The Bookseller: Chris Hall of McNally Robinson (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
The Picks:
A novel where a young Cree woman finds herself bringing objects back from her dreams. When crows start following her and she receives texts from her dead sister, she must find help before her life spirals into a living nightmare. Part horror novel, part literary achievement.
True Reconciliation: How to Be a Force for Change, by Jody Wilson-Raybould
Wilson-Raybould addresses the question many Canadians are asking right now: “What can I do to help advance reconciliation?” Learn, Understand, Act are her suggestions as core practices to do something, whether that be as individuals or groups.
The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era, by Harold Johnson
Johnson explains the role of storytelling in every aspect of human life, and illustrates how we can direct its potential to re-create and reform not only our own lives, but the life we share.
*
The Bookseller: Colin Holt, Bolen Books (Victoria, BC)
The Pick: Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, by Emily Austen
A darkly comic tale of living life with high anxiety, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead offers something for everyone. Full of miscommunication and compounding misunderstandings that possibly lead to murder, this tale is sure to put a smile on readers' faces page after page.
*
The Bookseller: Hilary Atleo, Iron Dog Books (Tsleil-Waututh, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Musqueam territories – Vancouver, BC)
The Pick: Weird Rules to Follow, by Kim Spencer
Weird Rules to Follow is a favourite new read for middle-grade audiences. It presents the challenge of transitioning from childhood to adolescence with empathy and understanding. The audience for this book may steer to the tween but the themes are ones that resonate into adulthood – how do we belong? How do we connect across differences? How do we resist the predeterminations of society? Highly recommended for novel studies in grades 5 to 7, or for fans of Kit Pearson and YA historical fiction.
*
The Bookseller: Liz Greenaway, Audreys Books (Edmonton, AB)
The Picks:
At first glance, Kate Beaton's DUCKS looks like a very Alberta story, set in Fort MacMurray and environs. But you quickly realize it's a Canadian story, as men and women come from all over Canada to work there, and grapple with universal themes such as the effect on the climate, and the much bigger theme of misogyny that pervades the book as Kate's story is told. It's not Hark, A Vagrant! but it's so much more. Highly recommended.
The Sleeping Car Porter, by Suzette Mayr
This Giller winner beautifully provides a snapshot of a porter's life on the railroads in Canada, from Montreal to Vancouver, in 1929. Mayr provides humour and her prose goes far to give an idea of who travelled on the train, and the life of a porter, here Baxter. Porters walk a thin line, giving up sleep to ensure they can cater to a guest's every whim and the situations that come up. That Baxter is also a Black man who is a closeted gay man makes it all the more interesting. Highly recommended.
*
The Bookseller: Megan Pickering of Blue Heron Books (Uxbridge, ON)
The Pick: No Bootstraps When You're Barefoot, by Wes Hall
How much I loved this book took me by complete surprise. Hall navigated situations throughout this book with incredible drive, never veering off course from the challenges he eventually realized were based primarily on the colour of his skin. This book offered a true insider's view that made you rethink how situations and their outcomes can be perceived.
*
The Bookseller: Michelle Berry, bookseller emeritus (Peterborough, ON)
The Picks:
The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore, by Kim Fu
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, by Kim Fu
The five pre-teen girls of Camp Forevermore kayak to an island in the Pacific Northwest with their aged camp counsellor. They wake after only one night, deserted and alone. Battling the elements and the beasts and their deep, young fear, they eventually make it home alive. Years later we make contact with each of these girls, all much changed from their adventure, now young women, and we watch them grow into adults.
This novel seems at times like a novella adjoined by short stories, but the overarching themes of adulthood, friendship, desertion and family bind the work into a cohesive and satisfying piece. This is compelling and exciting work; Kim Fu’s writing is sharp and quick and beautiful. I couldn’t put this book down.
And if you like this, check out Kim Fu’s Giller-nominated story collection, Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century. Each of the twelve stories races to outdo the next in oddness; a girl who grows wings on her ankles, a haunted doll, a house infested by beetles. Fu plays with technological issues and death and sleep and the modern world. This gorgeous book feels like you’re reading an episode of the British television series Black Mirror.
*
The Bookseller: David Worsley, Words Worth Books (Waterloo, ON)
The Pick: On Writing and Failure, by Stephen Marche
Stephen Marche's On Writing & Failure is part warning to young writers, part rich historical treatise on the long odds involved in the game, and all parts funny and necessary. This is another winner in the Biblioasis Field Notes series.
*
The Bookseller: Jo Treggiari, Block Shop Books (Lunenburg, NS)
The Picks:
A Minor Chorus, by Billy Ray Belcourt
This lyrical first novel from award-winning poet Belcourt employs a loose narrative-style combining poetry and existential rumination within its character-driven plot. A queer Indigenous unnamed student struggling with writer's block gives up on his doctoral dissertation to travel north and write a novel giving voice to the collective experiences of marginalized people: THE CHORUS. Belcourt plays with structure and form here, inserting memories, monologues, and free-form poems, and disrupting the narrative. What is revealed is a deeply meditative story about making art and finding inspiration. How does one create art which is devoid of self? How does one write while using the language of the oppressor? It is a challenging read, beautiful, powerful and demanding attention and contemplation.
Low Road Forever, by Tara Thorne
A sharp, acerbic, hilarious, and intimate collection of feminist essays on pop culture, coming out later in life, the #MeToo movement, and a plethora of empowering movies and music. Sure, longtime arts and culture columnist Tara Thorne is a self-proclaimed "gay feminist harpy" but it's her vulnerability and self-deprecation that reveal the big heart within. In her quest to figure out what matters, what is true and what must be overthrown, Thorne shares her life experiences: the tweet that got her fired, being the only girl in the band, love as a late-blooming lesbian, and of course, taking the low road- always brutally honest, always direct, never shying away from the hard truths. This book will make you laugh, cry, and rage, often within the same few pages.
The Theory of Crows, by David Robertson
A heartfelt exploration of grief and loss, and intergenerational trauma seen through the eyes of a father and daughter. Matthew feels empty. He is searching for something but can't articulate it. His teenage daughter Holly has drifted away from him. Neither of them are connected with their community and they no longer talk to one another. A family tragedy forces them to travel to the isolated cabin on the family trapline. Told from both points of view, interspersed with Matthew's letters, this is a story of relationships, those between family members, with one self, and with nature and the land. The writing is reflective and evocative, rich with Cree culture and the importance of connection.
Boy in the Blue Hammock, by Darren Groth
This brilliant piece of speculative fiction for upper YA readers is told from the POV of Tao, a failed service dog, who nonetheless knows his duty after waking one morning to find Man, Woman, and Girl motionless. Tao knows he must protect Boy(Kaspar), a neurodivergent, non-verbal teen who has escaped harm by hiding in his hammock. The outside world is broken and chaotic and danger lurks in every shadow, but somehow these two are able to communicate and set off on an epic quest to safety. Groth's writing is spare and lean, heart-wrenching and evocative. He is adept at finding beauty in the liminal spaces, those small intimate scenes. Well-placed flashbacks provide further context to the plot. The challenge put to the reader is to redefine what is human and what is less than; who is abled and who is dis-abled?