Flannery

by Lisa Moore

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-076-5

268 pp.

Ages 13+

May 2016

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Oh, Flannery Malone. Flannery, Flannery, Flannery.  You are one of a kind. From your conceptual-artist, parenting-blogger mother, to the father you’ve never met, cherubic-x-devilish half-brother Felix and poor but rich life in St. John’s, Newfoundland, I’m, as they say, delighted to meet you but wouldn’t want to be you.  Actually, for that matter, I wouldn’t want to be a sixteen-year-old girl again and maybe that’s what I don’t envy about you, but you are unstoppable–in a good way– and a delight and your readers should be grateful to Lisa Moore for introducing you to us.

Boys are becoming an issue for Flannery.  Well, one boy in particular: Tyrone O’Rourke.  Though they’d been the closest of friends as kids before he’d moved away when his mom married his step-dad Marty, Tyrone has morphed into a graffiti artist known as SprayPig, sought by the cops, and rarely attends high school.  Regardless, Flannery sees the whole package that is Tyrone, past and present, and she is seriously in love. When she is partnered with Tyrone for their Entrepreneurship class project, he suggests they make potions, just like they pretended to make as kids, marketing them as magic.  But, except for this suggestion, Tyrone is awol for all work on the project, and Flannery ends up conceiving, creating and packaging the four different love potions herself.

But while she is navigating her working and crushing relationship with Tyrone, Flannery’s best friend Amber seems to be steering herself away from Flannery and her competitive swimming and into an all-consuming first relationship with Gary Bowen, a classmate and lead singer of a band whose music video will be the source of their own Entrepreneurship project.  Though Amber is becoming brutally opinionated about Tyrone, Flannery tries to diplomatically warn her friend of Gary’s dark side.  But between first loves and parents as well as the trials of high school society, Flannery and Amber and Tyrone would seem to be going against the current and where they end up may not be up to them.

“So love is work and it’s always changing and it’s making and noticing and needing and giving and definite.  It’s definite.” (pg. 113)

Lisa Moore gets into the head and heart of a sixteen-year-old so effortlessly that it’s surprising that this is her first book of young adult fiction.  Of course, from her award-winning adult fiction–Caught (House of Anansi, 2013), February (House of Anansi, 2009) and Alligator (House of Anansi,  2005)–we know Lisa Moore flawlessly tackles issues of youth and relationships and recklessness head on, never wavering from the task of telling the story no matter how fragile the characters or precarious their situations. And her insight into the tenuous nature of…everything, is evident in Flannery’s outlook and beliefs.

"I had understood about evil. I had seen how it was ordinary and stupid and there was nothing magical or fairytale-like about it.
      It was just a grown-up taking his problems out on a kid. Because he could. Because nobody stopped him.” (pg. 103)

While Lisa Moore doesn’t make everything right by Flannery’s conclusion, she does create closure for most story lines and even a bit of hope–in a kiss– which, just as in life, is sometimes all you can expect.

"Not believing in something requires a lot of effort.  It is easier to believe.  Once I have accepted that something is true, I have a hard time losing faith in it." (pg. 104)

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I'm thrilled to announce that author Lisa Moore has graciously agreed to read at the Young Adult venue of this year's Eden Mills Writers' Festival on September 18, 2016.  Other YA authors attending include R. J. Anderson, Lena Coakley, Douglas Davey, E. K. Johnston, Sylvia McNicoll, Liane Shaw and Amanda West Lewis, Check back to CanLit for LittleCanadians for a full list of guest authors in the YA and children's venues and for more details.

Born With: Erika and Gianni

by Lorna Schultz Nicholson

Clockwise Press

978-0-9939351-7-6

231 pp.

Ages 13+

March 2016

Clockwise Press launched its young adult series One-2-One with Fragile Bones: Harrison and Anna (2015), also by Lorna Schultz Nicholson, focusing on the relationship between two teens in the Best Buddies program, a world-wide organization that aims to help individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities integrate successfully  into their communities. Born With features two other teens, both with a love of musical theatre: Erika, a fourteen-year-old born with Down Syndrome and Gianni, a teen who’s struggling with his sexuality.  This is their story, a powerful one for their trueness of thought, action and self-appreciation.

Erika and Gianni both audition for the school’s musical Grease. While Erika is thrilled to get selected to sing and dance in the chorus for three songs, Gianni is disappointed to get slotted for the comedic role of Eugene, losing the coveted lead role of Danny Zuko to the more athletic but less talented Richard.  Also cast are Erika and Gianni’s friend Sonya, as Sandy, and a boy named Bilal to whom Gianni is secretly attracted.

Gianni is determined to be stellar in the role of Eugene and to help Erika rehearse her lines and steps, ensuring that both will be successful.  But the two teens have more on their plates than singing and dancing. Erika’s father has ALS and his condition is worsening, and, though she takes her responsibilities for him very seriously, all she wants is for him to see her dance.  On the other hand, Gianni is coming to terms with his sexuality and what he wants out of life, convinced he already doesn’t fit his father’s dream for him, and that he can’t be himself until he is able to graduate from high school and leave his big Italian family.  But secrets have a way of becoming revealed, especially when Erika has been tutored in not keeping secrets, even if they are someone else’s personal business.

Born With takes on the monumental task of showcasing characters living with aspects of their lives over which they have no control: a genetic disorder, and sexual orientation.  Erika has a great understanding and acceptance of the strengths and limitations of her genetic disorder, and works to meet her needs, advocating for herself while celebrating in her own successes.

Sometimes people don’t think I can be serious or that I can learn things, but I can–I can do lots of things after I’m serious and listen. And focus. Focus. (pg. 9)

Likewise, Gianni has compassionate insight into Erika but he has yet to accept himself, confused over his sexuality, still processing what he is feeling and with whom to share that secret.

Tonight Erika’s honesty was creating chaos in my life.  But, seriously, what difference did it make who I was in the school musical?  That was a relatively little issue in comparison to the rest of my life. (pg. 190)

Both Erika and Gianni must navigate how others feel about them and make them feel, while dealing with family, friends, peers, ignorant bullies, and others.  The high school years are tenuous enough but Erika and Gianni have struggles that many of us could not imagine, and yet they dare to be themselves and are able to thrive.  By wrapping their stories in the joyful musical that is Grease, another story about being true to oneself, Lorna Schultz Nicholson has written an inspirational and triumphant story of acceptance in Born With: Erika and Gianni.

Good Pirate

by Kari-Lynn Winters

Illustrated by Dean Griffiths

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-80-4

32 pp.

Ages 5-8

May 2016

Kari-Lynn Winters and Dean Griffiths’ Bad Pirate (Pajama Press, 2015), winner of the 2016 Rainforest of Reading Award, is back and Augusta Garrick is still trying to fit in with the pirates of her father’s crew.  In Bad Pirate, she had difficulties emulating the sauciness, boldness and selfishness of the sea dogs her father, Captain Barnacle Garrick, revered, and now it seems she’s just too fancy!

From Good Pirate by Kari-Lynn Winters, 

illus. by Dean Griffiths

As much as she appreciates tidiness, cleaniness and fancy baubles, she’s considered a liability when the pirates go off on a raid.  But when the crew is caught by Captain Fishmonger and his feline Tuna Lubbers, it’s the finely-scented Augusta who saves the day and proves that she’s as rotten, sneaky and brainy as necessary to be a Good Pirate.

The text is saucy and spicy and flavoured with pirate-speak, as befits a hearty swashbuckling yarn, but it’s all in good fun and brimming with joviality.  Still amidst all that merriment, so much like Kari-Lynn Winters herself, is an important message about being true to oneself and appreciating differences as strengths.  And, again, Dean Griffiths illustrates with richly detailed pirate ship sets and characters which are dogs and cats of all variety.  Kids will delight in identifying the different breeds and who’s wearing what and trying out the “pirate talk” and “nautical talk” which peppers the story and is defined in the endpapers.  Arr, Good Pirate is a good time with a hearty–both deep and enthusiastic–message packaged in the fanciest scurvyiest of art.

