My Ghosts

With her second novel, author Mary Swan seems to be issuing a challenge to readers: pay attention. It’s not just that her book is complex, layered, and boasts a large cast of characters – though ... Read More »

October 22, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan

By Graeme Smith

“We lost the war in southern Afghanistan and it broke my heart.” The first sentence of The Dogs Are Eating Them Now announces that Graeme Smith, a foreign correspondent for The Globe and Mail who ... Read More »

October 21, 2013 | Filed under: History

★ Love-lies-Bleeding

By Barbara Haworth-Attard

Barbara Haworth-Attard has followed up her successful Home Child with a story inspired by her own family. After her father died in 1994, she found all the letters he’d written home during the Second World ... Read More »

October 21, 2013 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Worst. Person. Ever.

By Douglas Coupland

There are Douglas Coupland novels that feel like a quiet, foggy, West Coast morning spent over a cup of tea. Others are a Zipper ride at a nighttime carnival with a belly full of fryer ... Read More »

October 15, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ A House in the Sky

By Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett

As a child growing up in small-town Alberta, living in a dank basement apartment where her mother often suffered beatings at the hands of her boyfriend, Amanda Lindhout found escape in copies of National Geographic ... Read More »

October 7, 2013 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Reluctant Readers

By Ron Jobe and Mary Dayton-Sakari

This book is for teachers of young students who scrupulously try to avoid books. The authors, teachers at the faculty of education at UBC, mention students with learning disabilities, but that’s not the focus of ... Read More »

October 1, 2013 | Filed under: Reference

The Kids Cottage Games Book

By Jane Drake and Ann Love, Heather Collins, illus.

This book completes the trilogy that includes The Kids Cottage Book and The Kids Campfire Book. The successful format (evoking the Boston Children’s Museum Brown Paper School series) is that of the other Kids Can ... Read More »

October 1, 2013 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction

3-d Paper Crafts

By Joanne Webb, Ron Broda, illus.

The 3-D paper crafts in this book are flawlessly executed by Ron Broda’s experienced hand. Broda used this technique, which involves gluing together embossed layers of paper, in the popular Have You Seen Bugs? The ... Read More »

October 1, 2013 | Filed under: Art, Music & Pop Culture

After Thought: The Computer Challenge to Human Intelligence

By James Bailey

In the weeks following Garry Kasparov’s loss to IBM’s Deep Blue this May, editorial pages were full of breathless soul-searching about What It All Meant. Had machines crossed the intelligence barrier? Could Deep Blue really ... Read More »

October 1, 2013 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography