Lightning Lou: Book launch (Point-Claire, QB)

Just in time for hockey season!

Join author 

Lori Weber

for the launching 

of her newest 

middle grade historical fiction

Lightning Lou

by Lori Weber

Dancing Cat Books

9781770864627

206 pp.

Ages 9-12

May 2016

on

Sunday, October 2, 2016

2-4 p.m.

at

Livres Babar Books

46 Ave Sainte-Anne # 2

Pointe-Claire, Quebec 

Publisher Dancing Cat Books provides this blurb about the book:

When a team in an all-girls’ hockey league comes to recruit players, twelve-year-old Lou’s dreams seem to be coming true. But the dreams hinge on one thing: never letting on that Lou is a boy. But the road to stardom is not easy, as Lou discovers that the competition is fierce, and that he’s got a lot of work to do to match the skills of the league’s star player and his chief rival, Albertine Lepensée. All the while, he has to keep his secret, and wrestle with the moral dilemma of taking a place on the team away from a deserving girl. 

Loosely based on a true story, Lightning Lou is a riveting and thought-provoking story for middle-grade readers.

Retrieved from http://www.dancingcatbooks.com/9781770864627/ onSeptember 13, 2016.

Watching Traffic

by Jane Ozkowski

Groundwood Books

978-1-55409-843-3

186 pp.

Ages 14-18

August 2016

Reviewed from ebook

“There are so many directions you can go, and no matter what you choose it’s going to have an effect on everything else.” (pg. 151)

It’s the end of summer after finishing high school and eighteen-year-old Emily Robinson is anticipating the departure of best friends, Lincoln and Melissa, for new adventures and locales, Australia for travel and Halifax for school, respectively.  And what of Emily, the girl whom everyone, and I mean everyone, in their small town of Cavanaugh only thinks of as the three-year-old girl whose mother committed suicide in her presence and has had to overcome so much?

Though they’ve been friends since Grade 7 when they both were attending weekly counselling sessions, one to deal with her mother’s suicide and the other with anger issues, Melissa and Emily seem to be at odds this summer.  Emily thinks it’s because of Melissa’s relationship with boyfriend Dan but Emily, burdened by her lack of direction, just doesn’t have the time or make the effort to deal with her messed-up friend, though she’s encouraged by Lincoln and Melissa’s older brother Robert to make an effort.

But meeting Tyler, a new guy whom she meets at the pawn shop where she goes to sell the gold teeth her grandmother has gifted her–Grandma is a wonderful story in herself!–gives Emily the chance to take her life in a different direction, one where she has divorced parents and is someone she wants to be seen as.

Watching traffic from the three overpasses that cross the highway that divides Cavanaugh in two parts is a common past-time for Emily and her friends, but it’s a metaphor for divisions and acceptance, and the movement of people into, through and out of our lives.  Emily’s life may seem tenous to her, not knowing where she’s going, but it’s not unlike her friends who, though they have direction, are apprehensive about moving on, and Jane Ozkowski gets the tone right for these young people who want to move on but only know that from which they come.  Their words of wisdom are both an anathema and a propellant.

"There’s a highway cutting through the whole town, and they think if they follow it they’ll find somewhere better.  Nothing’s better, though.  You can be unhappy here or you can be unhappy somewhere else.  Being happy is more about how you see things.” (pg. 50)

Watching Traffic is Jane Ozkowski’s debut novel but her skill in giving voice to Emily, Melissa, Lincoln, Tyler and others in their perplexity and discomfiture about going forward in life demonstrates a raw understanding and proficiency at telling their stories.  Less about plot and more about characters and their development, Watching Traffic suggests that Jane Ozkowski is the one to watch and continue to read.  I look forward to see and read what’s coming round the bend from Jane Ozkowski.


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I’m delighted to announce that author Jane Ozkowski is a last-minute addition to the impressive contingent of young adult authors reading at this weekend’s Eden Mills Writers’ Festival.  Come for the words!

Bear's Winter Party

by Deborah Hodge

Illustrated by Lisa Cinar

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-853-2

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

September 2016

Bear has a sweet life of living in the forest on the side of a mountain.  He has trees, berries, water and fresh mountain air.  But he’s a little lonely. He is a bear, after all, and Deer, Beaver, Chickadee, Squirrel, Hare and Fox all run away when he’s around. Worse yet, he hears them talking about him and what made him so feared. With winter coming and his long hibernation sleep, he decides to take action, inviting the other members of his forest community to his Winter Party, depositing written invitations where they might find them.

