Fifteen Point Nine

Written by Holly Dobbie
DCB
978-1-77086-523-5
240 pp.
Ages 13+
June 2018

The bullying that fifteen-year-old Agatha Murphy and others endure at the hands of “Those Girls” and the “Idiot Boys” who follow them around is physical, degrading and unconscionable.  They only see that Susan is overweight, that Carson is very small, that Travis is highly intelligent, and that Nicole has sweat issues. But it’s Aggie’s countless issues that are at the heart of Fifteen Point Nine. Aggie’s mother Jane is a paranoid alcoholic who scavenges and hoards and is oblivious to her daughter’s needs for food, clean clothes, and even a functional washroom. The bullies may ridicule Aggie for being dirty and smelling, as well as rummaging for food, but they and everyone else, including the school, doesn’t know about her mother and Aggie’s need to self-harm to relieve her anxiety and despair. Aggie may lighten that despair with barbed monikers including “The Torture Chamber” for school and “The Dump” for home, by ranking potential moments on her Official Romantic Scale, and by imagining outrageous scenarios that would whisk her away, but Aggie knows her situation is becoming intolerable.

I’m going to try to be more of a human being and less of a rodent, although it’s obviously something that I’m not very good at. (pg. 14)

In an attempt to take some control, Aggie decides to use an old camcorder to document the bullying in all its visual and audio horror. Unexpectedly, Susan becomes an ally in Aggie’s video endeavour, as do Carson, Travis and Nicole. These teens, deemed misfits by their cruel peers, become the Warriors Video Club and resolve to expose the bullies.

While Aggie continues to suffer at the hands of her horrid mother and the bullies, there are unexpected glimmers of something better, including  kindness from a school janitor and several moms, some Johnny Cash-infused wisdom from Jane’s newest suitor,

"Pain ain’t no good thing. Aint’t nobody out there gonna hand you a prize for storin’ shit in your heart.” (pg. 185)

and, most importantly, notes from an anonymous boy who wants her to attend the Winter Solstice Carnival dance. But, when a classmate commits suicide, Aggie’s perspective on survival and taking charge is put to the test.

Fifteen Point Nine may be Holly Dobbie’s debut novel but her teaching experiences with teens have served her well in telling the story convincingly. For those living through bullying, parental neglect, suicide of a peer and dejection, the authenticity of Fifteen Point Nine will hit hard, particularly in its harshness and near hopelessness. Still, Holly Dobbie makes it clear that, for those who do suffer at the hands of others, every day of survival is a victory and making it past fifteen point nine (just less than sixteen years of age) is a triumph.


(A version of this review was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)

Kubiw, H. (2018, September). [Review of the book Fifteen Point Nine, by Holly Dobbie]. Quill & Quire, 84 (7): 37.

The Funeral

Written and illustrated by Matt James

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-908-9

40 pp.

Ages 4-7

April 2018

Funerals always mean something different to those attending. There are those who are overwhelmed with grief and others who treat it as a social event. There are some for whom the funeral is just part of the cycle of life. But what does a funeral mean to children, particularly for the very young?

When Norma's mother's gets the phone call that her Uncle Frank has passed, she is saddened. Norma knows she should be too–in fact, she practises her sad face in the mirror– but attending a funeral for Norma means getting the day off school and seeing her favourite cousin Ray. 

Though Norma and Ray follow their parents' directives and participate in the process that is the funeral–the procession, the church service, a reception–they are young and find ways to focus on other things: the smell in a mother's purse, a giraffe stuffie, the dancing dust mots, the music and the other funeral attendees. They have questions but their natural inclinations are to participate in life. The two slip outside into the graveyard and natural world, feeling the freedom that comes from being able to move and observe and explore.

From The Funeral by Matt James

Though Norma recognizes that Uncle Frank died because he was really old, she still ponders what his death means to those around her. In the end, she recognizes that "I think Uncle Frank would have liked his funeral."

