Finished!! Canada Challenge 3 - I am a good Canadian!!

I did it! I did it! I completed the Canadian Challenge 3 Eh?!!! Third time must be lucky, this is the third year I attempted this challenge, and I am so thrilled and proud of myself for completing it. MOstly because I want to prove to myself that we have good, interesting, fun, intriguing books to share with the world. This year, I proved it to myself. AND I still have books on my TBR mountain for this challenge, so I'm ready for next year's challenge!

The last two books I read for this challenge, I read this month:


The Rez Sisters, by Tomson Highway. I read this play in university many years ago, and I was anxious to see how I found it now. It is just as moving and funny as it was 19 years ago, I am very happy to say. The Rez Sisters won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play when it came out in 1986, and was nominated for the Governor General's Award. This is a very big deal, not just because it is a play, but because it is written by an Aboriginal Canadian. Tomson was born in Northern Manitoba, far from the city. He was educated at a Roman Catholic boarding school - a product of the residential schools, which were charged with erasing native culture from the minds of the young people sent there, so they could take their place as Canadians in the cities, speaking English and no trace of otherness left. I'm not going to get into a rant here about what that says about Canadian colonialism and views of many white people towards natives. I mention it because, despite being sent to the residential school, Tomson survived, and went on to become - is - one of our leading figures in Aboriginal writing in Canadian literature. There is nothing strident, there is no bitterness, in The Rez Sisters, or in Dry Lips Outta Move to Kapuskasing, his other famous play, which I had the privilege of seeing performed at the National Arts Center when it came on tour in the 1990's. The Rez Sisters is funny and bittersweet, a tragicomedy in two parts: before a group of women from a reserve go to the World's Largest Bingo in Toronto, and after. In a form of gentleness rarely seen in fiction, Highway illustrates through his characters - 7 women on the reserve, and Nanabush, the figure of a seagull who is also the Trickster figure - what life is like on the reserve, and how these women relate to one another. Each of the women is clearly drawn, from Pelajia the eldest at 53, to Zhaboonigan the youngest at 24, her niece. All of the women are related to one another, sort of, which is exactly what living on the reserve is like, and is also a pun on the native belief that we are all related. The funniest part of the book is how they raise the money to get from the reserve to Toronto. The heartbreaking moments are two - the death of one of the characters, and what has happened to Zhaboonigan, who is also mentally handicapped. Read this play if you want an idea of what Aboriginal humour is like, about their honesty and how their dignity is all we have left them, but it's all we all have in the end anyway. This is a glimpse into another world that turns out to be about all of us. Still beautiful, after all these years.

The other book I read was Chester, by Melanie Watt:


Chester is an irrepressible cat who is determined to make the book about him, despite Melanie the author attempting to write about a mouse who lives in the country. Chester is obviously a strong character, charming, funny, and this book will appeal to everyone. This is how cats are. Really. For cat lovers, kids, and everyone else (except dog lovers, though dogs do make an appearance here). Delightful Canadian children's book that I highly recommend.

So, there you have it, my final two books for the Canadian Challenge 3. I'm thrilled to look back on all the good books I read this year (see my sidebar for the list). Canadian books - poetry, plays, journals, science fiction, fantasy, and mystery, some of what I read this year - are worth discovering. I look forward to the next challenge, due to begin tomorrow. Won't you join me?

Fantasy Book Reviews for Once Upon a Time 4

One of the joys of challenges is reading books that I'd otherwise keep putting aside for a rainy day. Well, we have Carl's Once Upon a Time IV challenge on, and here are reviews of some books I've put aside for 20 years and finally read this year! and some newer books as well:

The Face in the Frost - John Bellairs


First published in 1969, The Face in the Frost deserves to be much more widely known than it is. John Bellairs published a few other novels for children, and so he has suffered the plight that many children's authors suffer from, never mind authors of children's fantasy. The Face in the Frost tells the story of Prospero, and Roger Bacon, who are wizards of some reknown, and good friends. The names of the wizards will tell any reader that Bellairs wrote a humours fantasy, filled with gentle wit and sarcasm at the world. Roger Bacon of course spends most of his time in England, while Prospero lives in the world of North and South Kingdoms, somewhere near an imaginary border with England. This vein of mixing pure fantasy and delight with real trials and horror continues through the book. It is delightful, funny, imaginative, with an evil magician villain who is, as always, a cautionary tale on being consumed by power. Even more, there are illustrations peppered through the book, pen and ink drawings that reminded me how much a good illustration can add to the text without giving anything away, and without changing my own inner impressions of the story.

I loved The Face in the Frost. Here is a sample of how precise his writing is:
Meanwhile, the strange early winter drew thin rags and fingers of gray snow over the dirty, fast-decaying leaves that clotted the suddenly dry beds of strams; on the empty plain Prospero and Roger had just passed through, the snow moved in eerie swirls, falling into spirals and long lines too regular to be natural. People were terrified of the open spaces at night; in their homes they sat with blankets over their windows so that they would not see the mask of frost. Windows broke in the night, and the wind that blew through them had a voice.

Roger and Prospero have to find a way to defeat the evil magician who is seeking Prospero, who holds the one thing that can prevent the magician from taking over the known kingdoms, only Prospero doesn't know what it is or where it can be found. So begins their quest. This is pure delight and wonder, and I would reccommend this to everyone to read. 5/5

God Stalk and Dark of the Moon - PC Hodgell (collected in one edition, The God Stalker Chronicles, recently re-released in paperback)


These are another pair of books that were written over 20 years ago. I owned one and then the other but never at the same time, and I could never get them read in order, so eventually put it aside as a series to read later. For years and years I haunted used book stores, looking for them. So when I saw in February that it had been re-released - they both had been published by a publishing company now out of business - I grabbed the book. Both novels! together! One edition! No way was I letting go of the Chronicles, and as soon as I got home, I began reading it. After 20 years, I couldn't wait for the OUAT challenge!

