Mya's Strategy to Save the World

Finished May 23

Mya's Strategy to Save the World by Tanya Lloyd Kyi

This children's novel is narrated by Mya, a 12-year-old girl, living in Vancouver. Mya and her best friend Cleo are the co-leaders of her school's social justice club. Each month they pick a cause or theme and work to support it. Mya's dream is of working for the United Nations. 

As the novel begins, Mya's mother leaves for Myanmar where Mya's grandmother has taken ill, where she plans to look after her until she is able to travel back to Canada. 

Mya is engaging is a lot of things typical for her age: trying to convince her parents that she deserves to have a phone like most of her friends do, beginning to take an interest in boys, and starting to make money from babysitting. With her mom away, Mya also takes on more responsibilities around the house like learning how to cook. She is also tasked with picking up her younger sister from school and supervising her skateboarding lessons. 

There are successes and missteps in her various endeavours. When an accident leaves Mya to take charge without warning, she proves herself up to the challenge.

I enjoyed seeing Mya come to live and grow as a person. She's earnest, but also has a lighter side. A fun read. 

Fire from Heaven

Finished March 13

Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault

I've had this book on my shelves for a while, but recently reading The Golden Mean, and seeing Lyon mention this book as a recommendation for a different view of the same period drew me to taking it down and reading it. 

This is a book about the younger years of Alexander the Great, told in third person from a variety of viewpoints, including his, and his closest companion's Hephaistion. We see how Alexander grew up close to his mother, encountering Philip less often, and how his training began at a young age, with Aristotle, as he learned alongside other boys his age who were chosen by his father and him. 

We see him become a warrior and participate in a battle where he actively engaged with his opponent. We also see his struggle between his parent's affections and loyalties, and how at one point he withdrew from his father. 

This is a story that is richly detailed, that lets us into the thoughts of many of the characters, but Alexander himself is the main character and it is his life at the center of the story. Because we have access to character's thoughts, they have more depth, and the tone is more emotional at times. 

I enjoyed learning about his life and adventures. The book has a map on the endpapers, but I was sometimes frustrated when places named in the book weren't on the map. 

The House on Mango Street

Finished February 6

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

The copy of this that I read is the 25th anniversary edition, which has a foreword by the author reflecting on the work, as well as where she is now. I think that it added a lot to what I felt as I read the book. 

The book has short chapters that are connected vignettes around the street in Chicago, where the girl narrator, Esperanza Cordero, lives, called Mango Street. The house she lives in is the first home that her family has of their own, not an apartment, that they can change as they wish to. She has siblings and extended family, friends and neighbours, who all appear in their own way in this book. 

Esperanza learns things, about herself, her community, and about life, especially about growing up. I'm glad that I finally took the time to read this short book, and see through the eyes of this observant young girl. 

Eighteen

Finished November 25

Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives by Alice Loxton

This interesting history book encompasses history, biography, and fiction in one book. The author takes the idea of eighteen being the commonly understood age that people become adults and looks at eighteen British people whose achievements made large impacts on Britain, when they were eighteen. The short biographies focus on them at that age, but also discuss what brought them to that place, in terms of both background and personal achievements, and what their lives went on to become and what achievements they made later in their lives. She has chosen people that she could find some information on from that point in their lives, but her choices are all personal favourites as well, people she would want to spend time with. 

Her introduction discusses the idea of adulthood and age being linked, and looks at how this idea changed over time. She also talks about Britain as a country, and it's evolution over time. She also talks about the fictional element of the book here. Between each of the biographical chapters are descriptions of a dinner party, an eighteenth birthday party that each of these people are attending together. Near the end of the book she includes a seating plan for this dinner, and a list of places that were important to one or another of them as well as being worth visiting. Her writing style is conversational and disarming, with references to pop culture as well as posing interesting questions for the reader to think about. 

This book is in many ways aimed at those who are new adults themselves, particularly in the last chapter, and at the end of the book a collection of advice from various people to eighteen year olds is insightful and potentially helpful.

