By: Djamila Ibrahim Things are good now tells poignant and thought provoking stories of immigrants and refugees to Canada from East Africa and the Middle East. From a female ex-freedom fighter struggling with her new reality of cleaning toilets and hospital sheets to a newly adopted young Ethiopian girl facing the horrors of her first […]
Yours Truly By Heather Vogel Frederick Truly Lovejoy is a typical 13-year-old girl – except for the fact that she’s 6 feet tall. She lives with her 4 siblings and her parents in her grandparents’ house in Pumpkin Falls, a place that takes maple syrup very seriously. It’s spring, and Maple Madness is upon them. […]
Sometimes I Lie By Alice Feeney Sometimes I Lie, by Alice Feeney is a psychological thriller, a genre that I rarely choose as I don’t like to sleep with the light on. However, I have recently delved into this type of book a little. Having survived The Girl on the Train, I thought I […]
Scar Island By Dan Gemeinhart Jonathan Grisby is just a boy, but already he has committed a crime that has sent him to Slabhenge Reformatory School for Troubled Boys. Slabhenge is no ordinary place. Located on a remote, rocky island, Slabhenge can only be reached by boat and keeps its young residents isolated from […]
The Overstory By Richard Powers “The most wondrous products of four billion years of life need help.” (p.165) In Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory, trees, the powerhouses of the Earth, draw in a cast of characters from vastly different backgrounds. There’s Nicholas Hoel, whose family has spent generations documenting the growth of the Hoel Chestnut […]
by: David Casarett Ladarat Patalung, nurse ethicist, widow, amateur sleuth? At the Sriphat Hospital in Chang Mai, Thailand, Ladarat is approached by a local detective to help solve a potential case of murder. A woman brought her husband to the emergency room where he then passed away. This is nothing strange in a hospital; however, […]
The Alcatraz EscapeBy Jennifer Chambliss Bertman Join Emily, James and friends on another adventure. This time, Garrison Griswold plans to challenge his many fans with Unlock the Rock, a game that takes place entirely in Alcatraz prison. Participants must solve a puzzle to even qualify for the game. Once they are on Alcatraz Island, they […]
Uprooted by Naomi Novik had me from the first line: “Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, not matter what stories they tell outside our valley.” There is something about fairy tales that always grabs the imagination regardless of the reader’s age, especially if there is a dragon involved. Novik takes everything I ever […]
By Jamie Ford Love and Other Consolation Prizes is another lovely historical tale from Jamie Ford, author of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. It is based on the true story of a Chinese boy who was raffled off at the 1909 Seattle’s World’s Fair, when the owner of the charity house […]
The Lost Diaries of Susanna Moodie Cecily Ross’ The Lost Diaries of Susanna Moodie is a fictional and very readable account of the life of Susanna Moodie, a Canadian pioneer and one of Canada’s earliest writers. Lost Diaries begins during Susanna’s youth in 1815 England. In a home of eight children, including six girls, there […]