How were they? Were the two books worth it? Yes! Yes! These are excellent fantasy books, complete with a new religion, a new universe, and a heroine who is so fiesty and spirited and determined, that she changes the lives and course of history around her. This is a fascinating work of fantasy, with religion, politics, history, and the right to self-determination key elements in the story. Our heroine, Jaime, is a Kencyr, one of the people chosen to stand against the Perimal Darkling, an ancient evil from the darkness that has destroyed many worlds and many universes, the Kencyr the last stand on each world against the Darkling. God Stalk opens with Jaime fleeing her foe, and landing in a city where the Kencyr have not been seen for many years, and where the gods of all the races vy for attention and belief.

In true heroic fashion, Jaime wins some friends around her, protects the down-trodden, defeats all manner of corruption and villains, and discovers who she is, for she has no memory from before she awakens in flight on the plain. God Stalk begins the story, and Dark of the Moon continues her journey as she leaves Tai-tastagon to go to find her long-lost twin brother Torisen. Who they are, and the role their namesakes played in their religion 3,000 years ago, and what Jamie has to do now to become fully herself and not live under the shadow of the ancient Jamethiel Dream-Weaver, is what the second book is about. There is also a war amassing on the planet - not against the Perimal Darkling, although we discover they are there, voices in the darkness of men's souls.

I really enjoyed these two books, and I was very happy to discover there are three more in the series, although they have been out of print also and have not yet been re-released. Seeker's Bane, and Bound in Blood. I thought Dark of the Moon ended rather abruptly - I can't say how, but I really really wanted more of the story, so I will be looking for the next two books in the series. I really enjoy Jaime, she is a marvellous heroine, stubborn, funny, intelligent, persistent, who has lived through an enormous betrayal and come into her own as her own person. I really want to know more about her twin brother Torisen. Does he survive the plots against him as leader of the Kencyr, now that he has the belongings Jaime was bringing back to him? Will he trust her, and what changes will she bring to her own people now?

I found the religious aspects fascinating, alot of thought went into creating a world where such a variety of religions could exist, and what it would mean about the civilization that could let so many exist at once. Do gods need people, in order to survive? is one of the questions Jaime strives to answer for herself. Loyalty plays a big role in these books, honour, and the ways these can be betrayed. Very, very good fantasy books, and highly reccommended. 4.7/5

Drink Down the Moon - Charles de Lint (reissued under the newer edition Jack of Kinrowan, bringing together Jack the Giant Killer and Drink Down the Moon) *read for the Canadian Challenge also


I read the first book, Jack the Giant Killer, and reviewed it at the beginning of this challenge. These were both published in the 1980's, and ones I just didn't get around to reading until now. I think I cheated myself out of two good books long ago!

Drink Down the Moon is the second Jacky Rowan fantasy faerie tale adventure, picking up a year after Jacky wins the role of gruagah for her Laird of Kinrowan and his Court, which covers much of the territory in Ottawa and surrounding area. Gruagah means she watches the ley lines of the magic running through the area, to make sure the faerie are well and strong. Jacky is new at her job, and unbeknownst to everyone, someone is coming who is destroying the fiaina sidhe, which in Charles de Lint's fantasy world here, are the faeries who do not belong to the Seelie or Unseelie Courts - organized faeries who owe allegiance and live under their lord, or Unseelie Courts, those faeries who destroy mankind at every chance. The Faina sidhe have a moon dance called a rade, they do that gathers strength and power from the new moon, along their own moon paths that their Pook can see when music is played. If a human fiddler plays, then it is the best music and magic for the fiaina sidhe of all. Only the Pook has just been killed, her half-sister has lived more in the human world than the faery one, and the only human fiddler they knew about has just passed away from old age. How Jemi learns to accept who she is, how Johnny Faw who inherits his grandfather's fiddling ability and love of music helps Jemi, and the one who surprisingly leads the eventual rade as the Unseelie Court gathers for the last battle, makes for a fabulous journey to Ottawa and faerie.

Once again Charles has woven another story blending music, fairy myths, and a city setting, to make his own brand of fairy tales distinct, moving, fun, delightful, and scary. I always forget how dark he makes the Unseelie Court - rightly so, for they are the nightmares of the faerie world, after all, the bogeymen, trolls, and fae folk who would as soon eat us as soon as we seen them, and sometimes before we see them. Beware the night shadows, because sometimes there are somethings alive out there in the darkness, in the rustlings and whispers.....and the true heroes are those who face those fears and discover their strengths in doing so, like Johnny and his friend Henk, like Jacky and Kate, like Jemi.

I have long enjoyed Charles' work and consider him underappreciated in Canada, and these two books by him have only reaffirmed my view. Canadian fantasy writers in general are ignored in Canada except when a specialty interview is run in the newspapers; they are never mentioned along with Atwood, or Munro, who appeal to a broader audience. This is the struggle for fantasy, of course, and up here even someone as prolific and well-known in the fantasy fields as Charles de Lint, still has most people wondering who he is. And that's a shame, because Charles is one of the best in his field. As a Canadian writer, we should be celebrating his work and achievements alongside our better known fiction writers. He has created a body of work that is unmatched for how it blends music, folk and fairy tales, into our contemporary world. He also creates some of the best female heroines in fiction. I really enjoyed reading about Jacky Rowan and Kate Hazel, and I want to know more about Jacky as a gruagagh. It's a scary world, and Jacky and Kate are people I want to hang out with, especially on that third floor in the grugagh's Tower that holds all those special books..... 5/5 for both books.

Bone Crossed - Patricia Briggs.