Some of those she included I was familiar with, and others were completely new to me, but I found all of the entries interesting and learned something new even about the people I was previously aware of. This is an historical book that is very approachable and readable and I highly recommend it. 

To Hold the Bridge

Finished October 20

To Hold the Bridge: An Old Kingdom Novella and Other Tales by Garth Nix

The novella of the title starts the book and was the most appealing of the contents for me, likely because I'm a big fan of Nix's Old Kingdom fantasy series. In the novella, Morghan, a teen boy arrives at the Bridge Company, hoping to use the one item he owns, a share certificate, hoping to use it as a way to becoming a cadet for the organization. The Bridge Company has been building a bridge over the Greenwash, the wide and dangerous river that is the northern border of the Old Kingdom, for nearly a century. As the story begins, the company has a cable-drawn ferry, a castle on one side of the river, a fortified bastion in the middle of the river, and several foundational parts of the bridge itself. The employees of the company are grouped into four seasonal shifts, with a change in shift imminent. As Morghan passes the tests set for him to be accepted as a cadet, we see more of his past and his character. As he joins in the shift as they travel to the bridge, he finds his place and gets to know his superiors and guard members. Once at the bridge, he has the time to learn more skills necessary to his work, and he faces a unexpected test that has him drawing on the magic he knows as well as the physical skills. 

Following the novella are short stories separated into five sections, each having three to five stories in them. Many of the stories involve magic, some in a world similar to ours and some in our own world in another time. The first section has stories of magical creatures that appear in our world. The second section has four coming-of-age stories. The third section has stories of struggle with magic working against a dark force. The fourth section has lighter tales, one of which plays on Sherlock Holmes stories. The last section is science fiction and has three stories that take us beyond our known world. 

A nice collection overall. I enjoyed the fantasy and magic realism stories the most. 

Dark and Shallow Lies

Finished September 27

Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain

This young adult novel is set in a small town in Louisiana, La Chachette. It is known as the Psychic Capital of the world, and is accessible only by boat. The main character, Grey, who is seventeen, has spent her summers there for years. After her mother's death when she was eight, she has lived with her father during the rest of the year, and come to stay with her grandmother Honey in the summer.  When she returns this summer, she knows that her best friend Elora, who was born on the same day, in the same room as her, disappeared six months earlier. She is worried about the rest of her friends there and how they are reacting to the situation. She also finds it strange that none of the local psychics have been able to discover what happened to Elora. 

As the summer goes on, she feels that everyone there has secrets and some of them are more worrying than others. She also makes a new friend, a teen that also met Elora, and is aware of the close relationship that Elora and Grey had. 

As Grey grew up she knew that she and Elora were part of a group of children born that summer, known as the Summer Children. There were ten of them, born to eight different families. With the new boy, that makes eleven, a number Grey feels is unlucky. As she discovers the truth about the death of two of the group when they were very young and what the stories told then signify, she finds a need to get to the truth, for all of them. 

This is a very engaging book, about friendship and love, about finding one's one place in the world. It is a coming-of-age tale in a very unusual place. I really enjoyed the read. 

Bear

Finished September 18

Bear by Julia Phillips

This novel is a coming-of-age novel set on one of the San Juan Islands in Washington state. The central character is Sam, a twenty-something woman who is not happy with her life, but has a dream that she holds close for a better future. She works in the concession stand on the ferry, has no real friends, and resents that she wasn't hired for a better job, despite having a merchant mariner certification. 

Sam lives with her mother and older sister Elena in a house that her grandmother had lived in and passed down to her mother. Sam's mother has been ill for years, and now is almost bedridden. Sam knows that the time will come when her mother will pass away, and back when Sam was in high school, Elena convinced her to stay and add her income to what Elena earned at the golf club where she worked to provide for the three of them. The pandemic set them back, with the ferries running without concessions for a couple of years, and Sam, unable to find another job, took online surveys to bring in a little money. 

