That Fatal Night: The Titanic Diary of Dorothy Wilton, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1912

by Sarah Ellis
Scholastic Canada
978-0-545-98073-9
170 pp.
Ages 8-13
2011

"The Titanic lives on because it is the best of stories.  It has exotic luxury, arrogance, greed, mystery, heroism, self-sacrifice, romance, suspense, vibrant characters, the implacable forces of nature, the power and ingenuity of huge machines and, at its heart, a little empty space, a space just big enough for us." (Sarah Ellis, Historical Note, pg. 147-148)

Sarah Ellis' assessment of the intrigue surrounding the Titanic is absolutely correct, except for Dorothy Wilton, who (fictionally) had a space on the Titanic and wishes she hadn't.  In fact, she'd rather not talk about it at all.  So starts That Fatal Night, just weeks after the disaster, with twelve-year-old Dorothy Wilton having been sent home from her Halifax school for injuring a classmate, Irene Rudge. Dorothy had slapped Irene, but Irene probably sustained greater injuries when she fell back and hit her head.  Now the principal has sent Dorothy home for the remainder of the school year.  Miss Caughey, Dorothy's classroom teacher, gives her a blank notebook in which to write about what happened that spring, and visits Dorothy regularly to check her progress.

Dorothy is determined not to even think about what happened on the ship but does recollect her visit with her grandparents in England, from which she had been returning.  Her visit with her grandparents and Mrs. Hawkins, the housekeeper, and Mrs. Hawkins' children, Owen and Millie, had been a magical time for Dorothy.  Grandfather conducted life lessons using newspaper stories, while Grandmother, an early feminist, introduced Dorothy to their extraordinary friends, including Mrs. Bland, who under her nom de plume had written the popular children's book, The Railway Children.  Dorothy role-played with Millie and Owen, regularly putting on performances.  After such a grand time, returning to Canada with the finicky Miss Pugh, an employee of her father's bank who had gone to visit her aging father, was tedious.

While writing about her visit with her grandparents and thinking about her dreams and such, Dorothy starts to allow snippets of reminiscences: her room at home and the ship's cabin; her frightening dream of melting faces and her visit to Madame Tussaud's wax museum; the freedom and joy of her visit versus the perennial admonitions of Miss Pugh of all things inappropriate, unsuitable, outrageous and vulgar.  And we learn that Dorothy had never wanted Miss Pugh to die.  In fact, Dorothy blames herself for her chaperone's death.

When Dorothy pieces her recollections together, she recognizes, with hindsight, her confusion about her actions and her feelings ("But I have never been so lonely as I was in that lifeboat"; pg.  115), finally acknowledging the fact that there just had not been enough lifeboats for everyone and that many people drowned. Ultimately, Dorothy is able to stop chastizing herself ("I should have been more grateful but being grateful takes heart"; pg. 120) but it isn't until an unexpected visitor speaks with her that Dorothy is set free from her guilt and self-recriminations.

While Sarah Ellis, Governor General Award-winning author of Pick-Up Sticks (Groundwood, 1991) shares extraordinary notes and photographs about the Titanic and its installation in our history and recognizes all the drama that is associated with the great ship's sinking, she puts forth a florid alternative narrative here, one in which a survivor looks within herself in regards to the tragedy.   Dorothy sees her actions as short-comings and inappropriate, not wishing to share these.  Surprisingly, her sorrow is misdirected.  By allowing herself to make mistakes (illustrated when she is finally able to leave a smudge mark in her notebook, rather than tear the page out and rewrite it) and see that there can still be a happy ending (just as in Edward Lear's nonsense poem, The Jumblies, which she memorizes), Dorothy has developed into a thoughtful and insightful young lady with the promise of surviving much more than just a maritime disaster.

• • • • •

The Jumblies and Other Nonsense Verses by Edward Lear can be read online or downloaded from Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org

Atlantic Book Awards: 2012

Last night, at a literary fundraiser that featured author Alexander Macleod speaking with other CanLit authors, the Atlantic Book Awards Society announced the shortlists of nominated titles for its nine different book prizes.

The Atlantic Book Awards and Festival will be held May 10-17, 2012, comprising of numerous free events in all Canadian Atlantic provinces, and will culminate with an awards ceremony on May 17 in Newfoundland.