Sigh. I love this series. Every time I think Briggs can't come up with something different and as thrilling as her previous books in this series, I am surprised. Bone Crossed is the 4th in the Mercy Thompson series, and it is just as good, if not better, as the previous ones. In this one, Mercy has to face Marsilia, Queen of the local vampires seethe, for killing a member of the seethe. The vampires deface her garage door with crossed bones, marking her as no longer under the vampire's protection. She is wanted for a crime against the vampires. However, Mercy is now under the local werewolves' protection because of her relationship with it's alpha, Adam. So her friends are the apparent target. Except, as Mercy is drawn into investigating a haunted house in Spokane, she discovers she is the target for another reason altogether - her special skill as a shape shifter. How Mercy discovers who her friends really are, and what they will do for her, as she fights for her life at the end, makes for another thrilling, exciting, hard-to-put down supernatural book in the series. Caution: read this when you have 8 or so hours to yourself, it really is a book you won't want to put down for anything but to get some food ready - I read while I eat, so that's all the time I wanted to take away from this novel. It was really hard at work to have it in my bag, waiting for my work to end so I could get back to it. I would say I read past my lunchtime alloted time, except one of my bosses might accidentally find out......

I love how the werewolves are shown and how the pack works. I like how she and Adam form a bond, and what happens to her after. I like how she learns about herself finally enough to understand that it is her fear that she has to overcome. I completely understand her fear - and I'm not going to tell what it is, because it is integral to how Mercy operates in her life - I suffer from the same fear myself. I'd like to think that if I were a shapeshifter coyote I could be as cool as Mercy, but I doubt it. She is one of a kind, and I love her. I can hardly wait for the next adventure - it's out in hardcover now, called Silver Borne, and if I can't wait, my birthday is approaching.....I do wish they would do something about the awful covers, since Mercy is anything but the buxom babe featured on the covers, but thankfully we buy the books for what's inside. At least it's the same woman they are featuring, so those of us collecting these can have that satisfaction that the covers are part of a series. 5/5

Finally, the last books so far read for Carl's Challenge, I finished last night:
Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton. *Also read for Canadian Challenge



This won the 2004 World Fantasy Award. It's a stand-alone book, not part of her current alternate England series (Farthing, Ha'Penny, and Half a Crown). Tooth and Claw is a Victorian novel of manners, featuring.......dragons. It is very, very good. The novel centers around the four children of the dragon Bon, who is dying as the novel opens. There are the two sons, Penn, who is a parson, and Avan, who is a clerk in the Planning Office for the Beautification of Illrieth, the dragon city. The two daughters are unmarried, Selendra, and Haner, and the problem of what to do with them, as they are landed dragon gentry and so unprepared to work for a living, and are dispersed to two relatives, one a married sister, makes for a fun book involving a court case, the dangers to dragons of laying eggs, what happens when a male dragon gets too close to an unmarried female, and a fearsome potential mother-in-law who is a ........dragon. Those of you who are married will get the pun! This was such an enjoyable fantasy to read. I love how the dragon houses are described, how they still sleep on their treasure, how they eat their dead, and how despite their civiliation - and how they became 'civilized' is told as a back story, in myth and religious overtones, that makes this believable. This is a dragon book of manners. It is also about religious freedom, and the rights of servants whose plight one of the sisters, Haner, takes up. Tooth and Claw has a very satisfying dragon-like conclusion in a dragon court, complete with tooth and claw. This is a well-thought out book about how dragons might have some kind of organization to their society, if they were so inclined.

For anyone who enjoys Anthony Trollope especially, and Victorian novels, this book will be a delight to read. For anyone who loves dragons, this book can't be missed. For anyone who wants to catch up on their World Fantasy Award winners, this book is deserving of the award. It is original, charming, and I really enjoyed all the dragon characters.

I would give this novel a 5/5 but I kept thinking about Smaug, who for me is the original, and best of dragons. In my imagination, he thought this was amusing, but missed something essential: a riddle or two. So 4.7/5.

I hope you are enjoying your Easter weekend, we are having fabulous summer-like temperatures, and it's making it difficult for me to do anything but read! Which wouldn't be a bad thing, except we have Easter dinner at our house tonight.......happy reading, and Happy Easter, my Gentle Readers!

3 Canadian Mysteries - Canadian 3 Eh! Challenge reviews

I have been busy reading mysteries for the past few weeks. With Carl's Once Upon a Time IV Challenge about to begin, I wanted to catch up a little on my planned 'read 50 mysteries this year', before plunging into fantasy for the next several weeks.

I didn't plan on reading 3 mysteries for the Canadian Challenge, though as this is my third year with the challenge, I am finding that reading spontaneously works best for me with this challenge. So, when I found myself dropping by the tiny used bookstore in my neighborhood two weeks ago and coming home with three books, one of which was Prized Possessions by LR Wright, I thought, right, time for more spontaneity.


Prized Possessions - L.R. Wright (#5 in the Karl Albright mystery series)
I first read an LR Wright mystery two years ago for the first Canadian Challenge, A Touch of Panic . I didn't know that Prized Possessions follows in the series, until just now when I went hunting for my review! So, with two years between books, how does Prized Possessions hold up? Very very well. Now that I've read two books in the series, I can say that Wright does a wonderful job of getting in the head of her criminals. Eddy, the criminal in this mystery, falls into crime almost by accident, but the set-up and why he does, is chilling. He is every innocent person's nightmare. He can't let go of a slight, and it snowballs into terrible crimes. As with A Touch of Panic, there are two main storylines that intersect, and while it could seem forced, it doesn't. Everything about the other person, Emma, and how she crosses paths with them, makes for a breathtaking ending. Emma is my personal nightmare of what I call the 'empty woman', someone who exists only for her man. Ugh! LR Wright makes her believable, and how she finds herself on a country road late at night with a gun in her pocket, sad. This is a mystery about choices, and how even those with no idea of crime, can find themselves contemplating breaking the law.

The detective in this series, RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg is on leave for this mystery, bereavement leave because his father has just passed away. As a favour, he investigates the disappearance of Emma's husband, who drives away one Saturday morning and never returns. Alberg has a girlfriend, Cassandra, who is facing her own mid-life crisis, and how they work through and resolve changes in their relationship, makes a lovely counterpoint to Emma and Charlie's marriage.