There are many books that help discuss end of life with children but never have I seen one that honours how children see death and the funeral process as aptly as Matt James's The Funeral. It is just one funeral and it's not every child's response to a funeral but it is very honest and real. Perhaps it's a book for parents to recognize that children may be part of the grieving process, without grieving as their elders might, and their ways are appropriate for them. I'm pleased that the parents and others don't chastize the children for being disrespectful for playing outdoors or being inattentive to all the rituals (though Norma does recognize "how looong they sat on those hard seats, with all that talk about God and souls, and not very much talk about Uncle Frank.")

From The Funeral by Matt James

The story in The Funeral is carried by Matt James's illustrations, the same acrylic-and-ink artwork that won him a Governor General's Literary Award for Northwest Passage (Groundwood, 2013). The art is raw, not necessarily neat and tidy, but, just like life, it is buoyant and energetic and hopeful even during times of great sadness.  With its colour, its lines and its words, The Funeral celebrates the spirit of those who lived and those who love life.

A Girl Like That

Written by Tanaz Bhathena

Farrar Straus Giroux

978-0-374-30544-4

369 pp.

Ages 13-18

February 2018

Zarin Wadia, sixteen, is A Girl Like That. She's seen as provocative, rebellious, and clever but her story is one of tragedy from birth to her death.

Zarin's death, along with that of a young man, Porus Dumasia, in a car accident is not a surprise ending. It begins the book with Zarin's guardians, Masi (mother's sister) and Masa (maternal uncle), and Porus's mother wailing over the dead teens. How they got there which is essentially Zarin's back story is the story of A Girl Like That. Told in multiple voices of Zarin, Porus, a gossipy classmate Mishal, and a boy Farhan with whom Zarin becomes involved, Tanaz Bhathena's first young adult novel is a study in nature vs. nurture for a teen whose origins were considered shameful and whose upbringing was rife with physical and emotional abuse. 

Memories...can be like splinters, digging into you when you least expect them to, holding tight and sharp the way wood did when it slid under a fingernail. (pg. 27)

Zarin is never made to feel like she belongs. Not with her Masi and Masa who take her in after her unmarried mother's death or at Qala Academy, the school she attends after they move from India to Saudi Arabia. She is shamed at home by her abusive and mentally ill Masi–and infrequently defended by Masa–for her illegitimacy, her gangster father and issues related to her being a girl. At school, a place where rumours are currency, especially for Mishal the anonymous BlueNiqab blogger and gossip monger, Zarin's classmates look down their noses at her for her heritage and standoffish ways. Still, Zarin endures. She hides the abuses and thumbs her nose at those who shame her. She smokes and she goes riding in cars with boys, an offense according to Sharia law.

And then her childhood Parsi friend, Porus, moves to Jeddah with his mother after the death of his beloved father. Zarin and Porus resume their friendship though it is an unconventional one, with Porus completely smitten and Zarin dating other boys and not sure she is capable of loving anyone. When Zarin is the victim of an assault by Farhan, her world at home and school dissolves into a muddy mess of anger, gossip, shaming, and revenge, with Zarin's desperately searching for courage and safety, within and without.

A Girl Like That is garnering much attention because of Tanaz Bhathena's story about gender inequality and religion-based social restrictions in Saudi Arabia. By focusing on a world that is intimate to many but foreign to so many others, Tanaz Bhathena is both honouring those who live Zarin's life and educating those unfamiliar with the restrictions and distinctions of living with abuse, segregation, cultural discrimination, gender inequality and religious policing.  But beyond the cultural milieu, A Girl Like That is still a statement about the need for self-expression, to fight self and others, to become who you are. Zarin's story is still a tragedy for the abuses inflicted upon her by family, both young men and women, and her cultures but she finds a way to fly, even without wings.

Because a bird only learns to fly when its wings are broken. (pg. 318)

Everyday ABC

Written and illustrated by Paul Covello

HarperCollins

978-1-44345-441-4

30 pp.

Ages 0-4

May 2018

Alphabet books like most concept books tend to be rather simplistic, for two reasons. First, the patterns that the text will follow are predetermined. It's always going to be A through Z. Secondly, they are concept books, those which try to teach a new concept to the very young. They must be simple enough for children to grasp the concept through multiple readings. If there is any confusion or duality of message, the book is not serving its purpose. If the children are not familiar with the words that are selected for each letter, it does not serve its purpose.  Everyday ABC serves its purpose very well and with boldly colourful illustrations that will boost learning.

From Everyday ABC by Paul Covello

For each letter of the alphabet, artist Paul Covello, whose books Canada ABC, Canada 123 and Toronto ABC have already provided familiar Canadian perspectives to concept learning, shares commonplace examples for children.  The list includes: apple, ball, cat, dog, egg, flower, guitar, hat, ice cream, juice, kite, leaf, milk, nest, orange, paint, quilt, rainbow, shoe, tree, umbrella, vegetable, window, xylophone, yarn and zoo. Most children would already be familiar with these words, hearing them regularly in western households: "Put your shoe on" or "Eat your vegetable" or "Let's go to the zoo today." Now they can see the letters that starts these words, see how each word is spelled and learn the order of the letters in the alphabet.  Everyday ABC speaks to the child with things recognizable to them, not to impress the adult reader.

While the text fulfils its mandate of teaching the alphabet, Paul Covello's artwork is probably what children will most appreciate. The art is alive with colour and shape, drawing children to recognize and identify objects in the details and further the learning. E may be for egg, but a child will also learn where the egg comes from as well as the difference between a hen and chicks and a rooster, all in a sunny egg-yolk yellow landscape.

From Everyday ABC by Paul Covello

Moreover, every child, albeit in a western world, is represented here. There is diversity in where children live, what colour their skin is, what clothing they wear. There are boys and girls and children whose gender is irrelevant. There are indoor scenes and outdoor scenes, and scenes of activity and quiet times too.

From Everyday ABC by Paul Covello

While the focus of Everyday ABC differs from his earlier works, Paul Covello continues to recognize how to blend his artwork to help young children grasp new concepts and he does so with an earnest awareness of children's needs and likings that all will appreciate.

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Walking in the City with Jane: A Story of Jane Jacobs

Written by Susan Hughes
Illustrated by Valérie Boivin
Kids Can Press
978-1-77138-653-1
36 pp.
Ages 6-9
April 2018

Jane Jacobs is an icon of urban activism both in her birth country of the United States and her adopted home of Canada. In both places, her support of cities as communities for the people pitted her against traditional urban planners and developers but won her the support of her neighbours near and far.

Susan Hughes, author of numerous fiction (e.g., What Happens Next, The Four Seasons of Patrick, Virginia) and non-fiction (e.g., Off to Class, Case Closed?, Coming to Canada) books for young readers, takes Jane's story from humble but passionate beginnings–an anecdote about Jane being sent home from school when she wouldn't promise to brush her teeth everyday and trying to incite her classmates to follow is especially telling–to a move to New York City where she saw her city through "eyes on the street" and recognizing life in the city as a "ballet of the sidewalk."

From Walking in the City with Jane by Susan Hughes, illus. by Valérie Boivin

She knew that animals, plants, river, sunshine and rain all worked together as part of a healthy ecosystem. "But a city is also an ecosystem," she realized. "It is made of different parts – sidewalks, parks, stores, neighborhoods, City Hall ... and people, of course. When they all work together, the city is healthy. (pg. 14)

After her marriage to architect Bob Jacobs, Jane continued to work as a journalist. She used her writing to criticize city planning that supported businesses and transportation and thought seldom of the people upon which communities were built. She initiated protests that stopped the razing of her own neighbourhood for construction of a highway. It took years of protests and activism, including an arrest for interrupting a city meeting, before Jane and her fellow activists were able to stop the development of the expressway and even save a local park from traffic.  Her family's move to Toronto did not suppress her love of cities or the need to advocate for neighbourhoods.

