Red Sea

The dramatic red cover of Vancouver author Diane Tullson’s second novel promises blood, and teen readers will not be disappointed by this modern-day pirate yarn.Fourteen-year-old Libby has been coerced into a year-long sailing trip with ... Read More »

November 21, 2005

The Freedom of Jenny

By Julie Burtinshaw

Writers of historical novels need to maintain a delicate balance between history and telling good stories. The Freedom of Jenny, by Vancouver’s Julie Burtinshaw (Dead Reckoning and Adrift), doesn’t always keep this balance, though it ... Read More »

November 21, 2005

The Sower of Tales

By Rachna Gilmore

Ottawa writer Rachna Gilmore (whose picture book A Screaming Kind of Day won the 1999 Governor General’s Award for text) delves into the world of juvenile fantasy for the first time, with impressive results. The ... Read More »

November 21, 2005

Forever: The Annual Hockey Classic

By Roy MacGregor; Brian Deines, illus.

The “Classic” referred to in Forever’s subtitle is what the Finnegans call the game of shinny they’ve played at Christmas family get-togethers for more than a generation. Will this book, too, become a Christmas classic? ... Read More »

November 21, 2005

Ben’s Big Dig

By Daniel Wakeman; Dirk van Stralen, illus.

You create a world. I’ll come visit. This is the tacit but essential bargain struck between reader and writer. In picture books this agreement is a group negotiation as reader and writer are joined by ... Read More »