This is a satisfying mystery on its own, enhanced by its setting in the lovely BC Sunshine Coast. The Sunshine Coast really exists, as does the towns of Sechelt and Gibson's Landing, the two principal towns in this mystery. I've only ever seen Gibson's Landing through the lens of tv, as one of Canada's longest running series, The Beachcombers, was set there in the 1970's and '80s. The way Wright describes these towns reminds me of small-town BC, where I have lived before, and I get homesick for the mountains and forests, and especially, the Pacific Ocean. There is definitely a cosy mystery feel to this series, which makes a change for me from the police procedurals that I normally read. 4.7/5

The Red Fox - Anthony Hyde.

This mystery thriller first came out in 1985. It was Hyde's first novel, and received widespread acclaim, althougth I had it on my shelf for over 20 years to read because a friend's husband loved it. So, last month, I finally read it. The good thing about books is that they will wait until we are ready to read them. The bad thing is, occasionally, they become dated, and that is what has happened to The Red Fox. Most of the tension in the book is because of the Iron Curtain, because of the tight grip that Communism had over much of Eastern Europe at that time. I'm old enough to remember how hard it was to get any news out of the East, how restricted getting in even to visit was, and how dear everything from the west was to those who lived behind the Iron Curtain. So reading The Red Fox brought this all back to me. Now of course, there is no Soviet bloc, there is no blackout on news, there is no Us and Them, as there was while I was growing up. I'm glad, but this book shows just how much has changed since the Wall came down in Berlin. As a historical book, funnily enough, it is very well done - for anyone who wants to know how the Soviet bloc looked to us, in the 1980's, this book is one of the best for capturing the fascination and fear we had towards the east. As a mystery, it is also satisfying. The ending has a twist that is very much about the fascination we had in the 1970's and 1980's about the change of power at the turn of the century, when Russia went from a royal family to Trotsky and then Lenin and Stalin and communism. As a thriller, this is unputdownable. I found the middle of the book a bit slow, mostly because I didn't care for the character of May's father Harry, so I didn't care if he was alive or dead. There is a reason for this distance from the character, however, and by the ending, we know why idealism and politics always lead to disillusionment, and now secrets from the past always catch up, sooner or later. It's a well-done mystery, and I certainly enjoyed and liked Robert Thorne, who is clever and resourceful while not being a spy. This was also refreshing in a thriller!

There are several layers of story here, from the ex-girlfriend, May Brightman, of the hero, Robert Thorne, as he searches for the disappeared father of the ex-girlfriend, to how he ends up learning why his own father committed suicide. World War II, and some history of Communism in Canada as well as in Paris as the Germans marched on the city, are all entwined with present day Canadian settings as Robert looks for clues as to why his girlfriend's father has disappeared. Who was Harry Brightman? When he learns that May was adopted, this leads him to a discovery that changes everything and leads him on a path of death and destruction as a hidden group search for something Brightman has hidden, and will do anything to remove their traces, while Thorne races to uncover what might be threatening May.

This is a well-written novel, very enjoyable, and it is extra-delightful that it is written by a Canadian author! This is an intelligent thriller, along the lines of Le Carre, and nothing at all like Dan Brown. 4/5


Bones to Ashes - Kathy Reichs

I read this last summer, when the Canadian Challenge 3 had just started, and then lent the book to a friend because it was so good. I haven't received it back, so I will have to write my review from memory.

I had read the first three in the Temperance Brennan mystery series when they first came out - Deja Dead was published in 1997, and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. But I found the series got too bloody and brutal for me, and I put the series aside for a while. I kept hearing good things about the latest books in the series, and finally my friend at work who also reads mysteries (we are always giving each other books to read and talking about authors) said Bones to Ashes was very good, as was the next in line, Devil Bones, which she couldn't put down. so I picked Bones to Ashes first - it was in paperback, and I loved the cover with the tree, which kept catching my eye. It wasn't as gory as I remembered! In fact, this one had a sad air to it, as Temperance is handed a girl's skull that she wants to uncover the forensic secrets to as well as historical. She discovers many sad things about the Indians of New Brunswick and how they were treated historically, and how her childhood friend who has long since disappeared from her life, possibly suffered from the same disease that the girl whose skull she holds died from. How she finds her childhood friend, and what has happened to her, make for a very satisfying mystery. We also see the appearance of Temperance's sister, who is a breathe of Texas fresh air and pure feminine delight in this series! I like Temperance very much as a character, but I find her moody and too self-contained sometimes - broody almost, and her sister is a nice counterpoint to Tempe's seriousness. There is a very satisfying shoot-out at the end of the book, and resolution to both Tempe's childhood mystery, at the same time. I'm definitely continuing with this series.

I did find that her affair with Detectifve Andrew Ryan is one I want to continue, and was depressed that Tempe let herself get dragged back into her ex-husbands life so easily. I found myself saying no more than once to all three of these characters as they walk into and out of each other's lives - they were well-written scenes and the understanding that Reichs shows of the human heart in this love affair that has its up and downs makes this series richer and satisfying for me. 4.7/5

I am even more delighted that this series is doing so well. Though I do have a question: Kathy Reichs is not a native Canadian, she was born in Chicago, and works and lives in both Charlotte North Carolina and Montreal. Since the books are set in Montreal, where Temperance works out of the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Québec, just as Kathy herself does, my question is, does this make this a Canadian book? I think it does, so I'm counting it towards Canadian books read for the Canadian Book Challenge 3. What do you think? Does it count as a Canadian mystery?

