★ Beastly Puzzles: A Brain-Boggling Animal Guessing Game

By Rachel Poliquin and Byron Eggenschwiler (ill.)

Part of the fun of reviewing children’s books is encountering an author-illustrator team determined to craft a fresh take on one of the more traditional kidlit categories. When it works, as it does with Beastly ... Read More »

June 19, 2019 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books

★ Over the Rooftops, Under the Moon

By JonArno Lawson; Nahid Kazemi (ill.)

“You can be far away inside, and far away outside. With others but still on your own.” So begins this haunting meditation on loneliness and the importance of community. Everything changes for a despondent bird ... Read More »

June 17, 2019 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books

Always Smile: Carley Allison’s Secrets for Laughing, Loving and Living

By Alice Kuipers

In her work of non-fiction, author Alice Kuipers shares the story of a determined and talented Toronto figure skater and singer-songwriter whose life was tragically cut short. When she was 17, Carley Allison was diagnosed ... Read More »

June 13, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Kids’ Books

★ The Absence of Sparrows

By Kurt Kirchmeier

From a brief description of The Absence of Sparrows – by Saskatchewan writer and wildlife photographer Kurt Kirchmeier – readers might assume that they’ve read this story before: a small-town setting, a summer vacation, an ... Read More »

June 10, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

Girl of the Southern Sea

By Michelle Kadarusman

Toronto-based, Australian-Indonesian-Canadian author Michelle Kadarusman (The Theory of Hummingbirds) sets her moving and dramatic sophomore novel in the impoverished villages of Jakarta. Fourteen-year-old Nia’s mother has died in childbirth and her bapak (father) is drowning ... Read More »

June 6, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

★ Love from A to Z

By S.K. Ali

In her second novel, S.K. Ali strikes a balance between charming love story and issue-driven narrative, in which Muslim teen characters confront and overcome Islamophobia, racism, and ignorance. Love from A to Z follows protagonists ... Read More »

June 3, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

Papergirl

By Melinda McCracken with Penelope Jackson

On May 15, 1919, some 30,000 workers in Winnipeg walked off the job to protest poor living wages and demand collective bargaining. Two new middle-grade novels bring the general strike, a watershed event, to light ... Read More »

May 15, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

City on Strike

By Harriet Zaidman

May 15, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

The Mostly True Story of Pudding Tat, Adventuring Cat

By Caroline Adderson; Stacy Innerst (ill.)

In her latest middle-grade novel, Caroline Adderson blends the right mix of history and fiction while crafting a story of cooperation, resilience, and bravery. Pudding Tat, named for the special dessert Farmer Willoughby brought to ... Read More »

May 7, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

We Contain Multitudes

By Sarah Henstra

Jonathan Hopkirk and Adam Kurlansky couldn’t be more different. Jonathan likes Walt Whitman and Prince; Adam likes football. Jonathan likes vintage clothes; Adam, apparently, likes fist fights. Paired up for a letter-writing assignment in English, ... Read More »

May 7, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

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