Forest Kid and Teen Committees: Summer Reading Lists for 2019

In the past several weeks, selected young readers who'd applied to participate on the third Forest Kid Committee (ages 8-13) and the second Forest Teen Committee (ages 14+) came together at the Ontario Library Association and talked books.  From their discussions, which were interspersed with visits from award-winning Canadian authors and pizza and ice cream, these young people produced three extraordinary lists of recommended titles to keep everyone reading Canadian over the summer.  These are their recommendations for their peers in the Silver Birch, Red Maple and White Pine reading programs of the Forest of Reading. Happy reading! ❤️🇨🇦📚

Silver Birch (Grades 3-6)

The Band of Merry Kids
Written by David Skuy
DCB

Crimson
Written by Arthur Slade
HarperCollins Canada 

Clara Voyant
Written by Rachelle Delaney
Puffin Canada 

Eat This!: How Fast Food Marketing Gets You to Buy Junk (And How to Fight Back)
Written by Andrea Curtis
Illustrated by Peggy Collins
Red Deer Press 

Inkling
Written by Kenneth Oppel
Illustrated by Sydney Smith
HarperCollins Canada

Jungle Land
Written by Eric Walters
Orca Book Publishers

Stolen Words
Written by Melanie Florence
Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard
Second Story Press

Megabat (Megabat #1)
Written by Anna Humphrey
Illustrated by Kass Reich
Tundra

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster
Written by Jonathan Auxier
Puffin Books

Tank & Fizz: The Case of the Tentacle Terror (Tank & Fizz #5)
Written by Liam O’Donnell
Illustrated by Mike Deas
Orca Book Publishers

The Tiny Hero of Ferny Creek Library
Written by Linda Bailey
Illustrated by Victoria Jamieson
Tundra Books

Too Young to Escape: A Vietnamese Girl Waits to be Reunited with Her Family
Written by Van Ho and Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Pajama Press

The Unteachables
Written by Gordon Korman
Scholastic Canada

Whatshisface
Written by Gordon Korman
Scholastic Press

Wings of Olympus (Wings of Olympus #1)
Written by Kallie George
Illustrated by Fiona Hsieh
HarperCollins Canada







Red Maple (Grades 7-8)

All That Was
Written by Karen Rivers
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Crush (Awkward #3)
Written and illustrated by Svetlana Chmakova
Yen Press

Call of the Wraith (The Blackthorn Key #4)
Written by Kevin Sands
Aladdin

Dragonfly Song
Written by Wendy Orr
Pajama Press

Frostblood (FrostBlood #1)
Written by Elly Blake
Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers

Innocent Heroes: Animals in War and the Battle of Vimy Ridge
Written by Sigmund Brouwer
Tundra Books

Love from A to Z
Written by S.K. Ali
Salaam Reads

The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali
Written by Sabina Khan
Scholastic Press

No Fixed Address
Written by Susin Nielsen
Tundra Books

Oculum
Written by Philippa Dowding
DCB

Payback (Masterminds #3)
Written by Gordon Korman
HarperCollins

Those Who Run in the Sky
Written by Aviaq Johnston
Illustrated by Toma Feizo Gas
Inhabit Media

The Rise of Winter (Terra Protectorum #1)
Written by Alex Lyttle
Central Avenue Publishing

Trail of Crumbs
Written by Lisa J. Lawrence
Orca Book Publishers

White Pine (Grades 9+)

The 4 Year Olympian: From First Stroke to Olympic Medallist
Written by Jeremiah Brown
Dundurn

Chicken Girl 
Written by Heather Smith
Penguin Teen

The Caged Queen 
Written by Kristen Ciccarelli
HarperTeen

Confessions of a Teenage Leper 
Written by Ashley Little
Penguin Teen

Dark of the West 
Written by Joanna Hathaway
Tor Teen








Field Guide to the North American Teenager 
Written by Ben Philippe
Balzer + Bray

Discovery of Flight
Written by Susan Glickman
Inanna Publications






 

Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic: A Comedian’s Guide to Life on the Spectrum
Written by Michael McCreary
Annick Press
 





