Neil Flambé and the Tokyo Treasure

Written and illustrated by Kevin Sylvester

Simon & Schuster

978-1-4424-4288-7

352 pp.

Ages 8-12

October, 2012

In Kevin Sylvester's fourth installment in his Neil Flambé Capers, Neil Flambé has gone manga, courtesy of his cousin, partner and sous-chef, Larry, who has been collaborating online with illustrator Hiro Takoyaki. Their comic, The Chef, starring our young gourmet prodigy, has even been offered a book deal.  So Larry is off to Tokyo and leaves Gary, the shabby bike courier, as his replacement.

As unconventional and careless as Gary may be, his Aboriginal heritage helps bring the restaurant, Chez Flambé, a new reputation as the place to go for seafood cuisine, and Neil almost prefers Gary to Larry's antics.  But when news comes that Larry and Hiro have been killed in a storm at sea, Neil is devastated.  That is, until he notes an almost inconspicuous change in the online comic which Neil takes as a message that Larry is alive.  So Neil arranges to participate in a series of kitchen duels in Japan so he'd have an excuse to search for Larry.  Unfortunately, the kitchen duels in which Neil agrees to participate are organized by Matsumoro Nori, a heartless mega-billionaire who makes his money illegally, even peddling in endangered species. 

In Tokyo, Neil competes against Nori's enslaved chef, Kong, while risk-taking judges play Russian roulette with their own lives.  Between rounds of haiku deciphering, ingredient searching and death-defying cooking, Neil works with his friends detective Nakamura, Isabella Tortellini and her chaperone/bodyguard Jones to locate Larry.  Ultimately, the group must discretely unravel the puzzle of an ancient scroll, evade ninjas, and manoeuvre a submarine, all within the sensual experience that is Japan.  The spices, the scents, the landscape, the people, the landscape - all enrich the adventure and mystery in Neil Flambé and the Tokyo Treasure.

If possible, Neil Flambé and the Tokyo Treasure may be Kevin Sylvester's best yet.  And, considering the fact that the first three Neil Flambé books (Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders, Key Porter, 2010; Neil Flambé and the Aztec Abduction, Key Porter, 2011; Neil Flambé and the Crusader's Curse, Simon & Schuster, 2012) have all been nominated for Silver Birch Fiction awards, the first volume winning the award in 2011, that's astoundingly high praise.  Neil is growing into himself (that sounds rather painful, doesn't it?), becoming less arrogant and more compassionate, and Larry has become more sure of himself and even more prolific in his punny ways (earning this volume a place in my upcoming WordPlay book list).  And with the addition of quirky Gary and unethical gourmand Nori, Neil Flambé and the Tokyo Treasure is a bountiful buffet where dessert is the main course.

Miss Mousie's Blind Date

by Tim Beiser

Illustrated by Rachel Berman

Tundra Books

978-1-77049-251-6

24 pp.

Ages 4-7

2012

"Spring is such a funny thing-

it wakes up all the plants

And makes our furry woodland friends

go cuckoo for romance.

And so it was, one day in May,

when stopping by the deli,

Miss Mousie's eye fell on a guy

who turned her knees to jelly." (pg. 2)

In its refreshing take on the theme of finding love where least expected, Miss Mousie's Blind Date starts with Miss Mousie spotting the debonair Matt LaBatt, the water rat, with his handsome looks and lemon yellow teeth.  Unfortunately Miss Mousie's attempts to attract his attention are scuttled when she hears him call her the "fat girl".

Such a blow to her fragile ego sends Miss Mousie to hide herself in her burrow to avoid further ridicule.  But an unexpected invitation to dinner and its surprising outcome leave Miss Mousie with her dignity restored and a quickening in her heart.

Tim Beiser and Rachel Berman's first collaboration, Bradley McGogg, the Very Fine Frog (Tundra, 2009), resulted in nominations for the Blue Spruce Award, the Chocolate Lily Book Award, the Governor General's Award for Children's Fiction Illustration, and the CBA Libris Award for Children's Picture Book of the Year.  And the same sweet rhyming and endearing illustrations are evident in Miss Mousie's Blind Date, making it another charmed read.  

While romance may seem an unusual theme for readers of picture books, no young reader will see anything but lightheartedness in the soft, not fat, Miss Mousie in her adorable millinery and her hopeful expectations for possible love.  The perfect collaboration of Tim Beiser and Rachel Berman takes Miss Mousie from crushing on the handsome rat to despairing over his disregard for her and finally to delight, with an ending that will please even those too young to know the pangs of first love but will understand the value of being oneself.

A Tinfoil Sky

by Cyndi Sand-Eveland

Tundra Books

 978-1-77049-277-6

276 pp.

Ages 9-12

2012

"...everyone needs a little magic in their lives; it gives them hope." (pg. 201)

Melody Tully, twelve, needs a little magic in her life because hopefulness is definitely in shortage.  In the past four years, she and her mom Cecily have moved eleven times, and now Cecily has them running out on her drug dealer boyfriend Craig and dragging them to Cecily's mother's apartment.  But, even though Mel lived with her grandparents for the first four years of her life, Gladys doesn't welcome them into her apartment with its tinfoil-covered windows.  In fact, she yells at them through the door about Cecily's stealing, alcoholism and drug use.  So Cecily and Mel end up living out of their car, both singing on the street for money and visiting the soup kitchen.  When Cecily is arrested for shoplifting and sentenced to thirty days, Rose, a woman who works at the soup kitchen, helps find Mel and take her to stay at Gladys' until Cecily gets out.

Gladys is a bitter woman, rarely showing any kindness to Mel.  She even asks Mel to stay outside the apartment when she's not there, only giving Mel one key for her multi-locked door.  Mel just tries to stay out of Gladys' way, returning the key.  But Mel has no problems filling her days, spending hours at the public library and occasionally visiting with Ed Frohberger at his store to learn what she can of her late grandfather Tux.  But as she counts down the days until her mother's release from jail, Mel begins to establish her own life: visiting the library almost daily; making friends with the librarian Marilyn and Marilyn's son Paul; getting a part-time job at the library; talking to Mr. Frohberger; visiting the soup kitchen and Fearless, the kitten, who lives there; and enjoying the stability of her daily routines.  So, while Cecily enjoys change, Mel begins to appreciate the normalcy of her new situation, regardless of how temporary.

While Cecily seems to be the biggest impediment to their relationship with Gladys, without making any grandiose gestures, just trying to be inconspicuous and herself, Mel starts to see Gladys softening little by little.  The returned key, a white blouse abandoned at the dry cleaners, declining money Mel offers to repay what Cecily had stolen - Gladys begins to recall being a grandmother to her granddaughter, eventually removing the tinfoil from the windows and her heart to allow some light in.

Cyndi Sand-Eveland hardly makes the characters in The Tinfoil Sky likeable.  Mel is perhaps the most innocuous, keeping most of her thoughts to herself.  She works to please her mother and accept her weaknesses but Mel can see the consequences of Cecily's poor choices, regardless of how her mother tries to make things "fun".  As different as Cecily and Gladys are, they are truly mother and daughter, selfishly holding onto their bitterness and placing Mel in the middle.  It is only when Mel interacts with Gladys or Cecily one-on-one that their concerns for Mel are evident. Mel, Gladys, Cecily are real.  They are completely lacking in the family ties that create the saccharine families of TV sitcoms.  Instead Cyndi Sand-Eveland has created an authentic family with typically dysfunctional relationships that bind them together, willing or not.  And while I always am hopeful that most children have comfortable, loving families that help them become the best they can be, I know that there are those like Mel's in which children become amazing people in spite of their families, not because.

Goodnight, Canada

by Andrea Beck 

North Winds Press (Scholastic Canada)
978-1-4431-0782-2
32 pp.

Ages 3-7

2012

Goodnight, Canada follows a young boy's nightly ritual of adieus from coast to coast to coast, as he looks out his window at his country and wonders who else is going to bed.  Providing a double-page spread of provincial or territorial features for each Canadian region, Andrea Beck's whimsical illustrations show children in beds, in a boat, on a flower pot rock formation, in a sled, in a plane, and even embedded in an inuksuk.  And they're all comforted by playful bears, cats, dogs, birds, and even moose reminiscent of Andrea Beck's Elliot Moose series.

While many may see Goodnight, Canada as our own version of Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon,  I believe Andrea Beck's newest picture book is more of a compendium of all things Canadian.  From our different landscapes (like the farm patchwork quilt on the P.E.I. child's bed), provincial and territorial birds, flowers, flags, and landmarks (like the CN Tower in Ontario) to iconic celebrations (e.g., the Calgary Stampede) and wonders (e.g., aurora borealis), Goodnight, Canada allows every child to see him- or herself and enjoy wondering about other children around our country.

It's unusual to find a sweet, rhyming picture book that can also work as an information book, here about Canada, but you can consider Goodnight, Canada an exemplar of one.  And consider this book as a perfect gift for a Canadian child in your life with whom you can curl up beside at bedtime to travel across our grand country in only 32 pages. 

The Friday Society Gala: Book Launch

Readers of all ages are invited
by 

hosts Penguin Books, Small Print Toronto, and the Gladstone Hotel

to attend

a gala of modernity and lively entertainments 

(their words, not mine)
 

in honour of Adrienne Kress' new steampunk book,

THE FRIDAY SOCIETY
 

on Friday, December 7, 2012
Doors open at 7:00 p.m., with the reading at 7:30p.m.

at
The Gladstone Hotel 

1214 Queen St. West
Toronto, ON

The evening will include:

• A reading by Adrienne Kress
• A demonstration of Bartitsu, the latest technique is self defense, by the Riot A.C.T.
• Displays of the latest in modern technologies by Messrs Smith and Bodine
• A screening of the book trailer

For an interesting touch, guests are invited to feel free to wear Steampunk! For ideas on how to put together a steampunk outfit from your own closet, visit Adrienne Kress' website here.

 

Yesterday

by C. K. Kelly Martin
Doubleday Canada
978-0-385-66845-3
355 pp.
Ages 13+
2012


Sixteen-year-old Freya just wants "living to feel the way it should." (pg. 78) Not like her sister Olivia (10) isn't really her sister. Not like Freya has all the details about her life but can't recall what she likes or feels or can do well. Not like she can only remember the facts of the memories but not the memories themselves. What she does know is that it is 1985 and that she, her mom and Olivia have recently come to Canada after the death of Freya's father, a diplomat, in an explosion in New Zealand.  And she gets lots of headaches and can almost tell what's going to happen before it does.

While at the museum with her class, Freya sees a handsome, green-eyed boy on the street and she is convinced that she knows him.  Following the young man, she learns where he lives, and returns another day to confront him.  Through questioning the boy, Freya learns that Garren's dad was also a diplomat who was killed in an accident in Switzerland but Garren does not recognize Freya at all.  In fact, he is infuriated with her insistence that he should know her.  It isn't until Freya returns with family photos and newspaper clippings that the two realize they share the same grandfather, Henry Newland, and both were seen by Dr. Byrne when they were stricken with the flu when they arrived in Canada.  But confronting their grandfather just sets them on the run when Freya "sees" him contacting men in dark suits with guns to come after her and Garren.

To avoid putting their families at risk, Freya and Garren hide out while they try to find some answers.  In fact, Freya convinces Garren to let her visit a hypnotherapist to help clarify her memories.  What Freya learns is that her memories are actually 78 years into the future, in the year 2063, and that Garren was a part of her life then.  Unfortunately, Garren's trust in Freya's memories is waning, realizing that he is giving up everything to follow her and help her while he himself has no memories of a life in the future.

So Freya's Yesterday is actually taking place in the future, or has taken place in the future, or will take place in the future.  I'm not really sure what verb tense is appropriate here.  But, while I may be confused with the timeline of Freya's life, those shortcomings are my own; C. K. Kelly Martin has no difficulty conveying those details to the reader.  Freya's anxiety about feeling out of place, actually out of time, is expertly handled by C.K. Kelly Martin whose book My Beating Teenage Heart (Random House, 2011), reviewed here, similarly takes the reader back and forth between times and experiences.  As a teacher-librarian, I know that this play between the past (future?) and the present can be a difficult concept for younger readers to follow and appreciate for its complexity and the richness it lends to storytelling; young adult readers of Yesterday should have no difficulties grasping and relishing this approach. 


I've just learned that C.K. Kelly Martin has her own YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/ckwriter where you can see a book trailer and teaser for Yesterday, as well as trailers for several of her other books.  For those readers who enjoy video overtures for books, I'd recommend checking the author's channel out. I will include her book trailer for Yesterday here, though.

Yesterday Book Trailer

Published on June 24, 2012 by ckwriter to YouTube.

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.