Lisa Moore builds folks from the ink up: she is standout at characterization. Groundwood Books, 2016 One of the elements that makes her characters so convincing is the echo effect, the reverberations off seemingly extraneous details (in images, in descriptions, in settings) to construct multi-faceted individuals. Readers who have
Celine and Julie are negotating the borders of girlhood, wandering back and forth across dotted lines and territories both more and less available to them as the years pass. They trade L.M. Montgomery's girlhood classics for "Law and Order" and Our Bodies, Ourselves, while readers follow in their footsteps in narratives which alternately
It's with a subtle touch, but Nadia Bozak solidly roots the reader in time and place. House of Anansi, 2016 This is not an easy task, because Shell only grows to the age of seventeen in Thirteen Shells -- across thirteen stories, and childhood is inherently rootless. So the details
Jessamy is eight years old. When readers meet her, she is in a closet. She doesn't mind readers knowing, but she is hesitant to admit it to her mother, who has believed her to be outside. This is but the tip of the iceberg which comprises Jessamy's interior truth, and
What I was not carrying in my bookbag this month: David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, Shauna Singh Baldwin's The Tiger Claw and the third volume in G.R.R. Martin's Ice and Fire series. These hefty volumes stayied at home, but these slimmer books were travelling this month. And there was more to-ing and fro-ing this month
