to award-winning Blood Red Road. I was afraid to finish it, apprehensive where it might go but thoroughly satisfied with its ending.

Good Night, Canada by Andrea Beck from Scholastic Canada.   
Picture book travels across our country.





Those books have all been read.  The reviews just have to be written. We won't even mention the glorious books sitting in my ToBeRead pile.

But in the meanwhile, there have been book award winners and nominees about which to blog:

• Deborah Ellis' True Blue from Pajama Press wins Hamilton Literary Award here
• Rocky Mountain Books Award nominees for 2012-2013 readers' choice program have been announced here
• IBBY Canada's nominees for the international Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award have been announced, and
• I've been looking into the Aurora Prize, the Sunburst Awards and the Joe Shuster Awards for winners in children's and young adult book categories.

Then, there have been book trailers that I think look amazing, whether I've read the book or not:

• Crush. Candy. Corpse. from Sylvia McNicoll HERE
• Infiltration by Sean Rodman (Orca) HERE
• Dead Run by Sean Rodman (Orca) HERE

The book reviewer's lament: Why are there only 24 hours in a day?

Virginia

Written by Susan Hughes
Kids Can Press
978-1-55453-306-0
287 pp.
Ages 14+
2010

Having just reviewed Susan Hughes' most recent book, Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World (Owlkids, 2012), one of the few non-fiction books I've reviewed, I thought I'd include a review of a young adult novel by this same author from a few years back. If you think Susan Hughes is limited to only non-fiction, you'll have to read her novel, Virginia (Kids Can Press, 2010) which I feel is an overlooked gem.

While Ivy deals with her alcoholic mother and ineffective father, the fourteen-year-old girl tries to help her childhood friend Virginia who is convinced she has been visited by an angel and that she has been selected to carry God's child. Though Ivy and Virginia have not been close for awhile, Ivy feels she must help Virginia, especially as she seems to be kept secluded by her sisters and charismatic brother, Paul. After their father's death, Paul has started his own church, one that emphasizes the inevitable end of the world. When Ivy overhears Paul suggesting the need to hasten that end with violence, Ivy gets help from another brother of Virginia's, Joe, to keep the innocent safe.

Once Susan Hughes takes the time to introduce Ivy and Virginia and their former relationship, Virginia becomes a highly suspenseful, plot-driven story that kept me engrossed until the end. Paul's zealous sect, Virginia's angel visit and Ivy's detective work, within the context of family interrelationships, were uniquely juxtaposed against each other. Reality and fantasy seemed to meander into the other's realm. With Ivy 's attraction to Joe and her worries about Virginia getting pregnant, as well as Paul's violent agenda, this novel is more appropriate for an older audience than for the recently reviewed Off to Class but it is equally effective in telling its story. Susan Hughes' writing handles both, the fiction and the non-fiction, beautifully and appropriately, putting her in the company of the few authors who can do this well.

Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World

by Susan Hughes

Owlkids Books

978-1-926-8-18863

64 pp.

Ages 8-13

2011

I don't often review non-fiction. It's not that I don't enjoy it but I find that it's very hard to find non-fiction that is fresh in its topic, presentation, organization and writing. Sometimes I wonder if a publisher (none of the ones I list on this blog) just dashes something off on a topic they know is on the curriculum and could get a few school sales. Having been on non-fiction selection committees in the past, I know the dearth of exceptional children's non-fiction that is published annually. That said, several Canadian publishers, Owlkids, Kids Can Press and Annick most notably, have an extensive line of exemplary non-fiction for younger readers. And one of the authors who is making a name for herself via her non-fiction is Susan Hughes.

Two of her most highly lauded books are Case Closed? Nine Mysteries Unlocked By Modern Science (Kids Can Press, 2010) which won the 2011 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-fiction and No Girls Allowed: Tales of Daring Women Dressed as Men for Love, Freedom and Adventure (Kids Can Press, 2008). Currently nominated for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction, the Diamond Willow Award, the Red Cedar Information Book Award and the Hackmatack English Non-fiction Book Award, Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World also seems destined to garner worthwhile attention and prizes.

The empowering message of Off to Class is that, though every child has a right to an education, not everyone has access or opportunity to go to school, and there are people working doggedly to ensure that all children, no matter their circumstances, are given that chance. So, no matter how remote or harsh the environment, or how poor the family or how small the community, or what prejudices and circumstances exclude some from an education, there is someone willing to help provide a school. It may not be a traditional North American school, but it is a place of learning and it works for these children.

Brimming with colourful photographs of children, classrooms, schools and the environs, Off to Class provides a comprehensive look at learning places in three chapters: Working with the Environment, No School? No Way! and One Size Doesn't Fit All. Classrooms from Bangladesh, India, Cambodia and Nepal, to Brazil, Haiti, and Uganda, Burkina Faso and Kenya are featured, and those integral in making these schools come into being are featured. For me, the most compelling of stories relate to schools that grew from only a vision and a lot of heart. By working with the communities and their needs and circumstances, rather than imposing their own attitudes and ideas, people have performed miracles, creating schools where only rubble or emptiness may have been.

Susan Hughes' writing is inviting and forthcoming, the information never lost in cumbersome text. With features of non-fiction text like indices, fact boxes (e.g., More than 20 million children worldwide have lost their parents to AIDS. Almost a million of these kids live in Uganda. pg. 35), captioned photographs, bios and photos of key people, and a map with schools' locations, Off to Class is a fascinating look at the different configurations schools have taken, offering hope to children, communities and the environment that might never have been imagined.

I've posted a very sweet book trailer of Off to Class as told by young people on CanLit for LittleCanadians Book Trailers page here.

Governor General Literary Awards 2012 Winners announced

Yesterday, the Canada Council for the Arts announced the winners of the prestigious Governor General Literary Awards for 2012  including those in the two (English) Children's categories.

Congratulations to all the award winners and nominees for being recognized for their contributions to enriching our collection of phenomenal youngCanLit.

This year's winners in the two (English) Children's categories are: 

For Children’s Text:

Susin Nielsen
for  
The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen
 

 

Tundra Books
978-1-77049-372-8
243 pp.
Ages 11-14
2012 

Reviewed here on CanLit for LittleCanadians just days ago!

For Children’s Illustration:

Isabelle Arsenault
for

Virginia Wolf

 Text by Kyo Maclear

Kids Can Press
978-1-55453-649-8
32 pp.
Ages 5-10
2012

Reviewed here on CanLit for LittleCanadians on March 13, 2012.