Eden Mills Writers' Festival (Ontario)

 Sunday, September 15, 2013 (noon-6 p.m.)

Village of Eden Mills (east of Guelph, Ontario)

(see details at the EMWF website for dates and times of additional events)

The 25th anniversary of the Eden Mills Writers' Festival is fast approaching!  It's been 25 years since Governor General award-winning writer Leon Rooke and his wife Constance Rooke invited an illustrious set of authors, including Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry and Jane Urquart, to help launch his newest book.  Over 300 people showed up that day to hear authors read, and twenty-five years later, thousands now participate in the outdoor festival that brings together authors, readers, artists, poets, and performers for a glorious September weekend of words.

The EMWF has grown to include additional workshops, presentations and concerts prior to the Sunday event and full details of this year's schedule can be found at its new website at http://edenmillswritersfestival.ca/. But, my focus here is to showcase the impressive line up of children's and young adult authors that are scheduled to visit. Take advantage of this early notice to book September 15 to attend, particularly as several authors will be releasing new books at the Eden Mills Writers' Festival before available in stores! Copies of many books will be on sale on-site courtesy of The Bookshelf (Guelph) and it's a perfect opportunity to get your books signed and maybe get your photo taken with a youngCanLit author and/or illustrator.

To date, these are the authors and/or illustrators (with covers of some of their most recent and important works) who CanLit for LittleCanadians fans may be interested in seeing. 

Deborah Ellis

Sheree Fitch

Rachel Hartman

Darren Hynes

Lesley Livingston

Kat Kruger

 Philip Roy

 
 
Anne Laurel Carter

 
Aubrey Davis

Sheree Fitch 

Monica Kulling

Jennifer Lanthier

Andrew “Too Tall” Queen

Frank Viva

Werner Zimmermann

Come for the words

and

enjoy the Eden Mills Writers' Festival!

The Rule of Thirds

by Chantel Guertin
ECW Press
978-1-77041-159-3
192 pp.
Ages 13+
October 2013
Reviewed from Advance Reading Copy 

Most photographers will know The Rule of Thirds, the premise by which a frame is divided into thirds to help determine a photo's composition by placement.  This basic rule can make the difference between a photo that works and one that is solely documentation. Sixteen-year-old Philadelphia Greene, a.k.a. Pippa, photo editor of the school newspaper, president of the photo club, and daughter of a pro photographer, knows the rule of thirds.  And she can tell when there's something off about the composition of the parts.  But the photos that the new kid, handsome Ben Baxter, shows her to get in the photo club definitely work, thereby allowing him the opportunity to enter the Vantage Point photo competition.  Vantage Point, the temporal focus of all the chapter headings, drives everything Pippa does and wants, offering the opportunity to attend the Tisch School for the Arts camp at NYC.

"The photography competition–less than three weeks away, and whether I win or lose will alter the course of my life." (pg. 3)

But Ben's interest in her and confidence in connecting with her has Pippa perplexed, though somewhat intrigued. It's especially confusing when she gets a placement at St. Christopher's Hospital, the same hospital at which her father had died from pancreatic cancer just three months earlier. Here she reconnects with Dylan McCutter, an 18-year-old on whom she's been crushing for years.  Between dealing with panic attacks brought on by being around the hospital and other places associated with her father, and trying to get Dylan interested in her, even though he seems close to another girl who works at the hospital, Pippa continues to fulfil her placement obligations, visit her psychologist for grief counselling and keep photographing for Vantage Point.

Perhaps because of her grief, Pippa seems to be oblivious to a lot of goings-on around her, including how others see her.  So, when Ben continues to come on to Pippa, acting proprietary over her, and her best friend Dace starts running hot and cold, and there is a spate of technology thefts plaguing the school and the community, Pippa may notice but she doesn't take it in until it comes disastrously close to ruining everything she's been working towards.   

While Chanel Guertin does leave the reader satisfied that things will work out alright for Pippa in The Rule of Thirds, she doesn't distort circumstances to produce a blithe ending where the bad guy gets caught, the protagonist wins the competition, and boy and girl finally get together.  But things can and do still work themselves out, just as they often do in reality, though maybe not perfectly but credibly.  It's like that perfect photograph:  it might have all the right components but it's up to the photographer to see the art within and rearrange them to resonate for both the artist and the audience.  Chantel Guertin has accomplished that for the young adult reader, balancing fears, grief, romance, friendship, angst, ambitions and common sense, in different proportions to produce a picture that works.

Graffiti Knight

by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-53-8

288 pp.