I also admit that I don't watch Bones, the Fox tv series based on these mysteries. Even though Reichs is now listed as one of the producers of the show, and this year has Booth and Bones drawing closer together, I like the books better. I have difficulty separating the tv characters from the books, which is why I'm picky about what I see. I loved Roy White as Dalgliesh, the portrayals of DCI Frost, Morse, Dalziel and Pascoe, to which I find the tv casting is perfect and enhances my reading of the mysteries. Who could forget Hamish McBeth as portrayed by the wonderful Robert Carlyle? I haven't seen enough of the Elizabeth George series on tv (they came over in a jumble, out of sequence, and so I like my mysteries shown properly!) to know how the actor did with the portrayals, although I like the lead actor very much anyway. So I'm not against mystery series being translated to the screen. I've just had a problem with David Boreanz replacing Andrew Ryan in my mind, because Andrew Ryan in my mind is slightly dangerous and intensely loyal, and no matter how I know Boreanz is a good actor, I always find him just a little boring. But that's just me, apparently 10 million plus people in the US disagree!! I'll stick to reading the series, though.

This brings my total to 8 books read for the Canadian Book Challenge 3. I'm delighted. Only 5 left to go, and I still have 3 months and some very good books on my list: Three Day Road, Monkey Beach, Moonheart, The Rez Sisters, The Murder Stone, Bluenose Ghosts, Late Nights on Air.......

Happy last day before Spring arrives!!

Scaredy Squirrel - Sunday Salon

Scaredy Squirrel is a big hit among Canadian children. I know. Two of them live in my house, and reading time has become a big frenzy of who gets to read the book first. Why? you may ask. Why does everyone like Scaredy Squirrel? Who is Scaredy Squirrel?

This is Scaredy Squirrel. Scaredy Squirrel is afraid of a lot of things. Part of the fun of this book for children is that Scaredy Squirrel likes to list what he's afraid of. And he has a kit, a preparedness kit in the event that the unfortunate happens, and he has to leave his tree. See, Scaredy Squirrel is so scared that he has never left his tree.

And then the unfortunate happens. Scaredy Squirrel leaves his tree!! What happens? N-uh uh, I'm not telling. You'll have to get the book and read it for yourself. Then, if you know any children, read it to them. And see if you ever get the book back from them, or can ever read it by yourself again. I guarantee every child under the age of 95 will love this book.

There are two extra bonuses to this book:
1) it's Canadian, thus you would be one book further along in the Canadian book Challenge; and
2) there are three more books already in the series:
Scaredy Squirrel makes a Friend
Scaredy Squirrel Goes to the Beach (this one I have to read!)
and
Scaredy Squirrel At Night.

Luckily for our family, we had two recent birthdays, the eldest son (now 21!) and the youngest son, now age 5. At his birthday party he received Scaredy Squirrel at Night:

Much to my son's delight - ok, for all of us! , Scaredy Squirrel at Night is just as good as Scaredy Squirrel. Now is there anyone out there who has never lay awake one night, watching shadows on the wall, heart pounding? Anyone? Well, then Scaredy Squirrel is for all of us. Scaredy Squirrel in this book is so afraid of the dark that he is afraid to go to sleep. So how does he stay awake all night? what happens when he does? what happens when he eventually falls asleep? Kids everywhere will love this book. Mine love this one as much. Because Scaredy Squirrel has a bad dream action plan in case he does fall asleep and in case he has a bad dream. And then one night he gets to put the action plan into effect.......

I like Scaredy Squirrel. I can relate to him.

One of the many very very good things about this series is that the almost 7-year old and the now-5 year old both love these books. Best of all, the five year old, who almost never picks a book up on his own, has been seen reading Scaredy Squirrel at Night on his own, in the middle of the day.

Well, both children are now circling around me while I write this, asking what I'm saying, why am I writing about Scaredy Squirrel? I can see some reading time coming up again. Because they both want to read the books, we've had to work out a system where one child goes first one day to read one book out loud, and the next day the other child gets the chance. And don't ask why they can't take turns with the books on the same day, it's all about being first these days. Sometimes they have to read in separate rooms because they don't want to hear the other child reading it out loud! 'I can do it better than you!" No one ever said people in my family weren't competitive.....

My book-lover's heart is secretly overjoyed that they are fighting over who gets to read Scaredy Squirrel first. They are fighting over reading!!!

Happy Sunday reading everyone!

Sunday Salon : Talking About Books

I've missed talking about books. I've missed you, my dear Book bloggers. It's good to be back.

Yesterday I was writing about Flashforward, a book I wasn't quite done reading yet. I finished it this morning, and I have a few things to add about it, and science fiction writing in general.

Firstly, I need to say that there is some very, very good writing in science fiction. There always has been. If you're interested in the best science fiction has to offer, than start with the Hugo (this year's winner was Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book) and the Nebula (this year's winner was Ursula K LeGuin for Powers) awards reading lists. From there, check the Locus (link is on the sidebar) best novels of the year. I think I felt a little guilty last night when I couldn't come up with more writers who are excellent right away! Gosh, there are so many - Lois McMaster Bujold, Elizabeth Hand, Paul Park, Naomi Novik, Mary Gentle, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Orson Scott Card. There are classics that I think should more widely read just for the ideas and the future examined, as well as characters and plot. Urusula K. LeGuin, Larry Niven, Neal Stephenson. So many. So when I say Flashforward is an average read, I feel guilty on two fronts; one, Robert J Sawyer is Canadian and I desperately want most of our books to be really good! and two, I feel like I'm perpetuating the stereotype that science fiction is about tomorrow and science ideas first, and good writing second. It's not. The best science fiction transcends the genre and becomes a very good book about people in the future. And how cool is that, to be able to imagine what we could be and to, tomorrow?
Flashforward - Canadian Book Challenge 3 review
So, with that said, my final review of Flashforward is that it is a decent read. It ends better than I thought it would. There still isn't enough characterization to satisfy me, but then I read Middlemarch at the beginning of this year and so far many books I've read this year haven't come close to it yet. Which sometimes I think is unfair, but again, if the best book I read this year was written two centuries ago, doesn't that say something amazing about how literature survives past its immediate time? I don't think Flashforward will - although the idea it presents is so interesting - but some of the very best SF, oh yes, we'll be reading into the next 100 years. So, if you are watching the tv show and it's going too slowly for you, read this book - the tv series is different enough that I think you can do the two at the same time. If you are interested in Canadian science fiction and need a book for the Canadian Challenge, this is a fun one to read for it. And if you want to know what life could be like in 2023, as well as 2008, this is also enjoyable. And the characters are fun, but I can't take them seriously. Some of their motivations aren't explained, and how they react could be more explored, but he took a philosophical bent and that was interesting to think about too. I understand the Schrodinger's Cat physics theory better after reading this book! This book is about the science, but it is enjoyable to read also. 3/5