In the Key of Nira Ghani 
Written by Natasha Deen
Running Press Kids

Jonny Appleseed 
Written by Joshua Whitehead
Arsenal Pulp Press

Learning to Breathe 
Written by Janice Lynn Mather
Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers








Nice Try, Jane Sinner 
Written by Lianne Oelke
Clarion Books

Not Even Bones 
Written by Rebecca Schaeffer
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

These Things I’ve Done 
Written by Rebecca Phillips
HarperTeen

Washington Black 
Written by Esi Edugyan
HarperCollins







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The downloadable lists, which include annotations about each book, can be downloaded from the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading at the following links:

Forest Kid Committee Summer Reading List for Grades 3-8
http://accessola.org/WEB/Documents/OLA/Forest/Resources/2019/Kid-Committee-List-2019.pdf

Forest Teen Committee Summer Reading List for Grades 9+
http://www.accessola.org/web/Documents/OLA/Forest/Resources/2019/Teen-Committee-List-2019.pdf

Operatic

Written by Kyo Maclear

Illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-972-0

159 pp.

Ages 10-14

April 2019

We each have a soundtrack for our lives. It may be seem like a temporary playlist of current favourites or be multiple long-playing albums of the tragedies and joys experienced. Charlie's favourite teacher, her music teacher Mr. K, obviously recognizes this, giving his students an assignment for each to select a song for that moment in their lives. While he introduces them to numerous genres of music, from jazz to reggae, 1980s rap and blue grass, and Charlie contemplates her song, she spends some time crushing on Emile, a nice guy with a passion for entomology, and worrying about Luka, a beautiful boy now absent from school who performed at the winter concert, not caring about the reactions he got.

From Operatic by Kyo Maclear, illus. by Byron Eggenschwiler

But when Mr. K introduces them to opera, Charlie finally discovers her passion. Researching the life of opera singer Maria Callas (1923-1977), she learns how an unloved child used her voice to dream and become someone deemed worthy of affection, regardless of the  detractors who ridiculed some elements of her voice.

From Operatic by Kyo Maclear, illus. by Byron Eggenschwiler

As Charlie selects her song and Luka's and Emile's stories are revealed, the three classmates and Charlie's friend Addie find a way to connect in a meaningful and supportive way, creating the beginnings of a new soundtrack as the Freaks of Feeling.

The show goes on. It always does. And somehow hearts don't stop.

Instead they beat out new rhythms. (pg. 147)

These middle school kids, on the cusp of graduating Grade 8, are trying to figure out who they are and what they want and need. Is it to be the centre of attention or remain comfortably in the background? Is it to be laid back and mellow or loud and brash? Like the music they are trying on for size and comfort, there will be missteps and surprises, quieter moments and deafening junctures. And as Maria Callas herself experienced, there will be critics and fans.

From Operatic by Kyo Maclear, illus. by Byron Eggenschwiler

But, there should be none but admirers for Kyo Maclear and Byron Eggenschwiler's Operatic. It's a full opera in stories and pictures. There are duets and solos and choruses that support the leads. There's the ordinary of parlando and the arias that take the plot to greater heights. And fools and villains, lovers and friends. There is the extraordinary and the ordinary, all reflected in Byron Eggenschwiler's artwork. The mostly black with gold and yellow illustrations may emulate the caution and optimism of a coming of age story, as the blues of Luka's story and the reds of Maria Callas's story focus on the nature of their lives, but the art is hardly ordinary. It is effusive with emotion for the angst of finding one's life songs, whether they be for Charlie, Luka, Emile or Maria Callas, and singing them privately or publicly. Fortunately, Kyo Maclear does not end Operatic on a tragedy or comedic note but one of hope, recognizing that wobbles happen but don't define life. 

A Box of Bones

Written by Marina Cohen

Roaring Brook Press

978-1-250-17221-1

288 pp.

