The Lantern and the Night Moths is an exceptional book of translations and literary criticism by poet-translator Yilin Wang. Wang’s original translations of five Chinese poets and her accompanying essays (one per poet) make for ... Read More »
Trees are treated with reverence in many world religions. In Islam, planting trees, which provide shelter and food to all living beings, is seen as an act of charity. In Hinduism and Buddhism, trees are ... Read More »
March 27, 2024 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books
To explain the plot of Elaine McCluskey’s The Gift Child is both to give everything away and to reveal nothing important. Although the novel does, in the words of its narrator Harriett Swim, take us ... Read More »
March 20, 2024 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
Writing duo Basil Sylvester and Kevin Sylvester return with more adventures featuring nonbinary tween Zed and their best friend Gabe in Night of the Living Zed, a companion novel to the well-received The Fabulous Zed ... Read More »
March 20, 2024 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books
Michael Ondaatje’s latest collection is impossibly good. It is the work of a mature poet at the zenith of his talent. T. S. Eliot wrote, “The mature poet, in the operations of his mind, works ... Read More »
Eynhallow, one of the smaller Orkney Islands, is a rugged, inhospitable place. Seventy-five hectares in size, it is a mere speck in the North Atlantic, now preserved as a bird sanctuary. As Toronto writer Tim ... Read More »
March 13, 2024 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels
Seven years after #MeToo rocked global consciousness and Time named Silence Breakers their Person of the Year, sexual violence survivors face a bleak landscape of rising femicide rates, online misogyny, and an increasingly unbelieving culture ... Read More »
March 6, 2024 | Filed under: Media, Politics & Current Affairs, Reference, Reviews, Social Sciences
All That Grows is a charming picture book, written and illustrated by Jack Wong, about a little brother and big sister who go on neighbourhood walks together, smelling and picking flowers. They also cultivate plants ... Read More »
March 6, 2024 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books
Interesting Facts about Space, the sophomore novel from Emily Austin (Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead), orbits Enid, an information architect at the Canadian Space Agency, who – true to the book’s title ... Read More »
February 28, 2024 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
Khadija and the Elephant Toothpaste Experiment offers an example of what happens when, contrary to conventional wisdom, you try something at home. The picture book illustrates how children can find their passion through play, and ... Read More »
February 28, 2024 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books