Blur

High-pulp authors from Raymond Chandler to Robert Ferrigno to the newest sensation, Bruce Wagner, have taken the beautiful horror of Los Angeles – its sheen, its viciousness, its generations of celebrity skin – and from ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Falling Woman

By Shaena Lambert

Many of the stories in Shaena Lambert’s The Falling Woman are “domestic” in the best sense of the word: they reveal all that is odd and resonant about family dynamics. Like Alice Munro’s work, Lambert’s ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Rush Home Road

By Lori Lansens

While wonderful novels about the black immigrant experience are not uncommon in Canada, few novelists, black or white, have written about the country’s long-settled black communities. First-time novelist Lori Lansens – a white screenwriter living ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ Silent Cruise

By Timothy Taylor

The tale of Timothy Taylor should by now be part of the folklore of contemporary Canadian writing. Under a blind jury, he took three of 12 possible positions in the 2000 Journey Prize Anthology of ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

I’m a Hop Hop Hoppity Frog

By Lawrence Northey, Julie Northey, illus.

I love to hop,/It’s hard to stop!/I’m a hop hop hoppity frog.”So goes the opening stanza of a rhyming picture book about a little frog who can’t sit still and hops all day long, leaving ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Picture Books

The True Story of Trapper Jack’s Left Big Toe

By Ian Wallace

Even though Ian Wallace is best known as an illustrator, his text is stronger than his artwork in The True Story of Trapper Jack’s Left Big Toe. Wallace’s writing captures both the hyperbole of the ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Picture Books

One More Pet

By Eugenie Fernandes

This picture book by well-known Ontario illustrator and author Eugenie Fernandes reads almost like a folktale: a child welcomes one pet into her home, then another, then another, leaving readers to wonder where it will ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Picture Books

Jayden’s Rescue

By Vladimir Tumanov

When Alex Fog discovers a mysterious new book among his fantasy classics, he plunges right in. Jayden’s Rescue isn’t, however, an ordinary fantasy; it’s a book that expects more involvement than just reading, and Alex ... Read More »

January 22, 2004

Emily’s Eighteen Aunts

By Curtis Parkinson, Andrea Wayne von Königslöw

Stand-up comics suffering from performance anxiety should volunteer for preschool storytime at my library to restore their confidence. Our three- to five-year- olds are reliably reduced to a state of helpless laughter by the use ... Read More »

January 22, 2004