Elena does most of the work assisting their mother, and has taken on the finances and other necessary chores for them. She seems to be similarly living in a narrow existence between work and family. 

One day, a bear leans up against the house when they are all home, startling them and affecting both the young women in different ways. Sam is scared, apprehensive that the bear will return and reports the incident to the wildlife authorities. Elena seems more in awe of the experience of having such close contact with a wild creature, and we see as the novel unfolds, how this difference in viewpoint creates a rift of sorts between the two sisters.

Sam escapes through her countless internet surveys and brief sexual encounters with a coworker, but Elena has a different path. 

This is a book where we see Sam come to understand the situation they are living in, and what her dreams are really made of. Because several revelations happen so close together, Sam finds herself unable to cope well for a time, and I really felt for her. 

A great read. 

The Radcliffe Ladies' Reading Club

Finished September 7

The Radcliffe Ladies' Reading Club by Julia Bryan Thomas

This novel, set during the mid-1950s, revolves around a group of four girls, all freshman at Radcliffe, and a female bookstore owner who decides to start a reading club at her store. Alice Campbell left her home town of Chicago and opened a bookshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This store had been a dream of hers that she was only able to realize at this point in her life, with her backstory gradually coming out through the course of the novel. 

The four young women we come to know as well, both through the book club and through their activities at college. Tess comes from Ohio and is a serious student. She grew up with several brothers, a subdued mother, and a bully of a father. She comes to Radcliffe as a scholarship student, is an English major, and aims to excel in her studies and escape the life she grew up in. It is Tess who sees the flyer for the reading club at the bookstore and suggests it to her roommate and other friends she has made. 

Her roommate Caroline is quite different. Caroline comes from a wealthy family in Newport, Rhode Island, and is a beautiful young woman who uses her charm to keep young men clamoring for her time. On arrival Caroline takes over the room, but in a nice way. She provides a matching set of bedlinen to Tess, saying she likes things to match, and Tess falls for her charm. Caroline is studying art history and her travels have given her direct experience with art.

Evie grew up on a farm in upstate New York, and is studying economics

Evie's roommate Merritt is from San Francisco and is studying art. Merritt is an only child and her mother passed away when Merritt was still a young girl. 

The reading club starts with the classic Jane Eyre and over the course of the year, one can see how the books mirror certain aspects of the young women's lives. The discussions around each book are very interesting. Alice is good at asking questions that get the others talking, and one of the first things she says is that there is no right or wrong when discussing a book, but instead the club is about how the book affects you and how it makes you feel. She manages the discussions well, and while she doesn't become friends with the others, she does manage to gain the trust of some of them.

This was quite an interesting read, and I was interested in what happened to the characters and how their experiences changed them. I also found it interesting to think about the books chosen and about how I might respond to some of the questions Alice asked. 

Lublin

Finished September 4

Lublin by Manya Wilkinson

This short novel is the story of a journey and a coming-of-age in early 20th-century Poland. Three Jewish teenagers set off from their Polish village for the town of Lublin. They carry with them a case of brushes to sell. Elya is the instigator of the journey. He is fourteen, and his father Usher was a shoemaker. Elya knows that his mother depends on him now that his father has died, and he also has a betrothal commitment to Libka. He is the one with a hand-drawn map of their journey, which, instead of town names designates places by attributes, such as Village of Lakes, Village of No Lakes, Prune Town, and the to-be-avoided Russian Town. 

Accompanying Elya on his journey are Kiva and his cousin Ziv. Ziv would like to organize the workers for better conditions and pay, and Kiva spends a lot of time reading religious texts and worrying about his health. 

As they travel they tell stories, horse around, and play pranks on each other. Enya often tells jokes, but the other two never laugh at them. They fear Cossacks, and hide if they think they are coming. They refer to God as Adoshem. 