Talking about best books of the year, Bart at Bart's Book Reviews has a very good post up about choosing your favourite books of the year, since we are approaching that time of year again. He is interested in how readers go about choosing their favourite books. Please let him know, he wants to hear from anyone who goes through this process! How do you choose your favourite book read? I will be doing a post about this later, so all I'll say for now is, yes, there are certain criteria a book has to meet in order to make my list of best books of the year.

I have one last thing before I finish this post. This is for you, my lovely Bad Bloggers. I have a journal now that I keep my list of books I want to read because of YOUR REVIEWS. When I was compiling my list of books I want for Christmas, that was merely what I'd seen in one bookstore this week. I had an idea last night, and went into my bad blogger journal. Here are some books I'm adding to my Books I Want For Christmas List that I began yesterday, that are due entirely to YOUR REVIEWS (bad bloggers are highlighted)

SUSAN'S BAD BLOGGER'S CHRISTMAS BOOK LIST

- Book of Lost Things - John Connolly (Robin, A Fondness for Reading)
- Voodoo Season - Jewell Parker Rhodes (Chris, Stuff as Dreams are Made Of and Eva, A Striped Armchair- reviewed closely together, both equally guilty!)
- Monkey Beach - Eden Robinson (Stephanie, Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-Holic)
- Company of Liars - Karen Maitland (Margaret, Books Please)
- The True Story of Hansel and Gretel - Louise Murphy (Wendy, Musings of a Bookish Kitty)
- Looking For Alaska - John Green (Tanabata, In the Spring It is the Dawn)
- Leviathan or the Whale - Philip Hoare (Bride, Bride of the Book God)
- The Way the Crow Flies - Ann-Marie MacDonald (Ann, Table Talk)
- Sea of Trolls - Nancy Farmer (Book Pusher, The Genteel Arsenal)
- Rosemary and Rue - Seanan McGuire (Joanne, Book Zombie)
- An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears (Ann, Table Talk)
- Mortal Love - Elizabeth Hand (Nymeth, Things Mean Alot)
- The Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko (Memory, Stella Matutina)

*Eva at A Striped Armchair is also responsible for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie review she did recently, which also brought to my attention that Alan Bradley is Canadian. So she gets another point even though I mentioned it yesterday.....

The best of all? Many of these books are books that you loved and posted about. Some you mentioned to me in comments, or in separate emails. All are books I made a note of, and then looking through my journal, thought, "yes! yes, I'm ready to read this now." So thank you, lovely bad creative book bloggers. That's 13 books easily added to my Christmas list. This does NOT include the books from the library I've been getting out and reading because of your blogs, although alas, I'm not doing very well at posting about the books I've read because of you this year.

******Oh! Added just now: just found this one on Genteel Arsenal and MUST find this book asap:
The Bog Child - Siobhan Dowd.

Yes, I'm back. Happy Sunday reading, every one!

The Winter Sea - another Canadian book finished! and Canadian Book Meme

"Romantic Beach Read by Canadian Author" I think sums up The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. I did think it had nice touches: the main character, Carolyn McClelland, is a writer, who goes to a distant Scottish town to visit her agent, and ends up in the very small village of Cruden, where she spends the winter writing what becomes the memories of her ancestor who once lived there during the Jacobite uprising of 1708. The history is well-done, and the story flips back and forth gently between the present time with Carrie and her writing, and the main story, which is the story she is writing of Sophia Paterson and John Moray. I have only been to Edinburgh, and very much one day would like to visit the rest of Scotland. So I read this book partly for the wintry Scottish atmosphere by the sea (the book IS titled The Winter Sea!) and partly because it was by a Canadian author, and because it is the book for my friend's bookclub meeting tonight, to which I am invited to attend.



To be fair, I read The Winter Sea in under 24 hours, and it is a light read - perfect for the beach, engaging, two love stories, fun characters - I like John Moray! and Graham Keith, and his uncle, and the older Jimmie Keith, plus Carrie and Sophia, and the Countess....there is political intrigue, but as Carrie is only a witness to the events leading up to the Jacobite uprising and its aftermath - it wasn't successful, as King James wasn't returned to the Scottish throne then - it surrounds and cushions the love story. I still and always will think Sophia's choice at the end of the book was the wrong one, but then I am speaking as a mother. I won't say here, so as to not spoil the plot. I do not often read romances because I read my fill when I was a teenager, but once in a while I am in the mood to read one, and this one was perfect for this very hot day. It is a very well-written book, fast-paced, and the characters are intelligent, and the setting beautiful, and the dialogue is good. So for anyone looking for a sweet beach read, this is a very good book to spend your time with.

And that's my second book read for the Canadian Challenge 3!!!

In honour of the Canadian Challenge, John at The Book Mine Set, the host of the Canadian Challenge, posted here on Aug 1 for all challengers to do. I found this via Kailana at The Written World, here. It is a challenge about Canadian books! So, to prove that I have not been an all bad-Canadian reader and have read some Canadian books, I accept the challenge (sound of gauntlet being thrown down):

Your Favourites:

1. Favourite Canadian author? Yikes. So many: Kathy Reichs, Thomas King, Charles de Lint, Tanya Huff, Louise Penny, Guy Gavriel Kay, Giles Blunt, L.M. Montgomery, Kelley Armstrong.....

