BOOK REVIEWS

★ Rufous and Calliope

Rufous and Calliope, the stunning new novel by West Kootenay, B.C., writer Sarah Louise Butler, begins with a glimpse of the past. On Halloween night, 1979, five siblings in costume are trick-or-treating in a small ... Read More »

August 20, 2025 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

★ This Place Kills Me

By Mariko Tamaki and Nicole Goux (ill.)

Being the new kid at school is hard, especially at all-girls boarding school Wilberton, where Abby Kita has been sent in the wake of a personal indiscretion. And though the rumours about her past have ... Read More »

August 20, 2025 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

The Longest Night

By Lauren Carter

On a frigid night in December 2020 in rural Minnesota, 18-year-old Ash sneaks out of the house, needing a break from the tension of her parents’ constant fighting. Her grandmother Goma has recently died of ... Read More »

August 13, 2025 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

★ Aggie and the Ghost

By Matthew Forsythe

This might be a perfect picture book. I love everything about Matthew Forsythe’s Aggie and the Ghost. I love Aggie. I love the ghost. I love the writing, the themes, the illustrations, and the close ... Read More »

August 13, 2025 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books

Never Silent: A Hiroshima Survivor’s Story

By Setsuko Thurlow and Kathy Lowinger; Michelle Theodore (ill.)

When Japan entered the Second World War on Dec. 8, 1941, Setsuko Thurlow’s childhood abruptly ended. By eighth grade, she was selected – along with some of her schoolmates – to help her country decode ... Read More »

August 6, 2025 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Kids’ Books

★ In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times

By James Cairns

In an age of doomscrolling clickbait, atrocity porn, and the three Ts – Trump, tariffs, terror – anyone could be forgiven for concluding the world is in a state of perpetual crisis. Responses to such ... Read More »

July 23, 2025 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays, History, Politics & Current Affairs, Reviews, Science, Technology & Environment, Social Sciences

★ My Friend May

By Julie Flett

My Friend May by Cree-Métis author and illustrator Julie Flett is the based-on-a-true-story tale of May, Margaux, and Margaux’s aunt. May is Margaux’s cat and best friend, but one day she goes missing, leaving Margaux ... Read More »

July 23, 2025 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books

A Stronger Home

By Katrina Chen and Elaine Su; Delphie Côté-Lacroix (ill.)

A Stronger Home is both a heart-wrenching and a hopeful picture book that addresses domestic abuse and leaving home to find safe shelter. A boy and his mother hide from the storm in their house ... Read More »

July 9, 2025 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books

A Quiet Disappearance

By Rabindranath Maharaj

Leila Marshy’s collection of stories, My Thievery of the People, is full of incisive political commentary on people and how we interact with and hide from each other. In this new collection, the story settings ... Read More »

June 25, 2025 | Filed under: Fiction: Short, Reviews