The case of brushes is heavy, about eight kilograms and they argue sometimes over who should carry it. Kiva has brought luxurious items along with him, such as a pillow, extra shoes, and his father's gold watch. 

The narrator often makes references to the future of the boys as well as others from their village, other things happening in the world at the same time, as well as references to things that would be useful to them, but haven't been invented yet, or have but haven't arrived in their country yet. For example, when they camp for the night, the narrator references the Boy Scouts which are just forming at the time. Examples of things not invented are zippers and ball point pens. 

There are also many references to getting lost, and often they find themselves further from their destination than they were when they set out. 

This is a story of youth out in the world for the first time, not understanding the real dangers or opportunities, hoping for a better future, but sometimes waylaid by unexpected events along the way. This was a very different read, sometimes reminding me of Waiting for Godot in the sense of them never getting anywhere. 

Ten Thousand Saints

Finished August 25

Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

This engrossing novel is set in the 1980s around three young people. I would consider Jude Kerry-Horn, sixteen when the book begins, as the central character. Jude was adopted by Harriet and Les when he was a baby, and they subsequently had another child, Prudence. Harriet and Les are divorced. Harriet lives in small town Vermont and is a glass artist and has a studio in her yard where she blows glass, with a lot of her work comprised of bongs. Jude and Prudence live with her. Les now lives in New York City where he continues his business of growing and selling marijuana. He has a girlfriend who has a daughter similar in age to Jude, Eliza. Eliza's mom has money and they live in a nice apartment in New York City, with a maid. Eliza goes to private school, but has been kicked out of a few schools recently. 

Jude's best friend is Teddy, and the book opens as they are celebrating Teddy's sixteenth birthday. When they return to Teddy's house they find it nearly empty, and it seems that Teddy's mom, Queen Bea, has up and left. Teddy is naturally upset and decides to try to get enough money to get a train into New York City, where his older half-brother Johnny lives. Johnny had lived in Vermont until recently when he went to the city to live with his father. Johnny had been part of a band in Vermont, with two of his friends, Delph and Kram, who are still friendly with Jude and Teddy. 

The weekend of Teddy's birthday also has Eliza coming through their town, and Les has asked Jude to meet her at the train and spend some time with her. The three teens hang out and then crash a party at Tony Ventura's large house, where there is a lot of alcohol and drugs present. Some key things happen there, and after dropping Eliza back at her train, Teddy and Jude go to Jude's house. Harriet finds them outside the next morning, both suffering from hypothermia and the effects of the drugs they'd consumed. This is a turning point for Jude, and things go downhill for a while until he is sent to live with his father. He soon meets up with Johnny and begins hanging out with his group of friends who belong to a sect closely related to the Hare Krishnas, and advocate no drugs, no alcohol, and no sex. Eliza soon joins them, and the males form a new band that begins touring the East Coast. The band is a metal band and soon gains a loyal following. 

This book is a clash of generations, kids coming of age in a time of great change, and music being a force that drives them. The main characters, as well as others in their friend group, are searching for their identity, separate from their parents, but still connected to them in a search for belonging and love. This book took me a while to get into, but then I hard a hard time putting it down. Captivating and beautifully written, this book had me reflecting in new ways. 

Flight Plan

Finished August 10

Flight Plan by Eric Walters

This novel is in the same world as the Rule of Three series and features characters that have some relation to the characters in the earlier books in the series. Here, we see the same time period beginning with the triggering event of computers failing. 

The central character is a thirteen-year-old boy Jamie. He's been visiting his grandmother and she's driven him to the Chicago airport for his flight home to the Toronto area. When he gets escorted by airline staff to his gate, he is soon met by the pilot, Stuart Daley. Stuart is a friend of Jamie's father, who is also a pilot. Stuart is also the father of the main character in the first few books in the series. The second pilot on the flight is a younger Korean-Canadian woman named Doeun Kim. They ask if he'd like to sit in the cockpit for the flight, and he agrees. Jamie is pretty comfortable flying and his mother is a pilot as well. 

They get cleared for early takeoff, but before they get off the ground the triggering incident happens with all computers shutting down. As they are trying to figure out what happened, they do an emergency evacuation of the plane and move towards the terminal. Once they begin to realize that this is a widespread event, two of the crew stay with the plane and Daley leads the rest to the hotel the airline uses, which is nearby. The hotel has gone into lockdown, but allows them in, and the next morning, Daley leads a small group back to the airport to begin to unload the plane and see what onboard items might be useful. With many in the group calling Toronto or nearby communities home, they eventually decide to try to get home by land. 

The journey is a difficult one, as things in many places have descended into chaos, violence, and fear. The group has individuals with valuable skills that they teach to the others, and use to deal with different issues and barriers that arise along the way.

This is an interesting look at human behaviour, and how working as a group that keeps the idea of overall compassion and realistic choice in the front of their minds. Jamie is forced to deal with things that most adults don't have to deal with, and try to keep it from affecting him negatively. The situations portrayed seem realistic, with details regarding exact places along the way kept vague. One thing that I noted was that there was never any mention of crossing the border between the countries, not even that they found the border posts unmanned. It was just not part of the story at all. 

I enjoyed seeing Jamie deal and learn from the situations that he was forced to face, and I liked what I saw of the other characters in their group, some of which we saw in more depth than others. A captivating read. 

Shades of Grey

Finished August 7

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

This is the first book in a series set in Chromatacia, a similar world to ours a few hundred years after some kind of catastrophic event. Hierarchy in this world is by what colours you can see. Some people can't see colour at all and they are categorized as 'grey'. People that can see colour have social status depending on which colours they can see and how well they see them. They have last names that give some indication of their colour ability. In their twentieth year, all people undergo a test called an Ishihara that tests their colour perception and determines their status for life. It is not unusual for people to move up or down from the status of their parents. People also earn merits from what they do and what other people confer on them. Having merits is important as if you get down to zero merits you get sent off to Reboot, which is an educational program that is remedial and then you are relocated somewhere else in the world. It is difficult to travel between places, and a ticket is necessary to do so. One of the few modern modes of transport is by train. 

The main character is Eddie Russett. Eddie has high perception of red, but he hasn't undergone his Ishihara yet, although it will happen soon. Eddie has done something that requires him to undergo a task and he is sent to a remote village near the edge of the controlled world to do a chair audit. He is accompanied by his father, who is a temporary replacement for a Colourman who has recently died. 

Eddie has a half-promise to marry a young woman back home, but she also has another suitor. He soon finds himself attracted to a young Grey woman named Jane, one with quite an attitude. He also finds himself questioning some of the things he has been taught and about the society itself and its controls. He faces carnivorous plants, conniving new friends, and an entitled woman determined to marry him.

When he goes on an exploratory expedition to an abandoned city, he finds himself with more questions, and yet he knows that those in charge don't like questions. He must learn to choose his battles, and think about more long-term goals. 

I like the imagination of this author and the way he fully creates societies in his worlds. This is an interesting one, with a dystopian feel to it. There is also an element of hope. 

It will be interesting to see where other books in the series lead. 

Boat Girl

Finished May 8

Boat Girl by Melanie Neale

This memoir grew on me as I got further into it. Melanie's story goes from her beginning to age 32, sometimes jumping a few years in the later sections. Her parents bought a new sailboat shortly before she was born, and she spent her youth growing up on the boat, travelling from her parent's home port in Virginia to Florida and from there to the Bahamas, usually on the smaller islands that make up the Exumas. Her father had worked as a lawyer prior to this, and used the money he earned there to buy the boat and fund the first few years of sailing. He began writing about their experiences and about sailing in more general ways and wrote both books and articles and continued to fund their life from these endeavours. 

I found her life interesting, from her parents' insistence on proper schooling using correspondence material from accredited schools, to encouraging her to learn practical skills that went along with owning a large sailboat and living on it. She dealt with some common teen issues such as finding friends and body image, and with her father's expectations around her relationships. 