2. Favourite Canadian novel? tie: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, and Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint

3. Favourite Canadian nonfiction? Fear of Frying - James Barber (cookbook); Some Canadian Ghosts - Sheila Hervey (first read when I was 10, and scared me so much that I got goosebumps! Still has that effect on me); Never Cry Wolf - Farley Mowat; The Whale Watcher's Handbook - Erich Hoyt; A History of Reading - Alberto Manguel

4. Favourite Canadian picture book? ? None come to mind, I'm sad to say.

5. Favourite Canadian YA or juvenile chapter book? Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery

6. Favourite Canadian science fiction or fantasy book? 1)Moonheart; 2) Dreams Underfoot, by Charles de Lint; the Fionavar Tapestry (3 books) by Guy Gavriel Kay; Summon the Keeper - Tanya Huff

7. Favourite Canadian romantic fiction? The Emerald Necklace - Victoria Sheringham

8. Favourite Canadian mystery? Uh-oh - so many to chose from.....I can't go with one book, it has to be a series. It would have to be Giles Blunt's John Cardinal series. The first one, Forty Words for Sorrow, is one I gave to everyone the year I read it. There are 4 now in the series, and my mother and I are waiting breathlessly for the next one to come out.

9. Favourite Canadian graphic novel? Do we write them?

10. Favourite Canadian book blog? Kailana, Raidergirl3, BookZombie, John himself (see link above).

11. Favourite Canadian fictional character? Anne Shirley (childhood), Detective John Cardinal, RCMP Staff Sargeant Karl Ahlberg, any main character by Charles de Lint EXCEPT Imogene (but I still like her!), Emily Starr

12. Favourite movie based on a Canadian novel or story? The English Patient (based on Michael Oondatje's book of the same name)

13. Favourite Canadian short story? I'm going to cheat here. I don't have one favourite story, but my favourite short story collection is Dreams Underfoot, by Charles de Lint. I fell in love with Newford, and with so many characters and themes that he went on to write about; they all have their germination here. This is his first short-story collection based in Newford. There is an incredible array of stories here, from sad, to fantastical, to horror. This just builds and builds until Newford rises from the pages.

14. Favourite Canadian poet? I hadn't read any since my university courses until lately when I picked up Don McKay's book, so it isn't fair to answer this yet. I know a local poet, Rob Mclellan, whose work I like.

15. Favourite Canadian poem? The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service. Link here to an online copy of it.

16. Favourite Canadian play? Dry Lips Outa Move to Kapuskasing - Thomson Highway (I saw a Canadian Native production of this play in the mid-90's, starring Graham Greene, one of our most famous native actors. Very very funny and heartbreaking, too, as is anything by Thomson Highway)

17. Favourite novel by an established Canadian author? The Diviners by Margaret Laurence (a book I reread every decade. The heroine is a writer, and it's a lovely book about growing up in Canada and finding one's voice); Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery (because Anne is my heroine!); The Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood;

18. Favourite novel by an up-and-coming Canadian author? I just don't know any; I am making an attempt to read newer Canadian fiction now.

19. Favourite Canadian book award? Giller Prize

20. Favourite Canadian publisher? It was McLelland and Stewart!

21. Favourite Canadian humorous book? tie - The Boat Who Wouldn't Float - Farley Mowat, and How to Be Canadian - Will and Ian Ferguson

22. Favourite Canadian newspaper? The Ottawa Citizen

23. Favourite Canadian magazine or journal? Canadian Living

24. Favourite Canadian dystopian novel? I haven't read any. I don't like this kind of fiction!

25. Favourite Canadian epistolary novel? Annes' House of Dreams - L.M. Montgomery

So that's it. Not bad, I just have a lot of Canadian books to catch up on reading!

Canada 3 Challenge - first book done!!

I am a

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Spiritual Romantic Tree Hugger

Fun! Not many people are like me, only .14%! Well, of those who took this quiz, anyway. I also made my list up, 43 Things To Do in My Life, it's on my sidebar now. Rhinoa at Rhinoa's Ramblings has had something similar up on her blog for quite some time now, and I'm in awe of everything she has accomplished, as well as what is on her list. As I do things,I will cross them off, though some are ongoing, for every year. Like read 100 books a year!

As to that, well, I've made it to 50! Hurray! I'm still behind, but after reading 12 books in July - this is an all-time high for me, I think! - it's not looking quite so bad now.

Canada 3 Challenge



It's about time I posted about the Canada 3 Challenge! Hosted by John at The Book Mine blog, this is the third year of this challenge which celebrates everything good about Canadian writing. This year I am taking a different attempt to get to 13 books - 13 because we have 13 provinces and territories that make up Canada - I am reading a wide variety of authors and kinds of writing that interest me. Thus, I already have poetry - Slip/Strike, by Don McKay, from Newfoundland; a play - The Rez Sisters, by Thomson Highway, and for the first time Aboriginal writers are represented - not because I haven't read any, but because I had wrote much of what had been in print already, and now there's new books come to my attention: Monkey Beach, by Eden Robinson, Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, and the aforesaid The Rez Sisters. The Rez Sisters is a reread for me, and I found it both hilarious and tragic the first time I read it, long ago in univerity. I have listed the books on my sidebar, and have left blank spaces for books to come to my attention this year. I might read some Lucy Maud Montgomery, or some Robert Munch with my kids, and catch up on Tanya Huff's fantasy series, as well as some books by Charles de Lint that I didn't get to last year.

Despite the fact I have not succeeded yet at this challenge, every year I am determined to, and this year is no different!

And to that end, I am very proud to say, I have already read one book!!! I am so delighted.

Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, by Anna Brownell Jameson



This is not my cover, as I found a used edition that is out of print now. It is the journal of a woman who came to Canada in Dec 1836 to Sept 1837, to join her husband the Attorney General of Upper Canada. Their marriage was not a happy one, and this was one of her attempts to make the marriage look good. When she went back to England, it was with a settlement from him; they never divorced, but their marriage was over. While she rarely refers to him - at least in this abridged version - there is an air of painful loneliness relieved by the friendly people she met on her travels. The journal wasn't written to him, and it is full of matter-of-fact observations of everything she saw around her. It is now an invaluable record of early pioneer life in Ontario, and a glimpse of what the largest cities first looked like.

For those of us in Canada, there are those who are from Toronto, and those who are not. I'm one who is not, and I really loathe it. I've been several times, and it's one of the most unremarkable cities in the world. I was so happy when I read the very first paragraph of Winter Studies:

"Toronto - such is now the sonorous name of this our sublime capital - was, thirty years ago, a wilderness, the haunt of the bear and deer, with a little ugly, inefficient fort, which, however, could not be more ugly or inefficient than the present one. Ten years ago Toronto was a village, with one brick house and four or five hundred inhabitants; five years ago it became a city, containing about five thousand inhabitants, and then bore the name of Little York; now it is Toronto, with an increasing trade, and a population of ten thousand people.
What Toronto may be in summer, I cannot tell; they say it is a pretty place. At present its appearance to me, a stranger, is most strangely mean and melancholy. A little ill-built town on low land, at the bottom of a frozen bay, with one very ugly church, without tower or steeple; some government offices, built of staring red brick, in the most tasteless, vulgar style imaginable; three feet of snow all around, and the gray, sullen, wintry lake, and the dark gloom of the pine forest bounding the prospect; such seems Toronto to me now. I did not expect much; but for this I was not prepared."

Two months later she writes:
"There is no society in Toronto", is what I hear repeated all around me - even by those who compose the only society we have. "But," you will say, "What could be expected in a remote town, which forty years ago was an uninhabited swamp, and twenty years ago only began to exist?" I really did not know what I expected, but I will tell you what i did not expect. i did not expect to find here in this new capital of a new country, with the boundless forest within half a mile of us on almost every side - concentrated as it were the worst evils of oour old and most artificial social system, with none of its agrements, and none of its advantages. Toronto is like a fourth- or fifth-rate provincial town with the pretentions of a capital city."

The bold last sentence is mine. Because, that pretty well describes Toronto ever since. Even after the capital of Canada was moved later to Ottawa - chosen by Queen Victoria when she was blindfolded and picked out the capital with a pin, or so one legend goes - the more real version is that Kingston was too close to the US, and so was Montreal, both of whom were more logical choices due to their water proximity, but we had just fought two separate battles with the US, (1812, and the Rebellion of 1837) so Ottawa, which was far enough away that it couldn't be attacked within a day's march or so after landing on Canadian soil - was picked. I do wonder what she would have made of Ottawa, but she never came back to Canada. And despite becoming the provincial capital of Ontario, Toronto still acts like it is the central body of Canada, the most important city, through which all news and views of Canada should come. There is Toronto, and then there is the rest of Canada. Of course, in every province, there is that feeling! But Toronto is proud of the TV and movie industry centrally located there, the stock market located there, the big Bay Street Firms, and still imagines itself the center of Canada. So the rest of Canada hates it.

There, a quick lesson in Canada! Back to the book:

Anna spends a long cold winter in Toronto. The first part of the book is entitled Winter Studies because from Dec to April it is, of course, winter in Canada, and she could not really travel far. She takes one trip to Niagara Falls, but other than that she is house- and city-bound until spring finally, at last, arrives. As soon as the first steam-boat arrives from St Catharines and the south side of Lake Ontario, she is off exploring more of Upper Canada, and this is where the books becomes an absolute wonder and joy to read. From darkest coldest depths of winter, Canada changes to hot, humid summer days with frequent storms. Anna is tormented by mosquitoes and black flies as she journeys down to London, to Windsor, Detroit, and then up to Fort Michillimack, Sault Ste Marie, Manitoulin Island, and back down again to Toronto. She did this in four amazing months of traveling, mostly by canoe. This was an extraordinary voyage. She is witness to meetings between Indian agents and different Aboriginal tribes, and records the speeches, what the different kinds of people wore - she noted that Cree were different from the Huron, and from the Chippewa. She made friends easily wherever she went, and she is interested in everything she saw, and tried to record it as accurately as she could.

This is an interesting record of Upper Canada in 1837, as it was still being settled. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys history, who is curious about the early days of Canada, who likes reading journals, or enjoys travel books. It is filled with Canadian beauty - our forests, our rivers and lakes, our lovely islands in the Great Lakes that are synonymous with images of Canada, especially as painted by The Group of Seven, the most famous artists to come out of Canada.

And for those of us who love books, I was heartened to read that in the depths of her only winter in Canada, Anna Brownell Jameson turned to books to get her through the darkest and coldest days.

It's a holiday Monday here in Ottawa, and it is rarely, a sunny day! So I'm off to my garden before I do some more reading: Book #52: In the Woods, by Tana French. Over half-way to 100 books now!!

I leave you with one of my favourite passages from Winter Studies and Summer Ramblings:

"We breakfasted this morning on a little island of exceeding beauty, rising precipitately from the water. On front we had the open lake, lying blue, and bright, and serene, under the morning sky, and the eastern extremity of Manitoolin Island; and the islands all around as far as we could see. The feeling of remoteness, of the profound solitude, added to the sentiment of beauty......Our island abounded with beautiful shrubs, flowers, green mosses, and scarlet lichen.....
This day we had a most delightful run among hundreds of islands; sometimes darting through narrow rocky channels, so narrow that I could not see the water on either side of the canoe; and then emerging, we glided through vast fields of white water-lilies; it was perpetual variety, perpetual beauty, perpetual delight and enchantment, from hour to hour."