Bear cleans and decorates and cooks and prepares for his guests.  Just when he thinks no one is coming, he sees them all peeking out from behind trees. It’s the brave Chickadee who scouts out the scene inside and encourages the rest to come forward.  Though still a little apprehensive being in bear’s lair, the animals are polite and they begin to enjoy themselves, first with the delicious food and drink, and then with a sing-along and dancing. Finally, Bear’s new friends depart, each with a parting gift, and he can rest knowing that he'll be able to welcome the spring with a forest full of friends.

From Bear's Winter Party

by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Lisa Cinar

Deborah Hodge, best known for her countless non-fiction books, has written a heart-warming story perfect for the onset of cold weather.  It’s a story of friendship and diversity and acceptance and risk-taking.  And, though the youngest may wonder why all the animals don’t just get along from the onset –and we as adults wonder this all the time about our own species–Bear’s Winter Party will open doors for discussion and repeated story-telling. Lisa Cinar, whose art portfolio is as varied as her lush illustrations for Bear’s Winter Party, uses watercolours to create colourfully textured animals and forest landscapes, as well as a finely-furnished home for Bear.  But it’s the style of Lisa Cinar’s watercolours that creates such movement and richness in her illustrations in which the characters are always ample and bold, not a shrinking violet amongst the group. By pairing Lisa Cinar’s art with Deborah Hodge’s story, Bear’s Winter Party becomes a party in itself, deep in colour and friendship.

From Bear's Winter Party 

by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Lisa Cinar

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Deborah Hodge is coming to the Eden Mills Writers' Festival this Sunday.  Come and meet her and get your copy of Bear's Winter Party signed, ready for reading when it's time to hibernate (or party with friends).

The Pact

by Amanda West Lewis

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-544-8

352 pp.

Ages 10-15

September 2016

Remember there are always two sides to the same coin. (pg. 15)

The two-sides-to-the-same coin is a game ten-year-old Peter Gruber plays with his mother in order to see any set of circumstances from different perspectives but the reader would be well advised to heed this advice as well.  It’s very easy to sit back in the comfort of our lives today, wherever they may be, in the hindsight of World War II as a global entity.  It’s even easier to judge those involved in the war when we have countless sources of information about how it played out.  But we shouldn’t do so when reading The Pact by Amanda West Lewis because Peter Gruber’s story offers an opportunity to witness the then and there, starting in Hamburg Germany in 1939, when information was filtered and limited and reality was what you faced daily.

Although Peter is without a father and adept at black market trading of goods he scavenges at the port of Hamburg, he is probably a typical ten-year-old.  He goes to school (or he did until an accident that has him falling in the water leads to a case of diptheria and an extended hospital stay); he has his friends, Gunter and Eugene, who attend Hort, the youth organization, together; he has some family, notably his Tante Elsa and cousin Gerta who live in the country at Eutin; and he has hobbies like black-market trading and reading–his favourite is the western The Treasure of Nugget Mountain, though he gets into the Russian classics of Tolstoy, Chekhov and others after his hospital stay.  But Germany’s economy is in ruins after World War I and most Germans are happy to follow Chancellor Hitler’s directives to be dutiful and responsible to make Germany strong again.

In the fall of 1939, Peter begins Gymnasium, the elite school for privileged boys such as Hermann Weber, Peter’s trading nemesis and a bully, with friends Gunter Schmidt and Otto  Brandt, and participating in Jungvolk, the youth organization for boys of ages 10-14 that is all about training to fight.  But conflict with Poland and Great Britain’s declaration of war on Germany ramps up fears and patriotism, affecting work, food, education, and spirit.  Amidst lessons of ethnology of the German people and daily reminders that the boys are the future of Germany as well as celebrating the surrender of countries such as Denmark, Norway and Belgium, Peter is sometimes perplexed by what he previously thought or read in light of new and propagandist information (though he does not know it to be so).

With frequent air raids and bombings through 1940, Peter and his Gymnasium cohorts are evacuated as part of the Kinderlandverschickung south to Neumarkt where they are schooled and trained in all things Nazi, made to feel pride for the Party’s accomplishments, and reassured that the war would soon be over.