I liked that she thought about what she really enjoyed doing and changed her major in college early to concentrate on that passion. 

Both informative and personally open, this memoir gives a realistic view of this way of life.  

The Black Witch

Finished January 29

The Black Witch by Laurie Forest

This is the first book in a high fantasy series set in a world similar to our own. The current political situation is only a couple of generations old and unstable. The main character is Elloren Gardner, a 17-year-old who has led a sheltered life. There was a major war going on when she was very young, with her grandmother Clarissa a heroine for the winning side. Gardnerians made a pact with the Elvish people to create a peace, but it came at a cost to many of the other ethnic groups around. Elloren's parents were killed in one of the final battles in the war and she and her brothers Rafe and Trystan were looked after by their uncle Edwin, who brought them up in a remote pastoral part of the country. 

Near the beginning of the story, Elloren is surprised by an announcement from Edwin that she will be joining her brothers at Verpax University, to study to be an apothecary like her mother. Her paternal Aunt Vyvian, at the core of the Gardnerian government is on an unannounced visit and wants to wandfast her to the son of a prominent family.

This is a land of magic, where children are tested for magic at a young age and then classified into ranking based on their magical ability. Many other nations of being have magic as well, magic unique to them. Elloren has been told that she doesn't have magic, but she suspects she might have a different sort of magic. 

As Elloren is immersed into a world of diplomacy, rivalry, and infighting and forced to deal on a daily basis with beings she has had limited to no contact with before, she must navigate this with limited help from others. 

She finds herself living with two others, one a being said to be evil incarnate, of whom no males are allowed to live, and the other a half breed that is outcast by most of her mother's people. She must earn her tuition with labour after refusing to bow to her aunt's will, and work in the kitchens with those who both hate and mistrust her. 

Worst of all, she is the spitting image of her warrior grandmother and people assume she is like her in all other ways as well. 

As Elloren meets individuals of different beings, she finds more in common with them than she does with some of her own people, and she finds herself making choices that will shape her destiny. 

This is a story of a world of prejudice, with a caste system, and betrayal between former allies. It is a world where some are trying to build bridges, while others are planning mass genocide. 

It is also a world of unpredictable magic, of dragons and elves, fae folk and werewolves. A world where maybe anything is possible. 

I found myself totally immersed in this book, and immediately placed a hold at my library for the next in the series. I'm looking forward to seeing what Elloren and her friends get up to next. 

A Desperate Fortune

Finished December 15

A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley

This is a novel that I'd been meaning to read for a while since I'd read a later book featuring some of the same characters and really enjoyed it. This is a dual timeline novel, with the outer story in the present day and the inner one in the 1730s, set around the Jacobite community in Europe, exiled from England. 

In the present day IT specialist Sara Thomas is between jobs, when her cousin Jacqui who is a literary agent, approaches her about a freelance job. The job is not in her usual area, but instead involves working to break the code on a diary written by a young woman who was the daughter of a wigmaker in King James the Eighth's household in France. The first few paragraphs of the diary are written in English, but the rest is written in code, and one of Jacqui's authors is interested in using the diary to base his new history book on. 

Sara is on the autism scale, and has been tested as Asperger's, and she doesn't like working on a team, but more independently, which is why she is between jobs. Her affinity with numbers and patterns means that while she hasn't worked to break a code before, it is a natural area for her skillset. Sara will be working in the home of the woman who owns the diary in France, not far from Paris. 

As Sara works to break the code and transcribe the diary, we see adjust to the people in her new environment and make new friends. 

In the second timeline, Mary Dundas is a young woman whose father left her as a child with her French maternal aunt when her mother died. Her diary starts as she is contacted by her older brother to join his household, but she soon finds out that he hasn't told her his real reason for reuniting with her, and she finds a chance encounter with another woman passing through the same household she visits gives her confidence and tools to make the best of her new situation. 