From Good Pirate by Kari-Lynn Winters, 

illus. by Dean Griffiths

The Stone Thrower

Written by Jael Ealey Richardson

Illustrated by Matt James

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-752-8

32 pp.

Ages 5-9

For release May 2016

Though The Stone Thrower only came out this month, this picture book that honours Jael Ealey Richardson's father, Chuck Ealey, a famous African American football player who was undefeated in his home country but made a name for himself in the CFL, will surely become earmarked for booklists of significant youngCanLit for February, Black History Month.

Thoughtfully illustrated by Governor General award-winning artist Matt James, The Stone Thrower is “a story about a kid who lived in hard times, a kid who had a big dream that seemed almost impossible.”(pg. 2) It’s the story of Chuck Ealey, beginning with his birth to a poor, hard-working mother in 1950 Portsmouth, Ohio where segregation and racism would seem to be the norm. Though her own education was minimal, his mother ensured that her son understood that, like the trains that ran through their neighbourhood, he shouldn’t stop until he got where he was going, and that was out of the North End and completing his education.

These same trains became a source of victorious inspiration to him as he regularly tossed stones at the cars, aiming for the large letter N on the side, practising over and over again until he could always hit his target. Applying this same determination, focus, and practice at school and at football, Chuck was able to see beyond the hardships he and other African American youth faced at the time and was able to achieve great things, including winning every game as quarterback for his high school.

Jael Ealey Richardson may tell more about her father’s story in the note at the conclusion of the picture book, as she does in her adult book The Stone Thrower: A Daughter’s Lessons, A Father’s Life (Thomas Allen, 2012), but The Stone Thrower focuses on but a snippet of Chuck Ealey’s successes in meeting the challenges of being a black youth. By setting a goal and aiming for it repeatedly, even when faced with cruelty and disrespect, Chuck Ealey achieved much.

From The Stone Thrower by Jael Ealey Richardson, 

illus. by Matt James

Matt James, whose artwork has enhanced his own Northwest Passage (Groundwood, 2013) and I Know Here and From There to Here by Laurel Croza (Groundwood, 2010 and 2014, respectively), sets a gritty tone to The Stone Thrower, with his roughened outlines and coarse watercolours. There’s nothing saccharine about this story or the art and that’s the way it should be. Both emphasize the hardship and the courage, strength and perseverance, and the achievement. The Stone Thrower is a story of grit, visual and inspirational, in its truest form.

Door into Faerie: Book launch (Regina, SK)

Author Edward Willett

concludes his YA fantasy series

The Shards of Excalibur  

Song of the Sword (Book 1)

Twist of the Blade (Book 2)

The Lake in the Clouds (Book 3)

Cave Beneath the Sea (Book 4)

with Book 5 

Door Into Faerie

Coteau Books

978-1-550506549

208 pp.

Ages 13+

May 2016

which launches

 on

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

at 

7 p.m. (CST)

at

Artful Dodger Cafe & Music Emporium

1631-11th Avenue

Regina, Saskatchewan 

From https://www.facebook.com/events/1711092289146493/

In the climactic fifth book of The Shards of Excalibur series, Ariane, Wally, Flish and Rex Major are on a collision course, converging on the resting place of the final piece of the sword: the hilt, long ago removed from its original hiding place by the descendants of King Arthur. When Wally uncovers its surprising location, far closer to hand than they’d ever guessed, it seems all Ariane and Wally have to do is claim it and reforge the sword to defeat Merlin forever.

Except...how, exactly, do you reforge a magical sword? Especially, how do you do it when the richest man in the world is on your trail and pouring all of his enormous resources into stopping you?