To get more information about the Atlantic Canada Book Awards and this year's nominated titles, go to http://www.atlanticbookawards.ca/2012-atlantic-book-awards-and-festival-shortlist/


The nine Atlantic Book Awards are:

• Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature

• APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award, sponsored by Friesens

• Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson, presented by the Kiwanis Club of Dartmouth

• Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing

• Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction), presented by Boyne Clarke

• Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration

• Margaret and John Savage First Book Award

• Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Fiction

• The Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award

Congratulations go out to all authors, illustrators and publishers.

If you've been reading CanLit for LittleCanadians, you know I always like to emphasize books for younger readers.  Here are the Atlantic Book Awards nominations of books and author/illustrators for young readers: 

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature

Betsy Wickwire’s Dirty Secret
by Vicki Grant
HarperCollins Canada

Chasing Freedom
by Gloria Ann Wesley
Roseway Publishing

The Year Mrs. Montague Cried
by Susan White 
Acorn Press









Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration

Thank You for My Bed
Illustrated and written by Doretta Groenendyk
Acorn Press

A Day with You in Paradise
Illustrated by Patsy MacKinnon  
Written by Lennie Gallant
Nimbus Publishing

There were Monkeys in My Kitchen
Illustrated by Sydney Smith
Written by Sheree Fitch
Nimbus Publishing


 




Margaret and John Savage First Book Award

The Town That Drowned 
by Riel Nason
Goose Lane Editions









The Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award

Jack and the Manger
by Andy Jones
Running the Goat Books & Broadsides

Edge of Time
by Susan M. MacDonald
Breakwater Books

Dragon Seer’s Gift 
by Janet McNaughton
HarperCollins Canada

Festival of Trees: Ottawa

Are you reading the Forest® in the Ottawa area?

 Then DON'T MISS OUT 

on Canada's largest literary event for young people 
and its first celebration in Ottawa

  
Festival of Trees™

May 17, 2012

Carleton University

  •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 

If you've been reading books in the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading®'s 

Silver Birch or Red Maple programs

for the chance to vote for your favourite books, 

then you'll want to attend 

the first ever Ottawa Festival of Trees

Over half the tickets ($10 each) for this event have been sold already, so don't delay.   

Contact the Ontario Library Association here for tickets. 

For more information, please visit http://www.accessola.com/festivaloftrees

Hugh Brewster presents ... Titanic stories

~ ~ ~

Titanic & History enthusiasts of all ages:

Join 

author of award-winning Canadian historical fiction and non-fiction for young people and adults

  Hugh Brewster

who presents his research, writing and stories

to commemorate

 the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic 

March 24, 2012
Titanic High Tea, with book talk and signing
Creemore Train Station, Creemore, Ontario
4:30 p.m.

March 29, 2012
Titanic dinner and book launch  
for RMS Titanic: Gilded Lives on a Fatal Voyage
Grano Ristorante, Toronto
6:30 p.m.

March 30, 2012

Titanic talk and book signing 

Royal Ontario Museum,  Toronto

7:15 p.m. 

April 4, 2012 
A Titanic Scandal
An illustrated talk about Lady Duff Gordon, a Guelph girl who became a fashion designer and survived the sinking of the Titanic
Guelph Civic Museum,  Guelph, Ontario
7:00 p.m.


For details about additional events in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Massachusetts, and the U.K., see Hugh Brewster's schedule of presentations here.

~ ~ ~

Deadly Voyage: RMS Titanic, Jamie Laidlaw, Crossing the Atlantic, 1912

Written by Hugh Brewster

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-0465-4

195 pp.

Ages 9-13

2011

Often the voices of the young are rarely heard when major current events occur.  Children and young teens are "protected" by adults who negate their comments, minimize their value or, worse, ignore them completely.  However, as Hugh Brewster demonstrates in Deadly Voyage, the observations and assessments of young Jamie Laidlaw provide a different perspective on the Titanic and its sinking, and perhaps a more accurate one.

