BOOK REVIEWS

★ Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)

The debut novel from Hazel Jane Plante is not easily categorizable. Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) is an unapologetically original amalgamation of many disparate elements: a rough draft of an encyclopedia cataloguing a fictional television ... Read More »

December 2, 2019 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Possess the Air: Love, Heroism, and the Battle for the Soul of Mussolini’s Rome

By Taras Grescoe

In Possess the Air, author Taras Grescoe takes us on a tour of Rome in the early years of fascist Italy. While the main focus is on people who resisted, the unexpected character is the ... Read More »

December 2, 2019 | Filed under: History

What’s Up, Maloo?

By Geneviève Godbout

Pits of despair and intense euphoria feel wildly different, although both can disconnect us from reality. Two new picture books, one about the lowest low and one about the highest high, examine how easy it ... Read More »

November 28, 2019 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books

★ King Mouse

By Cary Fagan and Dena Seiferling (ill.)

November 28, 2019 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books

★ When Molly Drew Dogs

By Deborah Kerbel and Lis Xu (ill.)

Anxiety comes in all shapes and sizes. For Molly Akita – the protagonist in Deborah Kerbel’s new picture book – it takes the form of a pack of stray dogs running wild in her head, ... Read More »

November 25, 2019 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books

Blue Bear Woman

By Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau; Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli (trans.)

There is a sense of calm as Victoria, a middle-aged, mixed-race Cree woman, sets off on a road trip to James Bay with her settler husband, Daniel. It is a calm derived from satiety and ... Read More »

November 25, 2019 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

A Song for China: How My Father Wrote Yellow River Cantata

By Ange Zhang

The vast and powerful Yellow River is often called the mother river of China. It is also the subject of a famous musical with lyrics by militant poet Guang Weiran. In this non-fiction picture book, ... Read More »

November 21, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Kids’ Books

Art and Rivalry: The Marriage of Mary and Christopher Pratt

By Carol Bishop-Gwyn

Canadian landscape painter Lawren P. Harris told Mary Pratt in the early days of her career that if two artists were to wed, only one would become a success. In her case, Harris declared, that ... Read More »

November 21, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Reviews

Our Future: How Kids Are Taking Action

By Janet Wilson

The new non-fiction book Our Future was released in the same month as the wave of global climate strikes inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg; but in this roundup of modern youth activists – who ... Read More »

November 18, 2019 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Kids’ Books

Bawaajigan: Stories of Power

By Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler and Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith (eds.)

In the introduction to Bawaajigan: Stories of Power, the 18th instalment of Exile’s Anthology series, co-editor Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler explains the volume’s title: “Bawaajigan,” he writes, is “the Anishinaabemowin word for dream, or vision.” ... Read More »

November 18, 2019 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

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