She inspired communities to take a stand for their neighborhoods. She also encouraged everyone living in cities to look around them while they walked and to listen, linger and think about what they saw. (pg. 34)

From Walking in the City with Jane by Susan Hughes, illus. by Valérie Boivin

By highlighting key events in Jane Jacobs's life–school, the move to New York City, marriage and family, the protests against Robert Moses's plans for development, the move to Canada and continued advocacy for cities for people–Susan Hughes distills Jane's story to one of action. Of course, there is much more to her long-life story (she was 89 when she passed) but these milestones shaped the trajectory of her influence about the way we think about cities.

Illustration by Valérie Boivin used in Walking in the City with Jane by Susan Hughes retrieved from https://valerieboivin.carbonmade.com/projects/6410126

Quebec artist Valérie Boivin, already well-known for illustrating French-language books including 752 lapins, Le livre où la poule meurt à la fin, as well as her own Un après-midi chez Jules, brings structure and dynamics to Jane Jacobs's story. Just like the cities Jane Jacobs supported with her action, Valérie Boivin blends work and play and landmarks with conventional buildings to create landscapes that are familiar and still noteworthy.

Walking in the City with Jane honours Jane Jacobs's urban activism and reminds us to be functional players on the stages of our cities, not merely bit players with walk-on roles, and the best way to do that is to open our eyes and engage.

PB's Comet

Written by Marnie Parsons

Illustrated by Veselina Tomova

Running the Goat Books & Broadsides

978-1-927917-12-1

32 pp.

Ages 4-9

March 2018

While stories that support children's interests in the sciences, tech, math and engineering are becoming more and more common, I don't think there is one out there anything like PB's Comet which promotes the idea of following one's STEM dreams, even if ridiculed or ignored by others, with sheep and and a goat and Newfoundland flair.

PB is a lamb of Toads Cove (the original name of Tors Cove, NFLD) who, with other sheep and a goat, is taken over to Fox Island for summer grazing. While the others bide their time, grazing and watching tourists and whales, PB is reading about astronomer Edmond Halley, studying star charts and staying up at night to ponder the night sky. Her focus is on calculating when the next comet might stream across the sky.  But the old goat "who was inclined to be grumpy and rather remote" (pg. 12) does not appreciate her efforts.

From PB's Comet by Marnie Parsons, illus. by Veselina Tomova

So he'd hide PB's spyglass and munch on her maps
and jumble her numbers while poor PB napped.
But no matter the ills of the old goat's devising,
PB maintained an extremely surprising
insistence that soon her comet would come,
and with every assurance that goat seemed more glum. (pg. 15)

But when that old goat glimpses the night sky, which he'd been missing because of heading to bed earlier than most, PB's pest becomes her protege, joining her to watch the night sky and learn.

From PB's Comet by Marnie Parsons, illus. by Veselina Tomova

Though a picture book which many people incorrectly assume to be only for the very young, PB's Comet is sophisticated in its text and artwork and probably better suited to early and middle grade students who will be able to delve deeper into the science and history of the story. (The endpapers have a colourful timeline of possible sightings of Halley's Comet from 3 c. BC through 1986.) Still, though Marnie Parson's appended notes tell the story of Edmond Halley's 1700 visit to Toads Cove as well as the practice of Tors Cove farmers to take their sheep over to Fox and Ship Islands for summer grazing, PB's Comet is a story even bigger than these elements.

Marnie Parson's rhyming text is rich in word choice and mood. In fact, the rhythms propel the reader through PB's story easily with the text's rhyming scheme (AABBCC) and Marnie Parson's choice of vocabulary. But the text is neither simplistic nor contrived. It has a depth of language that seems of another time and place and perhaps that is what it is supposed to convey. Veselina Tomova's artwork supports that spirit including such elements as a sextant and old-fashioned telescope in PB's scientific tools. Veselina Tomova's etchings also have a grittiness of a time and place less sterile than today, more earthy and humble, and totally appropriate for the story of PB's Comet.