Ages 8-12

May 2019

Sometimes people need lies. Little lies to help them deal with truths that are too huge and too difficult to face. (pg. 273)

Twelve-year-old Kallie is only interested in facts and the organized and logical world that she and her father, who works in risk management for an insurance company, live in. She has no appreciation for the arts, turning her nose up at music and seeing stories as "ugly little lies wrapped in pretty packages" (pg. 59), going so far as to refer to her dead mother only with disdain as "The Writer." Unfortunately, the world seems to want something different for her than she expects.

While at the buskers' Festival of Fools with her Grandpa Jess, Kallie is handed a small puzzle box seemingly made of bone. After much work to open it, nine smaller cubes fall out of the box, each with its own unique image. Strangely, no matter how she drops these cubes, they always land in the same order: an animal, a goblet, an oval with holes, a castle, a cylinder with flames, a coffin, a skull, a long pointed object, and a blank. Soon, Kallie's life, thrown off kilter by a new imaginative student named Anna and by secrets she is learning regarding her mother's death, is following a path based on those bone images, starting with a strange animal with amethyst eyes that appears to her.

Interspersed with Kallie's story is one of Liah, a bone carver's apprentice. In her story, distinguished to the reader by its italics font, Liah and the bone carver are heading to the evil Empress's palace to sell his carvings, travelling through an ancient forest haunted by those whose bones were buried without ancestral care. Heedless of the bone carver's warnings, Liah removes a skull, hopeful of carving something special from it. But their foray into the palace becomes something dangerous for the bone carver and Liah after a Lie-peddler they meet confronts the Empress with his stories.

There is such a thing as too much truth. (pg. 272)

How Kallie's and Liah's journeys are related is only revealed at the end of Marina Cohen's latest middle grade novel but they are entwined, both learning that

...a good story never really ends. It lives on inside you forever (pg. 222)

and that truths and lies are not very different, both necessary and still tenuous.

While Marina Cohen does creepy middle-grade really, really well–do check out several of her earlier novels such as The Inn Between (2016) and The Doll's Eye (2017)–A Box of Bones tells a great mystery without worries of keeping young readers up at night. There are eerie bits, both in Kallie's and Liah's stories, but they add to the mysteriousness, demonstrating that not everything is straightforward, logical or expected, just like life, and that stories give life as well as honour it.

Tough Call (Lorimer Sports Stories): Guest blog post

Occasionally I invite young readers to review books 
for CanLit for LittleCanadians. 
I'm very pleased to present this review 
by eleven-year-old Bronte L., a Grade 5 student.

Written by Kelsey Blair

Lorimer

978-1-45941-368-9

128 pp.

Ages 10-13

September 2018

In Tough Call by Kelsey Blair, Malia King signs up to be a basketball referee to help her family with the basketball fees for her and her sister, Flo. She is assigned her first basketball game to referee. Malia is excited to find out that she is the referee for Flo’s first game. During the game, she makes a call favouring the rival team, Boundary. Her sister Flo gets furious with her because she feels that it was a close call and it cost them the game. Shouldn’t Malia have made the call in her sister’s favour? After that call she finds out how difficult reffing truly is.

When Malia gets her full reffing schedule, to her disappointment she is one of the referees for Flo’s games during the playoffs. People were still coming up to her in the halls and giving her a hard time about not making calls to help her own school win. How will refereeing more of the games make things for Malia in school? This new schedule is putting pressure on her to choose between favouring her school or making fair calls.

I thought Tough Call was a great book with lots of dialogue and detail. Kelsey Blair did a marvellous job describing the basketball games. Her play by play description of the action made it like I was there watching Malia and Flo! Kelsey Blair created a very believable main character. Her vivid descriptions of Malia’s emotions were so strong, you could feel them yourself.

Tough Call is a great light read for grades 4-8. At only 127 pages, it is easy and enjoyable for students to read. Her plot line is very relatable for students of this age group and the events in the book are family friendly. I encourage all basketball fans to read Tough Call.  True fans of the sport will appreciate the finer details and understand the pressure in these situations. Readers who are not fans of basketball will still enjoy Malia King’s story, as everyone can relate to being under pressure at school. I would give this book an 8 out of 10 as it has a great plot line, an inspiring story, and genuine characters.

Written by Bronte L. (11)