Ages 12+

August, 2013

Many books of historical fiction focus on the atrocities and hardships of war time but few examine the aftermath of war, especially for civilians in the defeated countries.  Children's fiction and non-fiction of life in Nazi Germany abound, particularly for those who were victimized by the Nazis.  But, after Germany's surrender in 1945, its lands were divided between four occupation zones administered by the British, Americans, French and Soviets, as well as having certain lands inhabited by Germans recovered by Poland and Czechoslovakia. This is the story of Wilhelm Tauber and his family and friends as they endure life in the town of Leipzig in the Soviet-controlled sector of Germany.

Wilhelm, who prefers to be called Wilm, as he perennially tells his father, has much that angers him about Leipzig's current circumstances.  His father, who returned from war without one leg, is bitter about his loss and limited opportunities, and is regularly antagonistic to Wilm. His mother works as much as she can to help provide for the family.  His older sister, Anneliese, spends much of her time in her room, except when she goes to work, dressed in boy's clothing.  His friend, Georg, whose father died in the war, is essentially starving.  His friend, Karl, has a father who was taken to a POW camp but he knows nothing else of his fate.  And school is tedium for Wilm, doing well in math but only when applicable to real life.  But the harassment of the Schupos, the German police under Soviet control, and the Soviets themselves, have created a prison for all in Leipzig, restricting their movements, their food, their opinions–all their freedoms–and evoking fear, compliance and silence.  But nothing can compare to the anger Wilm experiences when he learns that Anneliese was raped by four Soviet soldiers at the train station where she went to meet her boyfriend, Ernst Weber, who promptly dropped her because she was no longer "untouched".

The game that Wilm, Karl and Georg regularly played, spying on the Schupos, pretending to be behind enemy lines and collecting intelligence for the Americans, becomes more real after Wilm begins taking chances to humiliate the Schupos and the Soviets, starting with the slashing of tires on several Soviet vans.  An older man, Otto Steinhauer, an engineer contracted to inspect bridges, intercedes when Karl and Wilm begin fighting over Wilm's negligence.  Soon Otto becomes a mentor to Wilm teaching him about bridges, math and engineering, as well as talking with him about Wilm's father, dealing with those in authority, and trust.

With the continued hostilities from the Soviets and the Schupos, including that of Anneliese's ex-boyfriend, Ernst, now a Schupo, Wilm feels compelled to escalate his attacks, becoming known as the Marionette Wolverine for the stickman puppet graffiti he leaves as his mark. But Wilm's resolve to get an innocent Georg released from jail has him questioning his own motives and actions, particularly after a final explosive act forces him to flee Leipzig, with friends and family in tow.  What begins as civil disobedience in search of justice becomes a harrowing escape, jeopardizing the lives of all for whom he cares.

Karen Bass' thorough research, as she describes in her Historical Notes at the back of the book, provides the authentic background for Graffiti Knight, challenging all that readers might think they know about Nazi Germany and its aftermath.  While all will see the Nazis as the criminals to humanity, we often forget that for others, the Soviets were just as barbaric to their victims, using some different means to oppress.  By seeing Leipzig and other parts of Germany through the eyes of a young man of sixteen, who lives through World War II but experiences further injustice in its aftermath, when so many were celebrating victory, Karen Bass provides enlightenment via a new perspective.  Heroes are not just made in war.  Courage and compassion, the virtues of heroes anywhere and anytime, can make a knight out of anyone, even Wilm.

Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl

by Emily Pohl-Weary

Razorbill

978-0-67006-640-7

304 pp.

Ages 13+

September, 2013

Forget about any kind of ordinariness for Sam Lee.  At eighteen years old, she's one third of the popular band, The Cream Puffs, and their primary songwriter too. Along with their bad-girl lead singer, Jules, and sexy, bookish drummer Malika, The Cream Puffs are the hip band in New York City.  But Sam's life is not one that fans envision for a rock musician, especially one that performs with so much power on stage.  She eschews the parties and the fans, rides her bike at night, and lives on the top floor of a converted pickle factory that she owns.  And, except for crushing on Harris Walls, who is animating a video for the band and who has a gorgeous girlfriend, Sam is considered the loner tomboy (although there was a large guy who kept staring at her during a concert and tried to talk to her afterwards who obviously didn't think so).

But, after taking a nasty fall while careening through Central Park on her way home from the concert, Sam is jumped by a large dog, and then rescued from it by another dog that takes a gash out of her forearm.  Except for a voracious appetite, unquenchable thirst and a slight fever, Sam experiences no frightening symptoms but she goes to Emerg to get checked out.  But, with evidence of the bite gone and her status as a rock musician known, Sam gets out of there promptly when the medical staff start talking about testing for drugs and a psych assessment. 