Both woman have facility in more than one language and both face issues outside their comfort zone, and in environments unfamiliar to them. 

I really enjoyed seeing both of them develop. Mary's story is a true coming-of-age tale even though she is in her early twenties, as she has lived in her aunt and uncle's household alongside their children for most of her life. Sara's story also has coming-of-age aspects, even though she is older, as she learns to use the skills her brain has dealt her, find ways to face those times she struggles without being embarrassed, and gains in her confidence on the romantic front. I hope to see more following both these women. 

Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

Finished September 22

Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility by Theodora Armstrong

This collection of stories, some novella length, are all set in British Columbia, and landscape is definitely important to the stories. Characters have surprising depth for the story lengths. The stories are also quite varied in circumstance. 

Rabbit has a girl quietly observing her own troubled family dynamics along with the kidnapping of an older girl on their street where no one responded to her calls for help. 

Fishtail has a father taking his teen daughters away for a weekend where he investigates a possible real estate acquisition

Whale Stories has a boy adjusting to a new house with his mom and younger sister, out of which his mom runs a bed and breakfast for tourists.

In The Art of Eating, a middle-aged restaurant chef, about to become a father for the first time, feels unprepared for this life changing event, even as he struggles with disappointment in his career. 

Thanks to Carin explores the relationship between two sisters who've made different life choices as one makes an impulsive visit to the other.

In The Spider in the Jar, two young brothers with an imbalanced relationship explore the nature surrounding them while one tries to be accepted by the other.

The title story has a novice air traffic controller face an accident and its aftermath.

And in Mosquito Creek, two teen girls test their friendship against the background of first relationships and risky behaviour. 

Interesting and surprising. 

Illumination Night

Finished September 16

Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman 

This story of a few people living in a small community over a few years is one of relationships, secrets, and growth. Set on Martha's Vineyard, the story starts with a young couple and their child. Before they moved here five years ago, Andre sold the motorcycle design company he created and now makes some money restoring old motorcycles that he then sells to collectors. Vonny is a potter and sells mostly to local stores, where she has made a name for herself. Their son Simon will be four in a few months and is inquisitive and friendly. 

Their nearest neighbour, Elizabeth Renny, is nearly seventy-four and, as the story opens, takes a bad fall. Her daughter, who is having marital issues, decides to send her sixteen-year-old daughter Jody to stay with Elizabeth for the summer. That visit becomes more permanent, something both Jody and Elizabeth are happy about. 

The novel's title takes its name from a tradition on the vineyard that has been taking place for more than a hundred and fifty years. It happens in August and involves music, food, and the lighting of paper lanterns. 

When the event takes place early in the book, it marks a point in the book where things change for many of the characters. 

We see Elizabeth age, Jody grow up and figure out a future for herself, Vonny come to terms with her own parents in interesting ways, and Andre make both bad and good choices. Simon too, grows up, although not always at the pace his parents hope for, sometimes too slowly and sometimes having to face tragedy too early. 

This is a story that really captivated me, making it hard to put down. I cared about the characters and wanted the book to continue so I could see what happened in these people's lives. 

The Forgotten Home Child

Finished August 25

The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham

This novel is structured as the story of a woman in her nineties, telling her story to her granddaughter and great grandson. The grandmother Winny was a British home child, brought to Canada through Barnardos. As the book opens she has just moved in with her granddaughter Chrissie and her great-grandson Jamie from a seniors home. Prior to that she had lived for years with her daughter Susan who died. One of the things that Winny brought with her was the small wooden trunk she brought with her from England, and that started the conversation that she gradually has with her family. 

Winny's family came to London from Ireland when she was young, and consisted of her, four younger brothers, and her parents. When her father died in an accident, her mother struggled, and Winny found herself unable to stay with the family when her mother took on another man. 

