Weekend Review: The Green Velvet Secret

A Green Velvet Secret / Vicki Grant 
Toronto: Tundra, c2023.
256 p.

Another middle grade novel that I really enjoyed this month! The Green Velvet Secret was funny, fashionable, and it brought me to tears. What a good read.  

Yardley O'Hanlon lives with her grandmother Gidge and her two rather unusual parents. They run a small theater and Gidge is the one providing financial stability to the household. Gidge and Yardley spend a lot of their time crafting and sewing and making beautiful things -- Gidge has a large wardrobe and isn't constrained by what others think. Yardley finds it hard to make friends but she's quite satisfied with her bedazzled life as it is. 

However, Gidge gets ill, and wants to set up Yardley for the future. They donate a ton of her clothes to a new vintage shop in town, which happens to be run by an old student of Gidge's, and begin to volunteer there as well. Gidge is hoping for some socialization for Yardley, and new friends to take over when she's gone. 

But Gidge always believed in reincarnation, so in the weeks after her death, when a glamorous woman walks into the shop, Yardley in convinced it's Gidge back again. But the truth is something even more surprising. 

This book is full of clothing and making and beauty and pathos and sadness and friendship... it was a touching read, frank and honest about a lot of things for such a short, middle grade read. It's about parenting, being true to yourself, forgiveness and more. I'm so glad I picked this one up on a whim!

Weekend Review: The Go-Between

 

The Go-Between / Jennifer Maruno
Toronto, ON : Red Deer Press, c2024.
208 p.

This middle grade novel is set in British Columbia in the mid 1920s. Sumi is the younger daughter of a Japanese family living in Vancouver. She's curious and energetic and wants to be a journalist. Her older sister Yoshi wants to be a dressmaker, and has just had a chance to enter a summer school that will give her a leg up on getting into the fashion course she wants to study. But Yoshi has also been asked to take on a summer job as a housemaid in remote Gibson's Landing to make some money for the family and for her education. 

Sumi comes up with a plan; she'll take the job so that Yoshi is free to study, and, Sumi will also convince their wealthy Aunt and Uncle to cover the registration fees for Yoshi. She cleverly does all this, and heads off to Gibson's Landing, a small settlement on an island. It's not at all what she expected. She sleeps in a canvas roofed bunkie in the yard, she is the underling to a bossy and fairly lazy housekeeper, and encounters racism and accusations of theft in her job. 

However, it's not all bad. She also meets a local Japanese family with a market garden, and befriends the son who is her age. Her personality is strong enough that she is able to withstand the difficult moments she experiences, and to speak up when she feels she has to. She is helpful to the sickly wife of the doctor she works for, and finds respect for her work ethic eventually, even from the crabby housekeeper. 

There are moments of crisis and drama -- a hurricane, a strike at the local cannery that she's secretly involved with, accusations of theft -- but as a middle grade novel nothing feels too dangerous, and Sumi comes through everything safe and sound. I thought that the issues of racism and classism were brought up really naturally and in a way that younger readers would understand and feel.  

The writing is clear and the setting is vibrantly evoked. Sumi makes a great heroine, as she has determination and is a clever girl. Her relationship with Yoshi was a delight also; their letters are shared, with Yoshi's progress at the sewing school outlined, and a colourful apron that she makes and sends to Sumi plays a role in the story, too. This was a chance discovery, and one that I really enjoyed. The little extra bit of sewing content was an added plus! 

Literary Sewing Circle: Premeditated Myrtle

Our Spring 2022 session of the Literary Sewing Circle starts today! 

I'm pleased to announce that our group read this time is:

Premeditated Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce

I chose something different this time around: an Edgar Award winning middle grade mystery. We haven't done any children's books in the LSC before, but with the state of the world right now, a lighter read that takes us into another world might be just what we need. This funny, clever mystery was one of my favourite reads of 2021 and I hope you'll enjoy it too. 

Summary:

Twelve-year-old Myrtle Hardcastle has a passion for justice and a Highly Unconventional obsession with criminal science. Armed with her father’s law books and her mum’s microscope, Myrtle studies toxicology, keeps abreast of the latest developments in crime scene analysis, and Observes her neighbors in the quiet Victorian village of Swinburne, England.

When her next-door neighbor, a wealthy spinster and eccentric breeder of rare flowers, dies under Mysterious Circumstances, Myrtle seizes her chance. With her unflappable governess, Miss Ada Judson, by her side, Myrtle takes it upon herself to prove Miss Wodehouse was murdered and solve the crime, even if nobody else believes her — not even her father, the town prosecutor.

(via publisher)

photo credit: 

About the Author: 

Elizabeth C. Bunce is an award winning author who has currently published three YA novels and three middle grade novels. Her novel A Curse Dark As Gold, inspired by Rumpelstiltskin, won the William C. Morris Award for a Young Adult Debut. Premeditated Myrtle won a 2021 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, and the latest Myrtle Hardcastle mystery is nominated again for an Edgar this year. 

She lives in the American Midwest and is a maker as well as a writer. You can find out more about her at her blog. 

This book is available for purchase in multiple formats.

You can find many formats at all of these locations:

IndieBound

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com.au

Book Depository

Chapters Indigo

Powell's

Barnes and Noble

ABE Books

Biblio.com

Or, of course, check your local library!

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How does the Literary Sewing Circle work? We read a book together, discuss it, and then make something inspired by our reading. As long as you can point out what inspired you from your reading, even if just a sentence, you can share your makes in our final roundup!

Anyone can join, and you can sew, knit, quilt or embroider - any textile art that you like doing - to participate. This is a reading/sewing circle, very low-key; no competitions here, just reading and sewing for fun. 

There is no official sign-up to worry about; just start reading along if you wish, and leave your thoughts on the book or your project on any of the Literary Sewing Circle posts. We do have a dedicated book discussion post halfway through and again at the end, but leave your thoughts anytime. And you can follow along on Instagram too if you like: look for #LiterarySewingCircle and you'll find us.

And when the final post goes up, so does the project linkup -- you can leave a link to your finished project there, whether it is on your blog, a pattern site, or even Instagram. It's easy :)

So, join in, and share!

Literary Sewing Circle Schedule

April 1 - Announcement & Introduction

April 8 - Inspiration post 

April 15 - Preliminary book talk

April 22  - Author feature 

April 29 - Inspiration post

May 6 - Final Post: book discussion wrap up & posting of project linkup

(you will then have the rest of May to finish your project and post it; we'll close the link-up on May 31)