PB's Comet has an important message about following your own path and passions, even those not supported by your community. The reader can feel PB's intention and passion for the stars and elements of the night sky, as well as the old goat's indignation, perhaps because it feels threatened, with a young sheep who doesn't follow the path of the others. Still, young readers will realize that the lamb can do astronomy, even if there are those who oppose her efforts and even sabotage them, and it's this message that should be heeded.

PB's Comet is funny, rhythmic and imaginative, but more than that, for lambs, girls and those pursuing their passions, PB's Comet has an important message about self-actualization that teachers and parents would do well to share.

The Whirlpool

Written by Laurel Croza

Illustrated by Kelsey Garrity-Riley

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-032-3

96 pp.

Ages 10-14

May 2018

Don't be deceived by the simple cover illustration and the less-than-100 page count. The Whirlpool, a collection of seven short stories from award-winning picture book author Laurel Croza, is not an early reader.  Its stories are sophisticated and aimed at upper middle grades, covering a wide variety of issues from emotional abuse and grief to destiny and bullying.

In It's a Step, the narrator Charity lives with her mother and abusive father.  As her dad rails against her mom taking a job at Tim's, both mother and daughter find the means to take a small step to a better life.  In Book of Dreams, Mike finds the support he doesn't get at home from his mom and her latest boyfriend at a restaurant where he gets respect, appreciation and a turkey dinner. While a very different story in terms of characters, OH! is also about finding home. The Oh! So Perfect Hair Dolly goes from factory to store shelf and dreams of being named by a child. The desolation of being passed over during Christmas shopping and then being relegated to the reduced price bin is reflective of any child who has felt unloved.  

The Whirlpool is the story of fifteen-year-old Jasmine who is the brunt of swirling rumours at the whirlpool that is school about her having a baby. As she deals with the gossip and nastiness, Jasmine resolves to "look the whirlpool in the eye" (pg. 30) and reveal her story. A Beautiful Smile also looks at nastiness at school, this time with a young teen from the north standing up to a mean girl at her new Toronto school. Most satisfying is the public and clever way in which Nicola finds support and salvation.

Although all the stories have something important to impart, my two favourite stories are The Sunflower and Destiny. Though told from the perspective of a squirrel, The Sunflower is neither trite nor silly. It is an emotional story about loss and grief and making connections, and I defy anyone not to sob at its telling.  Destiny is a revealing story about following one's dreams, regardless of others' desires and opinions.  Johnny helped inspire his younger sister Dani to play hockey even when her father thought figure skating would be more appropriate. Dani persevered and changed her father's mind about her playing hockey. Now, with Johnny drafted to the OHL, she wants to help her brother accept his true destiny too.

Each story in Laurel Croza's collection is packed with emotional growth, from taking first steps to fulfilling one's destiny, or saving yourself, or accepting strengths and weaknesses as part of the whole package. The stories may be brief (each less than 20 pages) but they wallop you with the power of their storytelling, dialogue and message. My favourite, The Sunflower, does that all in five pages.

I shouldn't be surprised that Laurel Croza can weave such powerful tales. Her highly-acclaimed picture books, I Know Here and From There to Here, which were beautifully illustrated by Matt James, conveyed amazing stories in few words. But these stories are not picture book tales transformed into text. They are not for our youngest readers, though, because of the length of the books, parents and teachers might expect them to be so.  The stories in The Whirlpool collection deal with issues of abuse, gossip, abandonment, and death. While these are issues with which younger readers may be familiar, the older protagonists in Laurel Croza's stories suggest that older middle grade readers might understand the messages better.

I've always loved short story collections for the breadth of stories that can be told and the piecemeal manner in which the text can be read. They are potent teaching tools and convenient for reading in shorter time periods. With The Whirlpool, Laurel Croza has provided a worthwhile addition to the youngCanLit collection of short story anthologies as it enlightens, reassures and inspires.