Fire Song

Written by Adam Garnet Jones

Annick Press

978-1-55451-977-4

232 pp.

Ages 14+

March 2018

Maybe the game is rigged and the only way to win is by giving up. (pg. 115)

So much about Shane's life hurts that it's hard to find the faith he needs to help endure it.  It should be full of hope and promise. He's finishing his final year of school and anticipating a move to Toronto for post-secondary. He's smart, given the nickname of "College".  He has a pretty girlfriend, Tara, who adores him. But much is a facade because underneath it all, Shane is a mess of grief, confusion and guilt.

Fire Song begins the day of the memorial for Shane's younger sister Destiny who took her own life six weeks earlier. His mother Jackie is despondent, unwilling to leave Destiny's room, even with the constant ministrations of elder Evie. Fortunately, his Anishinaabe reserve community, the only home he's every known, is tight and supportive.

His heart beats under this ground and the roots of the trees spread through his lungs. (pg. 14)

But Shane has secrets and burdens that are disturbing his potentially bright future. He has just learned that his funding for school isn't available from his reserve because he is registered with his father's reserve, though his father is long passed and Shane never lived there. School wants a hefty deposit but Jackie hasn't worked since Destiny's death. Moreover, the roof on their house is disintegrating and, though the materials are in at the store to repair it, his family does not have the money for both the roof and his schooling. But Shane's most emotional struggle comes with balancing his growing sexual relationship with David, Evie's grandson, and his public romantic involvement with Tara, a teen eager to find a new life away from an abusive father and a private writer of introspective prose and poetry.

How can it be
That the smell of home and
the smell of lonely are the same? (pg. 70) 

As Shane tries to keep a roof over their heads and prompt his mother into action, hide his relationship with David while craving it desperately, make some money in a community with few opportunities, and grieve the loss of his sister, his life continues to fray and threaten his future. It's all about choices and not one of them is easy.

Adam Garnet Jones tells Shane's painful story in such expressive prose and poetry, the latter courtesy of Tara's writing, that the reader is carried on a wave from anguish to heartbreak to misery. Shane's story is a tragedy on so many levels: family, school, community, love. But, in each of those circumstances, there are still slivers of buoyancy: a mother who loves him but has abandoned him in her grief; acceptance to school in Toronto, though the money is not at hand; a community of friends who support Shane but would not accept his being a two-spirited person; and a boy and a girl who love him but confound his life's plan.  Adam Garnet Jones may not pretty up Shane's story but he does bring a fitting conclusion to it. I won't tell you if the roof gets fixed or if Shane goes to school in Toronto or if he chooses David or Tara, but I can tell you that things get worse before they get better but better they do. With acceptance of his choices and the life he needs, Shane survives another day to love and be loved.

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Fire Song is based on a film by the same name, written and directed by Adam Garnet Jones and produced by Fire Song Films Inc. and Big Soul Productions Inc. I encourage readers to check out the trailer for Fire Song which premiered at TIFF in 2015.

Retrieved from YouTube at https://youtu.be/1HyRNI9kKkA on August 6, 2018. 

Uploaded by TIFF Trailers on August 13, 2015.

Raw Talent

Written by Jocelyn Shipley

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-1834-7

138 pp.

Ages 11-14

August 2018

Everyone wants to help out Sunflower Farm, the family farm of Stonehill High students Vanessa and Heath. Since the death of their father, their mother has been struggling to keep the farm running and the school community is coming together for Farmshine, a performance and market fundraiser.  Raw Talent's narrator, Paisley who is Heath's Grade 9 classmate, intends to volunteer with her best friend Jasmeer but what Paisley really wants to do is perform. Her ambition is to be a singer-songwriter and she has no problem posting videos of herself performing but her stage fright is discouraging her from signing up to sing at Farmshine.  With a mother who is an accomplished flutist with the symphony and a university music teacher, Paisley is just not sure she can cut it on stage.

With celebrated singer-actor Maxine Gaston staying at Jasmeer's parents' B & B while her local home is being renovated and she is performing at the Stratford Festival, Jasmeer arranges for her to coach Paisley to help get over her performance anxiety.  Maxine Gaston is a great help but Paisley, who has much to overcome because of a disastrous audition at age 10 with the award-winning Sweetland Singers, is being harassed online, by phone and in person by Cadence, the self-important girlfriend of Heath and soloist with the Sweetland Singers.  Can Paisley get beyond her insecurities about her lower singing voice and Cadence's nastiness to stand up in front of an audience and do what she loves?

Raw Talent is a feel-good hi-lo novel for older middle graders and young teens. While written at an easier reading level, Raw Talent's story, part of the Orca Limelights series based in the performance arts, will resonant with young teens aspiring to new endeavours but unsure of their abilities. Jocelyn Shipley makes sure that the reader realizes that having a dream is futile if you don't set goals to achieve it.  It's up to Paisley to decide what she can and cannot do. Not her mother, not Cadence, not the director of the Sweetland Singers. Just her. She might have been devastated when she didn't get into the Sweetland Singers but she found a way to continue singing and performing albeit in the privacy of her room while still sharing it publicly. Then, with Maxine's coaching, she has the opportunity to take steps forward. Though not easy, especially with self-doubt and bullying that erodes her confidence, Paisley steps up. Jocelyn Shipley doesn't just hand Paisley the opportunity, though.  She makes sure the girl works for what she wants. Maxine Gaston is encouraging but she is not effusive and she makes it clear that, if Paisley isn't willing to put herself out there, she's not going to bother coaching her. That could be an "ouch" moment, but it's not because it's a challenge that Paisley accepts. Similarly, the bullying that Paisley experiences via Cadence is nasty but impactful and still she finds the means eventually to toss it off with a "Whatever". 

Whether Jocelyn Shipley intended, she's affirming Nietzsche's belief that "That which does not kill, makes us stronger".  Paisley's performance anxiety and Cadence's bullying can't stop her and, in fact, they give her the opportunity to be more than she could have imagined for herself.

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.