When the pieces of the sword are at last reunited, the results aren’t at all what Ariane and Wally imagined. With Excalibur whole again, the long-closed door into Faerie swings open wide. Who — and what — emerges from it may destroy everything and everyone Wally and Ariane have fought so hard to save — and allow Rex Major to snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat.

Fighting side by side, Ariane and Wally must draw on all their strength, courage, magic and love to save the world…and there’s no guarantee it will be enough.

Cave Beneath the Sea: The Shards of Excalibur, Book 4

by Edward Willett

Coteau Books

978-1-550-506396

213 pp.

Ages 13+

November 2015

Merlin incarnate, Rex Major, CEO of Excalibur Computer Systems, is ever hopeful of acquiring the four shards and the hilt of Excalibur so that he might open the door to Faerie and launch an attack. During the course of Song of the Sword (Coteau, 2014), Twist of the Blade (Coteau, 2014) and The Lake in the Clouds (Coteau, 2015), three shards have been located but Rex Major is only in possession of one.  Our fifteen-year-old modern-day Lady of the Lake, Ariane Forsythe, and her burgeoning boyfriend Wally Knight, heir of King Arthur, possess the other two shards and are determined to keep  Rex Major from getting his magical hands on any more.

But, just weeks before Christmas, Wally and Ariane’s search for the fourth shard has become more complicated because of Ariane’s missing mother and Wally’s sister Felicia a.k.a. Flish.  Travelling far and wide via magical water transport just to access the internet without tipping off Rex Major to their location (currently in Saskatchewan), Wally discovers photos of Emily Forsythe tagged at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal in B.C.  While they pursue that lead, they are painfully aware that Flish, also an heir of Arthur, would be helping Rex Major to pull in the magic and locate the remaining shards.  Fortunately, that is also a blessing as it reveals to the two teens that Merlin and Flish are headed to Cacibajagua Island in the Caribbean, home of a saltwater cave fed by a freshwater waterfall, and undoubtedly the location of the fourth shard. And it’s a dangerous race to find the shard and liberate it from its watery hiding spot.

In Cave Beneath the Sea, Edward Willett has created as exciting a read as the earlier books in the series, continuing to develop his characters and their relationships while the action-filled plot carries the reader to intriguing national and international locales.  Both Ariane and Wally feel the power of the sword, drawing them to its shards but also compelling their anger in those who have hurt them: parents, siblings, bullies, enemies. And while they struggle with those yearnings, they are finding their way to a hitherto-unknown girlfriend-boyfriend relationship that provides them the family they both crave.  It’s hard for me to decide which is the stronger foundation for the story, the characters or the plot, as both are substantial and intricate.  Regardless, Cave Beneath the Sea takes The Shards of Excalibur a fast-moving step closer to the Door to Faerie, the magical entity and Book 5 in the series.

Check this blog tomorrow for details about Edward Willett’s book launch of Door to Faerie early next month to be held in, you guessed it, Regina, Saskatchewan.

Two picture books to launch from Owlkids: SKUNK ON A STRING and MAYA (Toronto)

It's twice the fun
because there are two books being launched!

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Join author-illustrator Thao Lam for the launch of

Skunk on a String

Owlkids Books
978-1-77147-131-2
40 pp.
Ages 4-7
March 2016

A wordless picture book about a skunk who sees the world from a new perspective
Reviewed here

and

debut author Mahak Jain

and award-winning illustrator Elly McKay

for the launch of their picture book

Maya

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-100-8

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

April 2016

The story of a young girl who uses her imagination and the legend of a banyan tree to assuage her fears and grief

on

Saturday, June 4, 2016

2-3:30 p.m.

at

Toronto Public Library

Lillian H. Smith branch

There will be:

• swag bags for the first 30 kids (and treats for adults too)
• storytime
• crafts and activities
• refreshments
• book signing
• books on sale courtesy of Another Story Bookshop

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