Things go from bad to worse, or weird to bizarre, at their photo and video shoot, when Sam cannot eat enough roast beef and turkey sandwiches and gets aggressive with Jules, definitely odd for the introverted vegetarian.  She's sweating through her custom-made shirt, annoying their director and she can detect Harris' scent! Insisting that she is sick, Sam takes off. On her ride, she is followed by Marlon, an art school friend of Harris', who offers her beef jerky and a mega-water bottle and claims that he just wants to make sure she's okay, knowing what she's going through.  Finally, freakish dreams, messages from her nasty neighbours about her big dog (?), attacks by girl-gangs dressed as dogs, and a fan photo of her devouring a whole BBQ chicken help Marlon persuade Sam that she needs his help.

The title may give away what has happened to Sam, but it cannot even allude to the multitude of subplots involving Marlon's brother Owen, mutated werewolves, other supernaturals, and Sam's worries about revealing herself to her friends and the public.  And, of course, the love triangle of Sam, Marlon and Harris.

Emily Pohl-Weary's writing is evocative, ensuring the reader truly understands the depth of Sam's physical and emotional transformation, and her characterizations are explicit and fully revealing, reading like exposés from any teen magazine.  Emily Pohl-Weary (website here) takes Sam from a talented young woman who works in the social realm of music performance but prefers to live in a private world, to a wolf girl who finally finds the freedom to be herself.  While not an easy transformation, particularly if there's some confusion whether it is real or imagined, Sam's metamorphosis takes her through the full gamut of emotional responses: horrified, dazed, hysterical, logical, numb, secretive, embarrassed, angry, and appreciative.  Surprisingly, with people like Marlon and Malika volunteering to support her in her changeover to wolf girl,  Sam's Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl storyline becomes all the more credible (if you can say that about werewolves) and definitely less horrific.

Compliance (The Dust Chronicles, Book Two)

Written by Maureen McGowan

Skyscape

978-1-1477816530

378 pp.

Ages 12+

June, 2013

In Deviants (reviewed here on January 6), Glory Solis had made the escape from their enclosed community of Haven with the help of the enigmatic but alluring Burn.  Having found safety for her Deviant brother Drake at the Settlement where her father, long thought dead, lives, Glory has returned from the Outside to Haven as an undercover agent for the Freedom Army to rescue other Deviants from inside. 

Her return has been accepted on the premise that she had been kidnapped by a Deviant and cannot remember her painful experiences at his hands.  In fact, Mr. Belando, the Junior VP of Compliance, has had Glory placed in Compliance Officer Training (COT), believing her kidnapping may give her insight into Deviants, particularly those conspiring against Management and launching terrorist attacks prior to the President's Birthday. 

So, by day, she participates in Comp training, along with her HR department-sanctioned dating partner, Cal, for whom she has conflicting feelings after being with Burn, and enduring the harassment of their Recruiting Captain, Larsson, and fellow classmates.  At night, she searches out Deviants to hand off for transport to the Settlement.  But everything changes when she learns from Burn that her regular contact for transport, Clayton, was killed along with a young Deviant, and that he blames her.  Determined to make things as right as she can, Glory searches for an elusive Deviant named Adele Parry.

Meanwhile, with Cal continuing to cover for her and protect her regularly against any harassment, Glory confides in him about her work for Mr. Belando and a suspected mole in COT.  Everything becomes even more complicated when Cal's brother Scout is seriously injured and video shows Burn loosening the bolts on their scaffolding!  With Scout "going to the Hospital" which many believe is a euphemism for execution, Cal and Scout's dating partner, Jayma, are distraught, unlike Glory who has been reassured by Mrs. Kalin, the VP of Health and Safety, who has taken a special maternal interest in Glory, that the Hospital is perfectly safe.

Whereas Deviants emphasized the false premises upon which Haven has been established and the journey from Haven to the Settlement, Compliance underscores the role of trust in moving the plot forward.  Nobody seems to trust Deviants. Deviants have valid reasons not to trust others, knowing their inevitable fate is being expunged to the Outside and attacked by Shredders.  Glory is confused by the trust she has for Cal, though he is a Comp Recruit, and for Burn, whose tenderness has been replaced by nastiness.  Who to trust now?  And what of Mrs. Kalin with whom Glory feels safest?  Or Jayma who has always been her best friend but may not accept Glory's Deviance?  But as Glory tells a young Deviant she is rescuing,

"I figured out that it's one thing to be cautious and another to never trust anyone." (pg. 7)

Maureen McGowan has topped the uneasiness of Deviants' dystopian story with Compliance's psychological tension, as neither Glory nor the reader ever has any indication whom to trust.  Moreover, trust is an ephemeral concept, appropriate in one situation and not in another.  Glory's strength in continuing to be fair and non-threatening i.e., harnessing her own Deviance just exacerbates the reader's heart-stopping trepidation each time she interacts with someone, friend or foe, Deviant or not.  While Maureen McGowan does relieve some of the reader's tension at Compliance's ending, it's not quite resolved for Glory, whose confusion is now compounded with the convergence of her two worlds, previously separated by space and time.  It's inevitable that Book Three of The Dust Chronicles will extend Compliance's gripping adventure but it's a relief to know that there will be some respite from the tension by way of the unavoidable amorous interludes Glory will share, hopeful of alleviating some confusion.

Northwest Passage

by Stan Rogers

As seen by Matt James
Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-153-3

56 pp.

All ages

September 2013

Ah, for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage...
                                                             – Stan Rogers, 1981

And so begins a journey.  A journey of  explorers to find a northern route to Asia.  A journey for singer-songwriter Stan Rogers to discover the multitude of pulse points of our nation. And yet another journey.  That of Matt James, award-winning illustrator of I Know Here (Groundwood, 2010), in his visual interpretation of the Stan Rogers' 1981 song that many believe may be the epitome of a Canadian ballad.

Ballads are perfect for wrapping up history in story-telling, and the selection of Northwest Passage for an illustrated book is inspired.  Matt James' acrylic paintings easily transport the reader from the beautiful but dangerous iridescent turquoise waters of the Arctic through the snow-clad or barren lands of the tundra and our mountainous regions.  There are sightings of narwhal, snowshoe hare, polar bear, bear and buffalo.  There are crisp cold nights, and bright sunny days, overcast skies and impenetrable fogs. There are the travellers on old sailing ships, the coureurs de bois and Aboriginal People in canoes, First Nations on horseback, Canadians in planes and musicians in Rogers' yellow touring van.  And there are those points in history and the characters who gave substance to the ballad: Sir John Franklin, David Thompson, Alexander Mackenzie, and others, all included in the double-spread titled, "A Gallery of Explorers."

Matt James' selection of Northwest Passage is all the more profound for the number of young readers who will never get to experience Stan Rogers' talent first-hand.  But, though thirty years have passed since Rogers' death, Matt James has refreshed his memory with eloquence and colourful passion.  Northwest Passage, the book, will have Canadians such as myself revisiting the song, over and over and over again, while introducing younger readers to Stan Rogers' legacy, hopefully compelling them to search out his music and biographic information at the Stan Rogers and Fogarty's Cove website http://stanrogers.net/ or elsewhere.

While no young reader wants to hear this, I believe that Northwest Passage will be a unique teacher resource for melding language and music with Canadian history, supported by the wealth of additional content about the First Arctic Peoples, the explorers, especially Franklin's expedition, and the European settlement of Canada.

Mr. Flux

by Kyo Maclear

Illustrated by Matte Stephens

Kids Can Press

978-1-55453-78-5

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

 April 2013

For some, change is a way of life and, for others, it is the traumatic departure from the expected.  Young Martin and the members of his neighbourhood despair when Mr. Flux, an artist who "enjoyed mixing things up," moves in.  When Mr. Flux receives a box labelled "Property of Mr. Flux", he gives it to Martin, telling him that it's full of change.

 He suspected it contained cacophony, disorder and germs.

When Martin expresses his reluctance to experience any change, Mr. Flux explains that everything changes and that it's best to start with little changes.  With carefully chosen samples, Mr. Flux introduces Martin to new things, allowing Martin to share these with others.  In return, he reveals his own art to Mr. Flux.

With the essence of the artist and the spirit of a sensualist, Mr. Flux changes the way his neighbours think about change, allowing them to experience life and art more fully without negating their own choices for change. 

While all readers of picture books may not be interested in the art history or movement of creative thinking associated with Fluxus, based on the premise that the art of life always changes, Kyo Maclear does introduce readers to the idea that art is experiential and malleable, as is life.  Young Martin may not know much about change, though he obviously has an opinion about it, preferring to ride his familiar old bike rather than his new one.  But with a little exposure to new ideas and an open mind (though not wide open!), Martin, his family and neighbours come to appreciate Mr. Flux for the experiences and new truths he has brought into their lives.  And Matte Stephens' gouache illustrations, which have a 1950's feel, emphasize the people and places of an urban neighbourhood predominated by straight lines and polygon-flavoured structures and spikes them with intriguing animal and decorative elements that ameliorate the harshness of single truths. 

Recommended for ages 3-7, Mr. Flux may just be a delightful picture book that helps children see that change can be fun, even if they anticipate it to be traumatic.  Accept Mr. Flux as you feel appropriate.  Just be prepared to accept it as much more once you've enjoyed it for yourself.