But the war is not soon over and Peter and his friends hear little news except that Britain is close to surrendering and on the brink of defeat. After returning to Hamburg in 1941, Peter is whisked away to his aunt’s for the summer.  Troops marching by share news of work camps where prisoners ("He wasn't sure where all of the prisoner were coming from, though."; pg. 136-7) work to support Germany’s economy and hears news of the conflict with the Soviet Union. Upon his return to Hamburg, though, pamphlets encouraging Germans to overthrow Hitler begin to surface and the BBC radio broadcasts his mother enjoys, illegally, have Peter revisiting what he hears and knows and fears.

Peter knew the British were lying.  But the broadcasts gave him this odd sense of huge events taking place somewhere else, things he wasn’t supposed to know about.  He tried not to think about it. (pg. 138)

The Pact is an involved and complex story, not unlike the war itself, and Peter’s experiences from 1939 through 1945 are no less so.  As a student of Gymnasium and a part of Jungvolk and then Hitlerjugend when he turns 14, Peter is shunted between home to safer evacuation locations in Neumarkt, Germany and Bistriz, Hungary and back to a demolished Hamburg, with forays to his aunt’s country home.  He begins to see that all he has lived through and experienced is “a life he now knew he didn’t want any part of.” (pg. 210)

“…we’re going to lose this damn war, and then it will be just like the last time, only worse.  They’ll take away our land; they’ll take away our food.  And this time, we’ll deserve it.  We’ll deserve to be punished.”  (pg. 218)

And even though he knows this, Peter is compelled to report to the Hitlerjugend office to avoid being deemed a deserter and begins apprenticing at an airplane engine factory in Klockner.  Still he is not free, ultimately commanded to attend a training camp in Denmark in November of 1944, a camp where the hundreds of young men are guarded by armed soldiers with dogs and forced to pledge allegiance to the Führer.  There is so much story to tell–hence my lengthy review–and yet Amanda West Lewis grips the reader with each scene, discussion, piece of propaganda, excursion, lesson, danger and thought that Peter faces and endures.  The Pact, which is based on a true story (the author's note and interview at the conclusion of the book reveal everything), will transfix readers with the story of war from a rare perspective, that of a child growing up in Germany, for whom home is everything, even if not everything is as it seems or should be.

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Take advantage of upcoming book launches for The Pact in Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa and Amanda West Lewis' reading at this weekend's Eden Mills Writers' Festival to hear from the author herself about this extraordinary, extraordinary story of historical fiction that will both enlighten and engross.

Hat On, Hat Off

by Theo Heras

Illustrated by Renné Benoit

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-34-7

24 pp.

Ages 1-3

September 2016

If you're Canadian with young children, you know about that compulsory basket of hats (and mittens and scarves) by the front door from which appropriate outdoor apparel can be plucked before heading out. As this little boy is getting ready and gotten ready to go with a help of a older but still young sister, a menagerie of hats go on and off with every step of the process. Thankfully, judging by the illustrations by Renné Benoit, it's not even the depths of winter so hats are the only on-off selection for this child!

From Hat On, Hat Off 

by Theo Heras, illus. by Renné Benoit

A red bear hat goes on, a sweater gets hidden.  The red bear hat goes off as sister does up his sneakers.  Jacket goes on with a new fleece blue-striped hat with frilly red pom pom which gets traded for a penguin hat after a detour for a sippy cap and pail and shovel. But wait! Time for a potty break (and, of course, you must remove your hat when you go to the toilet, right?) and a new green hat with eyes.  Then the absentee Bunny, with his own hat, must be located, and our little one is back in his red bear hat.  That is, until he isn't.

An autumn day with colourful leaves dotting the ground and ripe for picking is a perfect day for sporting a great hat, even one that is probably mandated by a mum or dad. Theo Heras’ text is not complex but that makes it easy to follow for those for whom Hat On, Hat Off is written, and the book is appropriately packaged for them: small size with padded hardcover, thick paper and rounded corners.  Young children will enjoy anticipating the next hat on and off and spot the common tactics toddlers use to prolong that getting-ready-to-go-outside activity.  But I know they’ll especially be hooked by Renné Benoit’s endearing illustrations of the children and their accounterments, particularly the assortment of head gear.  With knitted caps of varying colours and textures (very important in a hat) and design elements, Hat On, Hat Off a joyful experience of style and taste and childish amusement.

From Hat On, Hat Off

by Theo Heras, illus. by Renné Benoit 

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If you're in the Toronto area this Sunday, get a signed copy of Hat On, Hat Off at the book launch with author Theo Heras and illustrator Renné Benoit at Another Story Bookshop on Roncesvalles Avenue at Grenadier.  Details are here.

A Family is a Family is a Family

Written by Sara O'Leary

Illustrated by Qin Leng

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-794-8

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

September 2016

Following prescribed curricula from across the country, teachers will be encouraging their students to share details about their families and what makes them special, just like the students in Sara O'Leary's book in which a teacher asks her young charges what makes their families unique.  And though I suspect most children will see a version of their family somewhere in the multitude of families in A Family is a Family is a Family, it's Sara O'Leary's poetic inclusivity that takes the concept of family from an insular group to a worldwide love-in.

When the teacher first asks her students about their families, it is evident that one little child, who drops his eraser so that he can go last, is reluctant, knowing that "My family is not like everyone else's." (pg. 3) He's right, of course, because all families are unique.  From the little girl whose parents are heavily into PDAs, "It's kind of gross" (pg. 4) to the one whose parents "just keep coming home with more" (pg. 6) –I counted fifteen children!–

From A Family is a Family is a Family 

by Sara O'Leary, illus. by Qin Leng

to the children who are part of blended families, or have same-sex or divorced parents. But it's the last little child who finally recognizes that their foster family is still a family after recalling Foster Mom's affectionate answer to a rude query about which of the children were "her real children."

"Oh, I don't have any imaginary children," Mom said.  "All my children are real." (pg. 28)

Though I know, and children do too, that not all families are perfect or happy or supportive, Sara O'Leary's book celebrates families in all their forms–big, small, alike, different, blended, separated, adopting, fostering–as worthy of note, eclectic as they may be.  Her narration is a universal one of acceptance and appreciation for families of all kinds.  The sweetness of her message is matched page by page with Qin Leng's illustrations of children and parents of assorted colours and shapes, economic backgrounds and interests. The lightness of Qin Leng's lines and the whimsy of her colour and shape help portray a diversity of families that are as fluid as they are depicted.  After all, families can and do change over time, even if a new baby isn't the result of mom ordering him online, as one little girl suspects.  A Family is a Family is a Family is a book in which every child will find themselves, I hope, as Sara O'Leary and Qin Leng have diligently tried to include everyone in an assortment of situations that honour families at their best.

From A Family is a Family is a Family

by Sara O'Leary, illus. by Qin Leng

The Pact: Book launches (Perth, Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa)

It's going to be a whirlwind of book launches 

for

Red Deer Press 

and

the author of

September 17

by Amanda West Lewis

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-507-3

313 pp.

Ages 12+

2013

Reviewed here

Amanda West Lewis

for the launch of her newest book of historical fiction

The Pact

by Amanda West Lewis

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-544-8

352 pp.

Ages 10-15

September 2016

Saturday, September 10, 2016

1-3 p.m.

The Book Nook 

80 Gore Street East

Perth, ON

A book signing with refreshments and conversation

Friday, September 16, 2016

7:30 p.m.

Mabel's Fables

662 Mt Pleasant Road

Toronto, ON 

A reading and discussion with refreshments

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

 7 p.m.

Novel Idea Bookstore

156 Princess Street

Kingston, ON

A reading and discussion with refreshments

Saturday, October 1, 2016

7 p.m.

The Avalon Studio

738A Bank Street

Ottawa, ON 

A reading and discussion with refreshments

From the publisher's website, the book is described as follows:

This vivid historical novel follows the life of young Peter Gruber — ten years old at the outbreak of World War Two in 1939 — and explores how an intelligent, sensitive youth responds to the propaganda and posturing of the Nazis. It also provides insights into the realities of living in a country at war, a country that suffers increasing waves of devastation, as the tide turns against the Nazis.

The story is told through the eyes of Peter as he is drawn into the Hitler Youth and at the same time comes to doubt what he is being told about his country and its destiny.

(Retrieved from http://www.reddeerpress.com/Detail/0889955441 on September 9, 2016.)

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Look for my review of this middle grade historical fiction novel soon. I just wanted to get this post out before Amanda West Lewis' first event tomorrow.