Jamie Laidlaw, 14, has been living in England with his parents for the past two years, by virtue of his father's job with the Imperial Bank.  Now, they are returning home to Montreal, with his mom's maid, Rosalie, and their Airedale terrier, Max.  Boarding the RMS Titanic on April 10, 1912 at Southampton, his parents make the acquaintance of numerous wealthy patrons, including Major Peuchen, Mr. Molson (of brewery and banking fame), and Mr. and Mrs. Fortune and their older children from Winnipeg.  Jamie, on the other hand, makes the acquaintance of several passengers who will disembark at Ireland, including eleven-year-old Jack Odell.  As boys will be, Jamie and Jack explore throughout the ship, providing a first-hand account of the design and opulence of the Titanic, from third-class to first-class accommodations, to the different dining rooms, the pool, the Turkish baths, the squash courts and the fully-outfitted gymnasium, and even to the Marconi room from which wireless messages are amazingly sent.  After Jack's departure, Jamie makes a new friend over the animal kennels where Max is being housed.  Johnnie Ryerson is an American boy (with a pet rat he's stowed away on board) who is returning to the States with his family for the funeral of his oldest brother.  Johnnie's curiosity gets the two boys in trouble with their families, as they entertain themselves with some of the Titanic's distractions and pursuing the runaway rat.

When the ship hits the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, Jamie's youthful perspective, even after having to put on his life jacket, watching young men kick a chunk of ice around like a soccer ball, is to think, "But imagine this happening to a brand new ship!  What bad luck!" (pg. 78)  However, his optimism flags after watching the few lifeboats get loaded with passengers and observing the courage and cowardice evident amongst the passengers and crew.  While his mother wants him to board a lifeboat, Jamie insists on staying behind to look after his father.  (Johnnie, however, is forced by his father to join his mother and sisters on a lifeboat, a decision that will haunt Johnnie forever.)  Left on the ship with his father, Jamie seems to come-of-age, standing shoulder to shoulder with men to prevent others from clambering into the lifeboats, helping to release another lifeboat, and ultimately, as "every man for himself", plunging himself into a huge wave to get clear of the sinking ship.

Hugh Brewster, whose award-winning non-fiction and fiction emphasize key historical events in Canada's past, demonstrates how to take a well-recorded subject (i.e., the sinking of the Titanic) and see it from a different and fresh perspective.  By giving young Jamie a voice, as he grows from a boy to a young man, and later as a grandfather looking back at the events, Deadly Voyage epitomizes the experiences of the Titanic passengers and others affected by the tragedy.  Coupled with the historical notes, glossary, and photographs, Deadly Voyage provides a comprehensive fictional non-fiction exposé of the Titanic's sinking, which only a seasoned writer such as Hugh Brewster could have produced.

***

Look for additional news about Titanic presentations and book lists in the next week, all in preparation for commemorating, on April 15, 2012, the 100th anniversary of its sinking.

Middle of Nowhere

by Caroline Adderson

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-132-8

214 pp.

Ages 8-12

2012

Nowhere is a place like no other.  It seems endless, remote and isolated (even more than the beautiful British Columbia of Middle of Nowhere).  If you have hold of someone’s hand when in nowhere, it doesn’t seem so bad.  But what if the hand is absent, and someone else is practically pulling off your hand looking for support?  Do you let nowhere swallow you or do you look for a new hand? Can you choose poorly or is every option viable?

Curtis Schlanka is only 12 but he seems like a boy who has already lived through a lot.  He was five-and-a-half years old when his mother took off after her boyfriend, Gerry, leaving Curtis’ kindergarten teacher to contact Social Services.  At the Pennypackers’ foster home, he had to endure nasty bullying from their nine-year-old son, Brandon, until Curtis’ mother returned and proved she was a fit mother to her new baby, Artie, and was able to take Curtis home too.  She was working hard at getting her high-school equivalency while working the night shift at Pay-N-Save, and doing her best to provide for her two sons. 

So when she doesn’t come home, Curtis is pretty sure, ten out of ten, that she’ll be back.  Coincidentally, the elderly woman in the house next door, Mrs. Burt, injures her hip and recruits Curtis to run some errands for her.  Mrs. Burt and Curtis soon recognize the mutual benefit of helping each other.  After the police are called in (since their apartment’s rent didn’t get paid), the boys stay hidden at Mrs. Burt’s, aiming to evade Social Services.  Happily, they avoid the authorities while helping Mrs. Burt too, who enjoys mothering the boys, especially five-and-a-half year old Artie, whose screaming and crying fits subside with her TLC. 