Struggling on the streets of London, she was befriended by Mary another girl her age and became part of a small group of children who resorted to theft to feed themselves. When the children are caught, Winny and Mary eventually find themselves in Barkingside Girls' Village, a Barnardo facility where the girls are taught useful skills so they can find gainful employment. While there, Winny befriended another young girl, Charlotte who had been left there by her mother until she could get her feet on the ground. The boys, Jack (Mary's brother), and brothers Edward and Colin were taken elsewhere and we discover what happened to them as the novel unfolds. 

Like many children in England at that time, they became one of the many sent overseas to Canada. Some children were welcomed into homes, but many were indentured servants and many of those led hard lives under sometimes abusive masters. 

Winny was made to feel ashamed of her origins as a home child, and thus never revealed this part of her past to her family until now. 

Graham has done a lot of research for this novel, and all of the experiences the children in her book have are real experiences that home children had. By personifying this experience, Graham brings history to life for her readers. 

I was totally caught up in the story, needing to know what happened to each of the children, and understand the repercussions of their experiences. 

An enlightening and entertaining read. 

The Steep and Thorny Way

Finished July 20

The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters

Set in small town Oregon in the summer of 1923, this teen novel follows biracial Hanalee Denney as she tries to make sense of the stories she hears about her father's death over a year earlier. 

Hanalee's parents met by chance in Portland, and went to Washington state to get married as Oregon did not allow a black man and a white woman to marry. They returned to the small town her mother, Greta was from, and farmed there. 

Now the young man, Joe Adder, who was convicted of killing her father Hank, but hitting him with his car is out of jail. Joe is back in town, but not accepted back into his father's house, and is sheltering in sheds and abandoned buildings. He's back to talk to her, because he promised her father he would keep an eye on her. 

Since her father's death, Greta has married long-time family friend Clyde Koning, a local doctor, and he now lives in Greta's family's home. When Joe insists that he didn't kill her father, and there was someone else who saw him alone before he died, Hanalee starts asking questions. 

When a local girl insists that she's seen Hank's ghost and that he is trying to talk to Hanalee, Hanalee has to decide whether to accept help to try to see this ghost herself and find out what her father so desperately has to say. 

This novel taught me a lot about this time period in Oregon. The Ku Klux Klan was very active in the state, and was particularly trying to gain influence over the younger generation. This was also a time of bootlegging, with it being Prohibition, and many local men ran stills and hired others to deliver their products. It was also a time of other prejudices besides racial ones, and that is part of this story as well. 

There is a lot going on, but Hanalee must face up to what is happening in her town, and how it affects her and those she cares about personally. This is a coming of age story in a difficult time under difficult circumstances, and the characters feel very real. I also found it interesting that portions of the plot were inspired by Hamlet.

A great read. 

Three O'Clock in the Morning

Finished July 11

Three O'Clock in the Morning by Gianrico Carofiglio, translated by Howard Curtis

This delightful novel was a quick read for me. The narrator, Antonio, talks about his life looking back on it later. As a child, his parents divorced and hi lived with his mother. His father was a mathematician and professor. When Antonio has a seizure and is diagnosed with epilepsy, both his parents take a strong interest in the situation, and unsatisfied with the initial treatment, they take him from Italy to Marseilles to a specialist. 

Following treatment, the are scheduled to return to Marseilles years later for a follow-up and, due to his mother's commitments, it is just Antonio and his father that go. When they find that they must stay for two extra days and Antonio must stay awake during these days, the two walk the streets of the city, visit restaurants and nightclubs, and go sightseeing and on boat trips. 

It is the first time that Antonio, now eighteen, sees his father as a person, and he discovers things about him that he never knew. 

This has a coming of age feel to it, and the open conversations between the two about their lives, interests, passions, and even love lives, is eye-opening. 

I liked how Antonio described his time with his father, his realization that his dad had experiences that he could relate to and learn from, and that he liked his father. A gem of a book.

Shout out to the Thornhill Village branch librarian for recommending it to me.