With school almost finished, Mrs. Burt suggests going up to her cabin for a holiday, all the while assuring Curtis that he can keep trying to contact his mom should she return.   So, in her 1957 Chevy Bel Air, they travel to the remote cabin where the boys are nourished by the sun, Mrs. Burt’s great cooking and lots of activity, including swimming, fishing and gardening.  While Artie grows emotionally closer to Mrs. Burt, Curtis begins to suspect that she has her own agenda, confirmed when summer turns to fall and they do not return for school.

As manipulative as Mrs. Burt may sound, she is nothing more than an elderly woman who lives on her own and isn’t very mobile but refuses help or even advice from her “Big Shot” daughter in Toronto.  The boys’ missing mother provides Mrs. Burt with an opportunity to be valuable and in control again.  Mrs. Burt never harms the boys, only cares for them as she would her own grandchildren, but Curtis realizes that they are relinquishing control to her, giving up the opportunity to connect with their mom (which is all they wanted when avoiding Social Services). 

The nowhere of the boys’ lives could be the remoteness of the cabin, as Curtis realizes when there is nowhere to go for help; it could be the untethered nature of their relationship, which provides them only with superficial supports of food, shelter and parenting; or it could be a temporal nowhere, neither at the beginning or middle or end, never knowing how many sleeps until Mom returns.   Ultimately Curtis realizes that Mrs. Burt is in a nowhere of her own: between a life filled with working in a lumber camp, caring for her family, and being an independent woman to one of reliance, immobility, seclusion and death.  Caroline Adderson’s storytelling emotionally engages the reader in Curtis’, Artie’s and Mrs. Burt’s fears of their nowheres, while offering hope about the nowhere in which the boys’ mother exists.  Curtis’ voice is distinct, both trusting and hesitant, well-balanced with the tone of the narrative, as he learns that nowhere is just a product of a flawed perception.  Nowhere is always somewhere – the chances are ten out of ten.

Manitoba Book Awards: 2012 Nominees

I often forget how expansive Canada is until I have to announce all the regional and provincial book award programmes.  Then, I find myself blogging post after post of worthy Canadian books, authors, illustrators and publishers which really do reflect the unique nature of each area.  As such,  it's only fitting that there are the Manitoba Book Awards which are administered by the Manitoba Writers’ Guild and the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, with assistance from their numerous partners (Aqua Books, Friesens, the Manitoba Arts Council, Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Tourism, McNally Robinson Booksellers, Prairie Fire, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, the Winnipeg Foundation, the Winnipeg Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts).

The 2012 nominees for the Manitoba Book Awards were announced yesterday, with the presentation of awards scheduled for the gala on Saturday April 28th at the Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain and hosted by Drek Daa.  If I was fortunate enough to live near Winnipeg, I'd be delighted to attend this event which is free and open to the public.

The Manitoba Book Awards consist of the following thirteen categories:

• Aqua Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de poésie

• Best Illustrated Book of the Year / Meilleur livre illustré de l’année

• Manuela Dias Book Design of the Year / Prix Manuela-Dias de conception graphique en édition

• Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book

• Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award / Prix littéraire Carol-Shields de la ville de Winnipeg

• Michael Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction

• Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction

• Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction / Prix Alexander-Kennedy-Isbister pour les études et essais

• John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer

• Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher / Prix Mary-Scorer pour le meilleur livre par un éditeur du Manitoba

• McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award

• Younger Category
• Older Category

• McNally Robinson Book of the Year

As I always do like to focus on the awards for younger readers, I've included the short-listed nominees for the McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award.

In the Younger Category:

Annie’s Bright Idea: A Christmastime Adventure 
by Audrhea Lande
Illustrated by Jenny Prest
Self-published

Nanabosho and the Butterflies 
by Joe and Matrine McLellan
Illustrated by Jackie Traverse
Pemmican Publications

S is for Science: A Discovery of Alphabet 
by Larry Verstraete
Sleeping Bear Press

In the Older Category:

Case Files: 40 Murders and Mysteries Solved by Science 
by Larry Verstraete
Scholastic

Kingdom of Trolls 
by Rae Bridgman
Sybertooth

Tori by Design 
by Colleen Nelson
Great Plains Teen Fiction






 
Find more details on this year's nominees at the Manitoba Writers' Guild or about the awards in general at the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers .